Fly-Fishing

Sometimes, you have to squeeze into your life what it is you love the most.

Being a stay-at-home Mom, my days are never the same, especially during the summer when my boys are home. As every mother knows, a house doesn't run itself … there are meals to be cooked, laundry done, children ferried here and there. Life, for everyone, is increasingly hectic. So I try to squeeze the creation and execution of Fabulous Shoe Night around my daily life … and around the busy lives and jobs of the advisory board. Between the varied tasks of raising three boys and running a household, I am  always thinking, thinking, thinking … my brain never seems to turn off. Getting FSN up and running so we can start helping people is never far from my mind. But as any mother knows, Mom-Brain has a way of kicking in when our brains are on overload, and despite our best intentions, things are forgotten. For me it happens more frequently than I care to admit. I always say, only half-kidding, "You'd be amazed at  just how much I'm capable of forgetting."  I'll be driving, or cooking, or in the middle of a million other things, barely aware of the ever-flowing river of ideas swirling just beneath the surface of conscious thought, when an idea will strike, seemingly out of nowhere. If I don't grab it, then and there, it gets swept up in the current … the rapid stream of thought of all the things I have yet to do, and rushes out of sight. Sigh.
Gone ….

During rare moments of quiet, if I still my mind, I can sometimes retrieve some of the ideas I thought swam away for good. I compare it to that fishing game for little kids, where a jumble of fish "swim" around an imaginary pond, and, if you time it just right, you can lower your rod and catch a moving fish with a magnet in place of a hook. I have "caught" a lot of ideas this way, in stillness and concentration, despite their elusive slipperiness.

As I try to squeeze in as much FSN work as I can among the small in-between spaces of such hectic busy-ness, I am thankful that these elusive ideas swimming in and out of my stream of consciousness are not actual fish, for more often than not, they need to be put on the proverbial shelf until the advisory board can get together to brainstorm. When this happens, I am reminded of Benjamin Franklin, who wisely said, " Fish and house guests smell after three days."  And as any busy mother knows, to prevent that from happening, I would have no choice but to fry them up for dinner. 

After all … I have three hungry boys to feed.