I have one great love - fishing.

I know, I know. "What about shoes? Hair? Shopping?"

They've got to be able to take water, it must fit under a hat, and my favorite store is Gander Mountain. Get the picture?

I grew up in a family that once had a love affair with fishing that seems to have petered out once the babies started coming.

My mother has told me many times about all-day fishing trips to area catfish ponds with my dad, her brothers and sisters and their children, and my grandparents. She describes with pride the best day of fishing they ever had, when she mixed up a batch of catfish dough and “I decided to add a little Manischewitz to it instead of water. We caught fish like you wouldn’t be-LIEVE that day!”

This was all over by the time I came along.

When I was growing up, my grandparents were the fishers – bank fishing on Town Creek and Smith River, flounder and spot fishing on the Scotch Bonnet Pier. They had a freezer full of fish all year long. For his part, my dad described it as a colossal waste of time ("unprofitable"). My mom was already worried about my being such a tomboy that encouraging my love of fishing might just wash me out of the young lady department completely and condemn me to life as a spinster living in her basement or the neighborhood crank and cat lady.

It was clear that if I was going to get any fishing in, it was going to be with my grandparents.

I begged them every chance I got. Christmas and New Year’s, when I’d see them, I’d ask, “When are we going fishing again?” They always patiently explained that it was too cold, that we had to wait until warm weather and they’d promise to come get me out of school one day and take me. Come Easter, I’d see them again and I’d ask faithfully with that long memory that all young children seem to have for the things they really want, “When are we going fishing?” Again, they’d explain that we needed to pick a day when the trout had been stocked and I could leave school.

They kept their word.

There would always come a day in spring when I didn’t have to go to school, when the bus drove right on past the house and I hid behind the curtains so my friends didn’t see me. Soon afterwards, Grandma and Papa would pull up in their truck, the camper-shell-covered bed stuffed with fishing gear, and off we’d go.

The first stop was always Biscuitville, a chain restaurant specializing in breakfast food, where we’d have to go in and sit down and eat. I couldn’t choke down my food, I was always so excited. Finally, they’d finish and we’d be back on the road, following a two-lane road around tight curves between forested hills until we came to cleared fields where the river lay exposed, like a snake sunning itself in the warming air.

We’d turn off the main road, following gravel and dirt roads thick with brown silt from floodwaters, lurching over potholes and washboarded sections. Finally, Papa would find the place – usually identified by the other trucks already pulled off the shoulder into knee-high grass and chiggerweed. He’d pull off and Grandma would make him come around to our side and stomp down the grass some for us kids. He’d oblige, and Grandma, my little brother, and I would pile out of the truck and into the morning.

The smell is what I remember most: a cool, damp, earthy, green smell. The smell of soil and water all bound up together, of richness and vitality. I love that smell, and even today at any lake, river, or stream, I cannot help but catch my breath as it meets my nose. For me, it’s the smell of perfect harmony, of things as they are meant to be.

Everybody had to help carry gear to the river bank: fishing rods, tackle boxes, folding stools, bait, coolers, snacks. It seemed like a lot at the time but it probably wasn’t. We’d follow Papa step for step through the tall grass into the thickets of honeysuckle and grapevine snaking their way up locusts, poplars, and sycamores until we emerged in the cool, wet shade along the river’s edge.

There, we’d be all a-bustle, setting up stools, plunking down the cooler, rigging lines, and of course, getting the ground rules from Grandma about how close we could get to the water and how far to stay from the weeds. They’d put worms on hooks for us and Grandma would insist we spit on our worm. “For luck!” she said.

We’d put our rods in sections of PVC pipe driven into the soft mud, or we’d prop them up in forked sticks. Then came the waiting. Usually there were other people fishing close by and they’d strike up a conversation with our grandparents while we explored the river bank. Minnows at the water’s edge, smooth stones to turn over and pile up. Eventually, a line would bend and a shout would go up. The pole snatched up, then held absolutely still to see if the fish would strike again, if he’d taken the bait and ran, or maybe he was waiting to see what would happen next, too. If nothing, the line would be hauled in to check the bait.

But sometimes, in the moment of waiting, there’d be the faintest tingle in the line that let you know something was on the other end, trying hard to hold still and not be noticed. Then one would break and yank, and the other would yank back and the struggle would be on.

It was exciting, watching a fish come in. How big would it be, what kind was it. Nothing seemed finer to me than a fish freshly pulled from the water, slick and shiny and alive. It looked like a jewel. Papa did the unhooking using a rag from his pocket and his needlenose pliers. Then the fish would be checked for size and kept or tossed back. If kept, it was placed as-is in the cooler to slowly cool down and go to sleep, as my Grandma explained it to me. This always troubled me, this idea of just going to sleep and dying.

Eventually, the sun would grow hot and the air would get thick with insects and humidity. We kids would be sticky and restless, ready for a change of scene. We’d pack up our gear, grab a bite of lunch at a mom-and-pop restaurant or eat on the curb someplace, then head along home to clean and freeze fish, eat ice cream, and take a nap.

Fishing was wonderful to me. Not just the catching of fish, but the whole experience. The anticipation, the excitement, yes, but also the waiting, the exploring, the chance – the requirement even – to be still and just watch and listen. I didn’t get that much anywhere else. And there was so much to see and hear, when I had no choice but to listen and look.’

To this day, that’s what I love most about fishing. I never know what’s going to happen when I go out. And even if nothing happens in terms of the fish, it’s never time wasted. There’s so much to see and soak up. The rocks, the colors, the sounds of birds and the water itself. I’ve never seen perfection like the perfect equidistance between waves on a lake. I’ve seen the most amazing hues on leaves in every season and in the sky. I love the energetic swishing of the water on a windy day, the deep still green of a summer afternoon. I’ve seen herons on their nests, turkeys at roost, otters at play. I’ve picked blackberries from a kayak and napped in a canoe. I’ve waited out sneaky catfish until the sun sank and the moon rose and then paddled them home behind a kayak, all of us bathed in silver. I come closer to God than anywhere else when I’m sitting in a kayak, on a boat, or on the shore, with a rod in my hand, waiting for whatever’s going to happen and kind of hoping nothing does in order not to disturb the perfection of the moment.

God, I love fishing.