A very dear friend of mine left today for her journey to the Netherlands. In looking through my possessions i came across my tattered paperback of trout fishing in America. I had just re-read it during the idle time between pretending to catch fish. Thinking of Brautigan beside a remote trout pond in the northwest, a similar misty day. His Type writer (true story) and his family set up in a nice camp. His old station wagon parked up on a bluff. As a big trout hits his floating line to the right of his furverous typeing.
Trout fishing in America went on to sell two million copies, i wonder how many of the buyers knew what they were getting into, or gave it the time, soon realising that the very book has well nothing to do in the way of Trout fishing on first glance. In the end the book does, look very deeply at the mindset to catch a fish, a same mindset of meditation.
Chill out, Admire the beauty that is this Northwest frontier.
I think of Richard Brautigan when i drive through the streets of Tachoma Washington. The lazy city, that if you watch close enough eats its young. or so my father says. Yet this is the northwest still as beautiful except the streams caped, and the ramblers built ontop, soon followed by the concrete and so on. Yet in any one direction on a clear day there is always the everygreen in sight, and possibly not to far away a trout or some sort of fish to catch.
Your Catfish Friend
by Richard Brautigan
If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."
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