“How do you fly fish?”
We are on a family vacation—walking along a peaceful trail near a stream—an actual babbling brook, which feels like a nature scene so charming I half expect a deer to curtsy. Corinne, age eleven, is skipping a few steps ahead, full of curiosity and questions. She pauses, squints thoughtfully at the water, and asks to no one in particular, “How do you fly fish?”
It’s the kind of question that hangs gently in the air, like mist off the river. I’m just about to launch into an earnest explanation about rods and reels and casting techniques—because I’m a mom and therefore constitutionally required to narrate educational moments—but I don’t have a chance.
Camille, age eight, who has been casually trailing behind and absorbing the laws of nature through her own filter of logic, doesn’t miss a beat.
“From an airplane, of course!”.
She says it with so much conviction and self-assurance, that for a moment, I imagine a very frightened fish being unceremoniously dropped out of an airplane cabin door somewhere over the Rockies, parachute optional.
Corinne, to her credit, doesn’t challenge the answer. She simply nods thoughtfully, as if mentally revising her own understanding of the sport to include carry-on luggage and a beverage cart.
And me? I’m watching the whole moment unfold with the kind of internal delight only moms get to savor. A parenting snapshot that doesn’t need a frame, but only a mental moment reserved for the wonderful, delightful things your kids say when their imaginations are still gloriously untethered to practicality.
So, no one gets corrected. No one needs a tutorial. The moment just floats by—both ridiculous and a little brilliant too.
Besides, who needs a fishing pole when you’ve got imagination, legroom, and in-flight snacks? It might not land a trout, but it definitely reels in one of those memories that is this big—and that’s never getting away.
©Momories 2025
