Salty Dog Learns New Tune, Cries

Last night I was entranced watching a fishing show about a trip to the interior of Mongolia. A group of American guys, buddies, spent a year planning and researching a trip to a place completely off the western tourist map. Off any tourist map, for that matter. The idea was to fish rivers bred from the glaciers of the northern Khövsgöl region, located in the northwestern Mongolia near the Russian border, at the foot of the eastern Sayan Mountains. To the filmmakers’ knowledge, nobody had ever done a trip like this before.

Trekking interior from Ulan Bator for weeks, by behemoth military 4-wheelers and then by camel, and then on Mongolian ponies, they followed no roads. They traveled over the countryside, through the high grasslands, through the pine forests, across rivers and vast wetlands. The scenery was stunning, untouched. Only nomadic herdsmen and their families lived out there. At night they slept in yak camps in yurts, or in the dirt after they had drunk too much milkshine (fermented yak milk, a regional homemade liquor). By day they trekked ever interior, eventually arriving at a place where the lake water is virtually purified.

Wikipedia says: Khövsgöl is one of seventeen ancient lakes worldwide more than 2 million years old and the most pristine (apart from Lake Vostok).^[2][3] and is the most significant drinking water reserve of Mongolia. Its water is potable without any treatment and offers good living conditions for many types of fish.

I watched them fish from my seat in the dark theatre. They pulled enormous, strange looking fish out of gin clear waters. I pictured myself there, in the snowy pines, along the creeks, perched atop jagged rocks. I would pull my collar up against the wind and the rain. I would crawl up to the edge of the creeks in interior Mongolia, and peer up over the riverside rocks to glimpse the skittish, rose cheeked trout. And then I would fling my fly ever-so-delicately.

And as I watched the movie, tears began to well up. Not huge, lady tears. But smaller, manly tears. