Long days, long weeks, uncomfortably honest conversations: this all takes a toll. Every now and then, you have to take a break from it all, from all the emotional and intellectual and even physical drain, and that's why there is fishing.

Nadia and I left after Harmony got on the bus and Tim departed for work. Scraped together enough change to buy some worms and a Nestle Crunch bar, and went to Lake Roxanne.

The worms were frozen, gross and dead. Not that worms aren't normally gross, and they're always dead by the time I'm done with them, but still. So I dumped them out and let Nadia pick what lures we were going to use.

So we fished with Squidward, an amber colored speckled semi-squid, and Pinkie and his brother Pinkie, both of whom completely failed to rouse any interest in the local finned folk. Then Nadia discovered all the lures that look like Mice, and after some relatively adept plier work by yours truly, we were in business.

Didn't catch anything, of course, which might be expected when one's fishing partner is intent on how big a splash they can make with her rocks and how many casts per second she can do when push comes to shove.

But it was fun. The sun shining off the lake, the soft crash of water spilling over the dam, the leaves rustling behind us, the honking chorus of Canadian geese angling overhead on their way home.

Fishing puts you in the moment: I'm sure, especially if one weren't accompanied by a four year old and standing on top of a dam, your mind could indeed drift, but I was and we were, so it didn't. For that hour and a half, there was nothing but the subtle, inept dance of my predatory self and Nadia's joy at well, pretty much everything.

Better than therapy, sometimes. Not thinking can totally trump thinking. I feel a little stronger, a little better, a bit more prepared to take on the world. That's a good thing.