Learning how to Fly Fish

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
Very early Saturday morning, Green Lake was quietly abuzz with runners and swimmers.  Standing on the dock with a full jug of coffee (Thanks, Edie!) were Me, Amy, and four other women all ready for our fly casting lesson.  The original plan was to spend the whole day out near Fall City, on a river, in all of nature's glory.  When there was a miscommunication about which day it was scheduled for, we had to once again roll with the punches, as we often do.

So, we ended up at Green Lake, and like I said, very early.  A couple of us (yes, me included) admitted to waking up with a bit of the feeling like we really weren't going to be into this.  But since we had committed, and paid already, we'd go anyway.  For me personally, once I stepped out onto the dock and felt the sun start to warm my back, I was quickly won over.  And I hadn't even picked up a pole yet.

Our casting instructor, Loren, walked us through putting together a fly fishing pole.  The whole reel situation seemed a lot easier than I recall conventional fishing poles to be.  Once we had the line set up, Loren told us the basics of casting.  We didn't use hooks, thankfully, because I know I whacked myself in the face with that line a number of times.  But if we had, maybe we could have caught the huge fish I saw jump up out of the water!

Here's are the top three things I took home about fly casting:

• Do not flick your wrist.  Keep your wrist straight the entire time.  
• "Picking it up, and putting it down."  Loren told us to think of it like you're picking up a phone, bringing it right up to your ear, using your shoulder in the lift instead of tilting your wrist back to reach your ear.  And then hang up, put the phone down.  We all had fun with this one.  Thinking how soon a new generation isn't really going to get the picking up the phone, since it is always in hand already.  At some points all you could hear were the mutterings of six women reminding ourselves to pick it up and put it down.
• The Pause.  At each stop with the pole, moving back and forth, from front to back, (think 10 and 2 like on a clock), you have a pause.  It's not even a second long, but it's there.  Without it, there is no release of the line, and it just whacks around in the air without grace and flow.  When you get the pause right, it really is a beautiful thing.  

Like many things, it takes a good degree of relaxation in your muscle tone to really "get" it.  But, as a beginner, I found my mind was racing with trying to remember all the how-to minutia, and my body instinctually shifted into a rigid stiffness.  Then, at some point, when my mind drifted off, there would be a moment, where I really felt like I was in the rhythm of it.  The line was looping just the way he taught us, my hand/shoulder motion was "picking it up and putting it down" in just the right way...and inevitably I would start thinking again, and it was gone.

What a life lesson.  Stay present, relax and don't over think it.  

This has come up numerous times during the adventures of this blog.  Definitely during drumming, and then yoga for sure, and learning the Single Ladies dance.  I imagine it is what accomplished musicians experience, or athletes at the top of their game.  Those moments where you transcend the everyday and leave the constant mind chatter behind, and you just are. 

I don't know if I will ever get there with fly fishing, I mean, I can't imagine the perils of just putting a hook on the end of that line.  Maybe I'll just spend my time casting.  Finding my meditative self through fly casting, never catching anything but myself.  Wow, I sound like some crazy lady now.  "Have you heard about the lady at Green lake, she just stands there, casting a fly fishing pole, but doesn't even have a hook."  Yep, that's me, I might just be crazy enough to do it.

One of these things is not like the others

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
"To tell you the truth, I don't plan on outliving this one!"
I overhead this in the sauna after water aerobics.  A group of older ladies were soaking up the heat and chatting about going to the casino last Friday and the cost of movies these days.  One of them tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, the spot you're in, that belongs to the lady out there with the walker."  She pointed to the pool, and I saw an elderly woman slowly walking up the stairs out of the shallow end.  "Oh, of course, I'll move," I offered back.

The sauna at Evans Pool, Green Lake.

I fumbled my way up to the second tier of benches and did my best at both joining in the occasional bursts of laughter and seeming aloof, like I was busy with my own thoughts and wasn't desperate to be a part of their group.  When the woman with the walker came in she sat in her spot and and the other ladies began complementing her.  They talked to her in a voice that people use when talking to small children, kinda higher pitched and sing-songy.  I thought this meant they knew she was at another level of old compared to themselves.

