I’m not a huge fan of flying… it’s something I can’t put my finger on, but I think it has to do with giving up control. I rapidly run through the several stages of anxiety on the days leading up to the flight and then – curiously – I’m fine once I’m buckled into my seat. But as you might imagine, when my return flight touches down on home soil, I’m extra excited to get back to regular life.
My return flight from ICAST was a strange one, I think we may have had a rookie pilot, there was a lot of gasping on that plane, but all things considered, it really wasn’t that bad. We did, however, SLAM the runway prompting a text from a friend on the same flight that read, “Whoops!” Once we were stopped and preparing to offload, the usual mayhem began to unfold, entitled travelers going through whispered rationales in their heads about why they should be first to get off the plane. I always wait until that first wave realizes that it’s going to be the same way it always is; one row at a time.
I stood up when the wave of timed releases was about three rows ahead of me and reached up with one arm to grab my luggage. With a writhing knot of people surrounding me, I had to muscle it from slightly back and to my right, and although I didn’t feel any pain in the moment, I’m pretty sure that’s what did it. By the time I woke up the next morning, my lower back was protesting the move with constant, throbbing pain.
This is not something I’m used to, with the exception of one other time in my late-30s, I’ve had a solid back my whole life. And so, in accordance with everyone’s old pal Murphy, and his infernal LAW, texts and calls started flooding in about a good bite materializing in an area I know well. You want to talk about the several stages of anxiety!? I was running through them all on repeat, except for that peaceful acceptance, one. Every day I made a plan to go and then every night I cancelled it. I tried stretching, I tried yoga, I took a 7-mile bike ride hoping to loosen it up… nothing worked!
This went on for more than a week, and the reports just kept coming in, with photos for proof, every morning. I finally had to give in to the fact that I would need to ‘shut it down’ if I was going to heal. Even in the face of – yet another – friend telling me he was on a “heater” of a bass bite, and warning me that “the bite might not last that long” when I told him I had to let my back recover… I rested it.
I had to tell them all that, “I didn’t care” because “it wasn’t worth losing another week for one night of great fishing.” But I DID care and I still do – even though I knew I was doing the right thing. When I was younger, I saw the fishing season as one long stretch of equal opportunity. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that opportunity ebbs and flows and when opportunity peaks, an angler needs to strike! At face value, the season is a uniform stretch of opportunity… to go fishing. But I measure each season by experiences and I definitely missed a few of those, thanks to my uncareful retrieval of my carry-on luggage.
But as of today – and as George Costanza once said – “I’m back baby!”
