Paradise Lost And Found: Fly Fishing Possibilities In Colorado

Milton in Paradise Lost describes Eden, as, “a world that was all before them”.

Eden reminds me of how Norman Maclean, in "A River Runs Through It",  described the Montana of his youth; “It was a world with dew still on it, more touched by wonder and possibility than any I have since known.”  .

I thought of the “Edens”  I have experienced. I remember the first time as a boy I walked into a small valley to fish a pond teeming with big fish. Those were glorious mornings in a forest “with dew still on it”. For a short time, that valley, the pond, the trees, the grasses and the fish all became my Eden and it was all before me, “touched with wonder and possibility’. I felt that wonder deeply and embraced the possibilities.

Moving to Colorado when I was in my twenties was another time when it felt as though “The whole world was all before me”, and “with dew still on it”. I skied and ran over snow covered mountains and fished meandering trout streams, still water lakes, all “touched by wonder and possibility”  

The story is told how Adam and Even lost their Eden. There are times when I feel my own paradise lost. Perhaps even every day I feel some of it lost through my own stubborn solitary ways or my own ungratefulness or foolish fears. Or, maybe it is the brokenness of life itself that I feel. Or maybe I am just getting old.   

Maybe I shouldn’t but I try to bring Eden back. I sometimes try to imagine seeing the world, my Eden, as it was for the first time. I try to see it as a world that is all laid out before me;  A world with infinite wonder and possibility. A world with dew still on it.

I try to remember that this is a place, even this place, as a world that God called good. And I sometimes wonder if, even now, I can see it all as ‘they’ once did, as I perhaps once did;  a world declared good.

A new year has begun. I am getting ready to retire this Spring. “The whole world is before me. Where to choose?  Providence my guide.”  Can I once again see a world touched by wonder and infinite possibility?

I begin with “wandering steps and slow”;

The World was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary  way.

                                     Paradise Lost by Milton