James | An introvert's guide to the pandemic and fly fishing
There’s nothing else really to do but work here, and I’ve really appreciated not having to go into work every day and talk to people. And I've found a happiness in the solitude. Course, I’m a 4 on the enneagram so we kind of thrive in the melancholy anyway.
Hello. I must tell a background story. To begin, James is probably one of the coolest people I know who I met it the coolest possible way:
When I lived in Iceland, the family that owned my flat also owned an adventure company. My last day they gifted me a free glacier, mountain bike, exploration adventure. While I was at Skogafoss taking photos of my new friend, Maya, James approached us. He explained that he was on a quick stopover and had a cool new camera lens and wondered if we’d allow him to take our photos. We both were so excited for a nice shot at the magical waterfall. James sent us the photos and we connected on Instagram. This was 2017. He has been a HUGE supporter of my weird dance grooves and general life moves ever since. And he posts intelligent thoughts and gorgeous photos on the regular. I was SO excited to get to interview this amazing friend. Here’s our talk, which we realized was actually our first ever real-time conversation. The coolest I’m telling you.
“So, my experience with this pandemic has been, there’s obviously two sides of the coin: There’s the side of the coin that just hates that the world has to go through this, hates that America has to go through this, hates that our lives have been so disrupted so callously. But then there’s the introvert side of me who has thrived in a real way by not having to interact with so many folks on a daily basis.”
“I remember when the pandemic started. Work sent out an email—I work in management consulting [...] ‘We have to close doors for at least a month, everyone pack up what you need today and go home.’ That was in March. I packed up everything that I thought I would need for a couple of weeks at most, and I went home. And four months later I went back to visit my desk. The person next to me had left their lunch there. Their lunch was still there. It was a ghost town, it was exactly as we had left it three months ago. No one had cleaned anything. Everything was as it had been left. Such a surreal experience. ”
Work food left over at the office!
“That same evening I had a date with my girlfriend, she comes over to the house and she says, ‘we really need to talk about this COVID thing, because Dallas is going under quarantine…’
We came up with: your roommates, me, and their boyfriends—that’s our circle. That’s all it can be. And we’ve operated that way for eight months. Really really small circle, it’s kind of become a cool little family. We trust one another.
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COVID family
“In some ways it’s been really good for me because I found this side of me with work that I didn’t know existed. I don’t have to socialize with people. I get so distracted at work—I get a lot of energy from being by myself. I’ve also been really saddened by how hard American has struggled with this.”
Troiut Stream
“Gardening has been a source of comfort for me. And then in May, I’ve always fished too, me and a really good friend of mine [...] neither of us had ever fly fished and we thought, ‘let’s go do that.’ And we drove up in separate cars to Arkansas and hiked into the National Forest there to a trout stream and we figured out how to fly fish. That’s been a growing passion. Since that I have fallen desperately in love with fly fishing. ”
“Have you ever seen ‘A River Runs Through It’ ? That film represents all that is wholesome—the thing that ties it all together, this narrative, is fly fishing. And when I watched it the first time, I didn’t quite understand why. And the first time I ever fly fished I could see how the pursuit of something so perfect could be so peaceful. A cast is like a dance. You have the rod, you have the line, and there’s the fish. And you and this rod are trying to trick the fish into biting. And everything comes into account: how the stream moves, different pockets where the fish would normally be, how the wind is happening and how that affects the line or your rod, what the fish are biting—all of that plays in. You’re thinking about all of that, as you’re sitting on the river taking everything into account. And you’re making all these calculations in your head. All that goes into it before you cast. And then the cast itself, you can spend 3-4 months perfecting one cast. So, I think that’s why I loved it so much, because you can see the fish. You’re trying to engage them in a language they understand. It’s this wonderful dance with one small piece of nature. ”
“When the pandemic ends...what are we returning to? As a culture, what are we returning to?
We spend our entire lives working, for what? The pandemic taught us that we can do the same work from the comfort of our living rooms while engaging with the things that matter most, our families. And I wonder very curiously when we return to work if we will in fact keep what we learned. I’m talking specifically about the more corporate-space jobs. I hope the part of America that needs to hear that message hears it.
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Thank you so much James for sharing your insights about work and community, personal experiences, and passion for fly fishing with me (and everyone else listening and reading)!
James is a wonderful photographer and you can follow him on Instagram at @jmpianist12
And….I would be missing a real opportunity if I did not share the famed photographs of myself at Skogafoss! Here are pictures that James took that launched a 3+ year instagram friendship that will someday meet in person at “the river” in Eau Claire.
Images courtesy of James. Thank you!
“A River Runs Through It” stills: John Kelly/Getty Images 1991
Fun hunkering down pandemic activity: join me this week in watching the A River Runs Through It, maybe post your reactions in the comments? I’ll post mine. Do you feel like you learned something about mindfulness and the peace in perfecting a craft during the pandemic like James has? Did this movie make YOU want to learn to fly fish? What hobbies do you have that you’d describe with a beautiful film like James did?
