A fly fisher's thanksgiving

Once again we'll be going to my friend Jim's place for Thanksgiving.

Among other things, our camaraderie is rooted in flyfishing. And as is so often true of flyfishers, our commonality extends to other things, other areas of interest, other affinities.

The usual crowd consists of three or four couples of empty nesters, depending on who will travel out-of-state to visit the children, or which kids will make the trek home this year.

It just sort of happened, over time, that this tradition developed. Somebody's kids wouldn't be home to complete one family circle, and then somebody else said, "Why don't you join us?"

And so, in turn, we did. We finally settled on Jim and Mary's as a permanent gathering place. Their generous spirits welcome the small crowd of us who have come to consider their home as our own on Thanksgiving. Everybody brings something – a side dish, and maybe kids as well, those making a pilgrimage home become a part of our tradition.

This year my son Jay will be joining us – his first at Jim and Mary's Thanksgiving table, but not his first meal with some of the crew. He won't be among strangers. He'll be with part of his dad's extended family, and in that way, part of his own. He's shared meals with us in hunting camps and at our home, where he's provided the goodies for smaller feasts.

I'll bring the guitar and if somebody wants to sing "For The Beauty of the Earth" I'll be ready. If not, (and some years I leave it in the case,) there will be the feast, and maybe (if anybody cares to watch,) football on the telly, quietly removed from those wonderful conversations that will spring up and can touch rare depths as the day lingers on for several hours.

And of course (for us,) before the meal Jim or whoever he appoints will say the blessing, giving thanks for all good things.

I remember other Thanksgivings, where my best friend and may-as-well-have-been brother and his young family would join mine at my mom's house. Our tradition included joining hands around the table and each person, kids and grown-ups in turn, saying what they were thankful for before saying grace.

My mother and best friend are gone, now, but I'm still in regularly in touch with his kids and their young children. The grown-ups kids still call me Uncle Chuck. There is enduring value in that: family and those close enough to be family, and the celebration of joining hands if we're gathered at a table, or joining hearts if we're separated by distance, and giving thanks for each other.

We can renew our grip on what is truly important by reflecting and renewing our sense of gratitude for what is still true, still beautiful, and still praiseworthy.

Real gratitude, real thanksgiving, requires at least a few moments of quiet reflection. This year, those quiet moments can get lost in the noise of inflation, financial anxiety, war on two fronts, and the dismal cultural hysteria that changes every news cycle. It's too easy to get caught up in it.

Maybe we need to settle in, take those few moments if not longer, to reflect on what really matters – to the point of recapturing it and living it out.

I'm not talking so much about being thankful for our "stuff" as I am for some of the less tangible things that are at the center of our being.

It helps to clarify: It's one thing to say I'm thankful for my wife Jan; it's another to say that I'm thankful for who she is, and for a love in her that is visible in both the obvious and seemingly intangible ways she expresses it; the list is long.

I can say I'm thankful that I live in the Bitterroot Valley, or I can dig deeper and say I'm touched and rejuvenated in my soul by the free-flowing peace of the river, and the grandeur of the mountains and the creek below when I hike up Boulder Creek or Blodgett Canyon.

I'm thankful for specific memories, many of them connected to people and fishing trips, of experiences that wrought me, changed me, shined light where there was darkness.

And this Thanksgiving, I'll thank the people I'm among who brought their light into my life, and the light itself. That's plenty for this fly fisher to be thankful for.