"Is that a new bathing suit you have on?  It looks so nice on you."

"Oh, this?  No, Joanie gave me this when she gave me all those other suits.  It's a good thing too, I don't want to go shopping for these things.  To tell you the truth, I don't plan on outliving this one!"  She said to them all, and gave a short huff of laughter at the end.

I waited to see the reaction.  Was it going to be sympathetic?  Would they tell her, no, of course you'll outlive it?  What?

Everyone burst out laughing again.  I was relieved.  I laughed too, but with some reserve.  I am, while not young anymore, still younger than my sauna cohorts were.  I wasn't sure how appropriate it was to be laughing at someone talking about dying sooner than she would be shopping again.  But after this, they included me more.  The red haired woman next to me started tilting her head back and to the right, toward me, when she laughed.  And I felt included.

"Got more energy than me."

Today at my Hydro-fit class, my favorite one at Green Lake and the one with the previously mentioned sauna, I was giving it my all.  We were well into our warm up and at the part where you are getting your heart rate up.  The class was doing a cross country skiing motion while raising our arms up and out of the water in an alternating pattern.  I was just beginning to get all rosy-cheeked, as the instructor likes to say.

There was a man and woman to my right, chatting and participating.  As I huffed by, I heard the woman look over to the gentleman and say, "Got more energy than me," and pointed at me with a nod of her head.

To be completely honest, I was a little deflated when I heard that.  I want these old people to like me, cause I like them.  I mean, I don't know them, but I inherently like them and want to know them better.  But I also want to get a good workout.  I don't want them to out me from the cool crowd just cause I am younger.  And faster.

Maybe it will just take time.  Maybe I'll have to keep going longer than the woman's swimsuit lasts.  And then I think to myself, "Who cares, Melissa?  Just be yourself.  These ladies don't seem to give a shit, and that's exactly what you like about them."

I think I can learn a lot from these classes, a lot more than how to do ab crunches in the water and what casino has the best slot machines.  "Look for the flaming 7's, baby!  The flaming 7's!  Those slot machines were the best, I won a lot of money on those.  They just don't make 'em like they used to."  It was the last thing I heard as I shut the sauna door and headed into the shower.

-Melissa

Who goes to Water Aerobics?

Before the sparsely attended class at Medgar Evers pool.

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
Why isn't there a documentary about water aerobics?  I was at near-threshold for crying almost the entire class, moved by the beauty of the moment.  Moment after moment continued to hit me filled with pure human experience.  Why is it that the elderly always bring that out in me?  I think back to tai-chi in the strip mall and my night out in Snohomish with Glory.  All of a sudden, there I am in an everyday experience having an odd clarity about my priorities and what really matters in life.

My emotional water aerobics experience happened at a Friday morning Hydro-fit class at Green Lake's Evan pool.  After my first class at Medgar Evens pool, I was not prepared for the age of the crowd that gathered to change in the locker room.  My first class never reached any high capacity at only six participants.  And we were all somewhere between 30-50 years old.  Mostly hovering around the 40 year old mean, you know, I bet the standard deviation would have only been about 2 at the most.  Sorry, statistics class is really infecting my life.  And I love it!

So, the Thursday night class, Water Exercise, was intense.  There was nothing magical about it, aside from the Miami Beach pop tunes to keep us pumped up and the entertainment of the instructor showing us what to do in the water from the cement above.  But no life clarity occurred for me in that pool.  I did, however, get an amazing workout.  The kind of workout that leaves you sore for a couple days.  And I like that.  I left that class liking my first experience, and a little confused about the population.  I really had braced myself to be the youngest person there.

Then Friday morning, Amy and I showed up early to the Hydro-fit class.  It was packed.  There were two classes; one shallow end, one deep end.  And there must have been at least 20 people in each class.  Some people were clearly there to get fit, and others were there for the social party like atmosphere.  I wondered if some guys were there in hopes of a pick-up.  I wondered what it would be like to be 80 and single.

I can't wait to get back.  I want to be a part of that "in-crowd."

-Melissa