Montana
Suggested by: SF Public Library
Traveled: Nov. 15-17

Here is the part where I apologize for the three month hiatus from my road trip. I know my adoring fans (read: mostly my mom) have missed me. I was on a pit stop, backlogging books through the holidays and focusing my reflective efforts on my own story unfolding back in California. But here I am, ready to share some brief thoughts on Norman McLean’s short story of fly-fishing and brotherly love.

The thought that has lingered with me since I met McLean last November is one of knowing how to help. The narrator of the story feels throughout his life a difficulty in reaching out to his brother in a way that he will hear. Norman knows his little brother needs some sort of help, but is thrown by the times when his younger sibling seems much more capable than Norman himself, a strange reversal in the guardian role he feels. More than just knowing how, the story asks us to reflect on who can offer help when those around us need it. Perhaps those who want to help the most are the ones too close to reach out.

Norman ends the story saying he is haunted by rivers. Was there an angle he missed under the rushing waters and above the calm surfaces? Was there a way he could have acted, words he could have said, to throw a life-saving line to his brother? Or was it enough to simply stand with him, focusing on a flick of the wrist that had bound them together since boyhood?

I think we are haunted by the idea of what we could have done. And that’s natural, and an understandable urge. But I think sometimes our idea of what we could have done was never possible in the first place. We cannot save just by wanting to save. We don’t always have what that takes. We aren’t always the person who that needs to come from. Haunting indeed.