www.womanthismonth.com 79 August 2013 Age 10: A cold concrete wharf, mackerel and flathead running in schools below the tidal flow, three men and a boy sat angling. A joke by one of the men, my father, made three of them laugh, ribbing me about my angling skills. That was the last time I fished and the first time I knew hatred…for creatures of the sea anyway! It’s funny the things you can remember decades later. In all these years, I have never returned to fishing. So I thought, anyway. Yesterday my adoration of the heart decreed me to be exactly what I thought I was not – a good fisherman! I had not really thought of my actions of middle age having a name, but fishing has come up before. A Moroccan colleague at a former job had been the first to label me ‘Monsieur Le Pêcheur’, which for a long time I had no idea why? It seemed they had noticed my innate ability to extract information by luring them with small morsels of food. In my struggled French language I would dabble the lure of fresh cakes in front of them and before they were able to bite, I would tug with a question. Answers received, I’d let the fish go and enjoy their feast happy with the catch that I had. It would seem the fishing skills of old were never lost, merely hibernating for 30 years. In the context of conversations and relationships though, don’t we all fish? Have we not all fished for compliments, for information, for someone to tell us what it is we desire to hear? The more I sit and think about it I actually have many methods too! There is netting: throwing a wide open question out to many and seeing who gets caught by it first. There is spear fishing: a direct barbed question aimed straight at an intended victim in a method they will not be able to escape. There is hand gathering: a little more difficult and requires that I be in the presence of the victimised fish at the time of asking the said question. And then there is my favourite variety – trapping: a solid question where there is no way out and would be rude not to answer. And of course there’s the fishing you do on a quiet day when you are a little bored and just seeking a little self reassurance and having some fun – catch and release. As they say, you have to have your line in the water if you hope to catch something after all. Finally I think, at age 40, I would have made my father proud. My fishing skills have been noted by others for the skill set they are and I get to conduct my fishing over a warm cup of coffee, in the resolute sanctity of a restaurant, café or in the privacy of my own home. he says Gone Fishin' by JAMES CLAIRE I’ve been called many things in my life, some not so great, but one that I have never minded is the label of ‘le pêcheur’!
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