Getting rid of the Coca-Cola vending machine was a terrible decision for the fly shop. I can’t say I ever bought a soda there. But I know that I wasn’t the only one who would swing into the parking lot to look at the thing. I could pull right up, roll down my window, and see which bugs were congregating on the glowing red and white sign. For all I know, the machine was filled with expired New Coke and Tab – but it was still doing a heck of a job.

Living close to a trout stream affords you these little routines. Work. Home. Dinner. River. If you’re curious, you can pull into the fly shop’s parking lot to see if the drakes are coming off yet. Hurry isn’t necessary. All your stuff is still in your car from last night. Chances are that your rod is already strung up. If the Coke machine doesn’t reveal anything compelling, you might even just fish with the fly that is on there.

It’s quite the little routine, if you can swing it.

I learned the rivers. I learned the fish. I learned the people and the culture and the in-between things that are impossible to perceive your first time through. Day after day on the water was a real immersion. My cone of vision widened. As days, weeks, and months went by I could see my dry fly and see more of the picture. Other fish, other bugs, squirrels on the streambank. Stream-bottom ticks felt like rocks and fish felt like fish. I could smell dusk and feel it on my bare arms before I could see it.

Much of that education came because I was on a plateau. My wading boots never dried out. Consistency lead to competence. That corporate-sounding phrase is a reminder that familiarity has a less romantic flip-side. Some of that amazing picture became background noise. Only some of the remarkable fish I caught stand out. (All the remarkable fish I lost stand out.)

I can’t say that I don’t miss that routine at times. But I’ve been put in a different place. Looking back on that fly fishing routine and what I missed out on by not paying attention is teaching me now. What is mundane and rote is only that way because it is simply what I’m doing at the moment. How will I feel once those things are gone as time passes at a normal pace? How would I feel if those things get snatched away to soon?

So I’m learning. Learning to stop. Sit in the fly shop parking lot. One day that routine, and other much more important things, will all be gone. Appreciate. Appreciate that you’ve been put in a place where you can look at a Coke machine to figure out how to catch trout in the twilight