Muscle Memory

Today we drove to the mountains to visit my parents for a few days.   It’s the first long trip we’ve taken in a Tesla and there was extensive discussion about charge percentages, amount of time to wait at the super charger and what our ultimate charge would be when we arrived at our destination.   After a very short stop to charge mid-way, otherwise known as a “potty break”, we made it with seventy range-miles to go on the car.   Easy, even with the air conditioning on.

We had a visit from some very, very dear friends of mine from my childhood, which I’ll talk about in a separate blog post because it was that exciting to see them after so long.   After they left we began the phase of our day otherwise known as “catch your own dinner”.

We decided to take the children to a trout farm.   My mother had every other facet of the meal ready for our return, save the fish we’d need to fry for the main course.   A half-hour drive and we were at a trout farm, ahem, “pond” where we were hopefully going to catch some fish.  

We were given a can with a few kernels of yellow corn and a tub with some dirt and night crawlers.   We selected two fishing rods and without any instruction other than “big fish in this pond, little fish in that pond, put both corn and a worm on the hooks” we were off on our adventure.

We elected to go to the little fish pond and after getting the hooks baited we were ready to go.    We then realized no one knew how to effectively cast the rods into the water.   We were overly cautious because hey, sharp hooks and children running around.   That being said, the adults muddled our way through getting the hooks into the water for a bit.

My father then observed the mass of fish on the far side of the pond near the water spout.   We relocated and began throwing—rather ineptly—our rods in the direction of the thronging fish.   There were challenges getting the reels to play out and the hooks into the water near the fish.    I asked my father if I could take over and try.    And this is where it got interesting.

If you had asked me how to cast a rod and what to do once the hook and bobber was in the water I don’t know if I could have told you or described it.   But when I took hold of the rod, I just knew what to do.   I knew how to throw it back, when to press the button to release the line and how to generally cast into the water.    I didn’t get it right every time, but I knew what I was shooting for.    When I got it right, I was hitting right into the middle of a group of trout.

By virtue of this ancient muscle memory I was able to catch three fish, more than the rest of our crew.    The thing is, I hadn’t cast a fishing rod since I was probably ten-years-old, hanging out on the dock with my cousin, Rebecca, who lived on a lake.   That’s well over thirty years ago, and yet I was simply itching today to take over the rod and cast it into the water, because I just knew what to do.  

We fried the fish, had corn, tomatoes and broccoli for dinner.    Fresh fish is tasty.

The Tiny Girl Big Boy Cycle of Life Update:  Children don’t have a real understanding of life and death when they’re young, but it’s important to help them understand the cycle of life.   They were interested in the worms we were putting on the hooks today, particularly in how we were tearing them in half because they were too large.   They also wanted to understand what was happening with the fish we had caught, which they understood were for dinner.   We explained the man was helping filet them for us so that the heads, skeletons and tails were removed so that they would be easier to cook and eat.   As children, they accepted this information naturally and without concern.