There is a creek I know, unremarkable to most. Looking at it you wouldn’t think much of it: willows, dogwood, river birch, aspen and a single fir clutch its banks. It meanders through sagebrush sprinkled meadows where free ranging cows occasionally flatten the vegetation and punctuate the air with a pungent smell. Above the meadow stretches, the creek pinches between steep clay banks, then opens to more meadows and beaver ponds beyond.

Yet this nondescript creek calls to me over seasons and decades.

With my son I skied across it where snow drifts filled it from bank to bank. I taught my daughter to fly fish for native cutthroat there, in its cool, early summer waters. I nap beside it on hot summer days. At nights I camp along it, sending hot embers skyward to mix with the Milky Way smudged across the sooty expanse.

It is only 30 minutes from home and always a potential destination anytime I fish. But somehow I typically only slow at the turnoff, wondering if that day is the day to fish there. Usually, it is not and I head past the creek. The tension builds until another day.

It is a temptress, luring me when I’m not ready, for such a place can only be entered at the right time—I resist the creek’s call as long as I dare, then am fully embraced by it when I finally give in. Until then, it is only a dream—or, more appropriately, as Langston Hughes says, “a dream deferred.” Such a dream, purposely deferred, builds like a hunger that can’t be sated until the time feels right.

Why this desire to flagellate the psyche? If I like fishing this creek, why not make it my destination every time?

I have a couple of favorite books and favorite movie that I enjoy, but to fully enjoy them the time has to be right. I will put off the reading or the viewing, biding my time until something makes it feel right, as if the stars must be aligned before proceeding. I know the book is there, on the shelf, waiting for me. I pick it up, turn it over and read the back. Feel the heft as I shift it from hand to hand. Then weigh the reading of it against some mental balance that knows when it is time to read. More often than not the book is gingerly placed back on the shelf and I reach for another book.

It is the anticipation, the savoring of that which is to come that is almost as pleasurable as the act itself—mental foreplay. It’s that same feeling the night before a big fishing trip, cleaning and arranging gear and reviewing maps. Or that buildup waiting for the opening day of fishing. Or the anticipated delivery of a new rod.

For mastery over self, the ability to delay gratification is in direct proportion to the perceived benefit of the delayed reward: the greater the reward, the greater the ability to delay. But in our world of instant gratification such mastery is elusive, making the ability to delay gratification in inverse proportion to the perceived benefit of the delayed reward: the greater the reward, the greater the inability to delay.

Angling is a physical activity that I enjoy, yet delaying the call of the angle, there is a lack of the physical: how can one savor something that is only a mental construct? Those mental constructs are hopes and dreams, and many have savored and clung tight to them. But what happens when such dreams are constantly deferred and never come to fruition?

The mind seems to love a crescendo: that music building and building and building for the final crash of cymbals, roll of timpani or a soprano hitting the high C. How long can one listen to a crescendo or have it repeat without climaxing before it begins to chafe and fester? The risk of perpetual postponements is a danger one always runs when delaying hopes and dreams. Again, as Langston Hughes said, the dream can shrivel and dry like a raisin in the sun.

How many times, after delaying gratification for so long, the reward ends up being a let down: the soprano flattens the high C; the fishing trip turns out to be a bust; the book isn’t as good as last time; the fly rod is just another stick?

Fly fishing is the epitome of delayed gratification since a great portion of time is spent thinking about, preparing for, and attempting to catch fish, not the actual catching of fish. Unless one comes to realize the gratification in the thinking about, preparing for and attempting to catch fish, there is frustration because the climax, the catching of fish, may never be consummated.

And so, in reverie, I remember my nondescript creek, under winter’s snow. I fantasize of what I will do with her this summer when she slips the white covering from her banks: I will ignore her for months, but instead of stony silence, she will babble in my ear; I will trample her grassy hillocks, and she will shade me from the blazing orb; I will offer her only a line and for reward she will let me pluck jewels from her.

Do you have any places you like to fish that the time has to be right?

Three poems about dreams, by Langston Hughes (one of my favorite poets—you must read his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” written when he was 18, and find more of his poems here):

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore -
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over -
Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load

Or does it explode?

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

The Dream Keeper

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart Melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
of the world.

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