adinapelle.com

If you saw someone carrying piles of fishing tools, backpack on his back, straw hat on his head and rubber boots on his feet, you would be willing to bet he had something to do with professional fishing. But you would be dead wrong and lose the bet in the case of our artist fisherman...

Our character could care less about fish. Instead, the unruffled waters of the lake at the edge of town were like a magnet attracting him every time. His raft followed always, careful not to create any ripples, the smooth surface of his thoughts.

His wife knew by now there will be no fish for dinner. First, she tried a rejoinder by attacking the absurdity of her man’s behavior.

“What kind of sound mind guides you, why do you need a bog if you do not catch any fish? You spent a lot of money on tinseled fishing poles and tools but instead they clutter my closet”...

The man gave his wife a long and puzzled look. He could not believe she failed to see the substance of his weekly departures.

“Dear,” he shook his hand in total annoyance,” but I do not want to catch fish. I throw the line just to get past the surface of my thoughts, thoughts swimming on the marshy bottom of my conscience.”

The woman shrugged her shoulders - So I had to marry an artist, I guess an engineer or a teacher wasn’t close by ! My mom was right!

She walked over and took a big fish from the freezer, to be ready when the fisher of thoughts came back, with the red sun behind him and without a spectacular catch.–

Invariably for our artist fisherman, coming back home after sailing his own waters was accompanied by a broad smile. After many hours spent in the shade of the same shaggy willow, pulling out of water thought after thought, the man felt weightless, free of burdens and fears as if his mind had been washed by an endless rain.

Paradoxically, so that everything was as real as possible, he learned all the tricks of fishing; He knew how to do everything just like an expert. So assuming he tried real fishing, he would have certainly had a fair chance at catching a lot of fish.

But instead he did not step over that barrier he self-imposed. Standing on the banks of the lake fishing thoughts was what he was after.

Once home, with a smile on his lips, he would kiss his woman on the cheek, take a sip of brandy, and disappear in his office.

Hunched over his laptop, he would cook his freshly caught thoughts in splattering sentences and glistening words.