It isn’t my birthday, but it is the birthday of a little girl I know. She’s my side-kick and today she’s five years old.
It’s an odd thing to have a five year old and it is also probably totally normal. After all, more than a couple of people have been down this particular road.
I’m hoping that I don’t loser her completely to her friends and the mall and her phone and to boys and to all the other things that will creep into her life making it richer and deeper and more complicated. I’m hoping that I can turn rocks over with her in my home river and teach her to tell a caddis from a mayfly, maybe put one of those huge stone fly nymphs in her hand.
I’m hoping I can take her to the clear and warm water of the Caribbean and South Pacific and show her sharks and rays… and bonefish. I hope she out casts me, out fishes me and out enjoys me with a fly rod in her hand.
I hope she has best friends that don’t try to tell her girls can’t like blue or that girls can’t like snakes or sharks or alligators.
I hope she tries pot once and doesn’t like it and that she’s never too drunk around Frat Boys.
I hope she finds something she wants to do with her life. If it involves the study of fish or reptiles, I wouldn’t be upset. If she decides she has to be a center back for the US Women’s National Soccer Team, I’ll accept that as well.
I hope she is wiser and kinder than she is beautiful and she’s going to be kind of stunning.
I hope she finds someone to spend her life with who is better than I am and who likes to fish and who isn’t upset by the fact that she’s a 32 year old virgin.