A Conversation with a Fisherman

October 1, 2023

The last time I drove through the Southwest the cottonwood trees were just beginning to shower their leaves. Early spring. Everything bursting with energy. The first of the wildflowers blooming. Snow still melting. Waking up to the sun’s warmth instead of the cold wind. Now the cottonwood trees are turning yellow. Another changing of the seasons. And I am different too. As I am also the same. Driving West towards the ocean, the setting sun, the redwood trees— everything.

I talked to one of the locals near Clovis, New Mexico. A fisherman sitting by the lake with two poles and a lantern waiting for a catfish to bite. He said he caught one the other night that was so big and held his arms out. I wondered if it would be bigger if I asked him again. He said he didn’t want to take it with him and let it go. Some things are like that.

He said he lived here for 30 years. It was Colorado before this where he was married once. She had her own kids though. Different lives, he said, you know. He told me that he grew up in the mountains near Santa Fe—exactly the direction I’m driving today.

It’s a strange world, he said. No longer can you pick up a hitch hiker anymore than you can have a conversation with a stranger. It didn’t used to be like that. But living here, he said, it feels different. And I believed him. I could see it in his eyes. The same as the woman who brought me my lunch. The same from the man who I bought coffee from. The same as the family who I saw at the gas station. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m on the road. Awareness for something bigger that exists between us that goes back for generations. You can see it in the eyes. Knowledge contained and shared through a gaze. Love and wonder. Resentment. Pain. You can know someone in a glance— faster than any conversation you’ve ever had. I notice this on the road. I think it’s part of the reason why I keep coming back.

The fisherman told me to be careful of the roads in New Mexico. Especially I-40, he said, I wouldn’t trust it. I told him I didn’t like driving on the interstates because of the semi-trucks so I always take the highways. He laughed. I could hear it echo over the water, a sound bright with vibration. There’s something about hearing someone with so many years laughing. To know that joy still exists in every moment.

He said he’s lived alone here for 30 years and never felt alone once. It’s gone by in the blink of an eye, he said. And I told him I know how that feels. You look in the mirror and remember when you were a kid. The same eyes still looking back again.

At the end of the conversation, he asked me my name and I told him. He said his name was Martin and then asked if I had heard the coyotes howling earlier. We shook hands and I continued along to finish my walk in the direction of the setting sun.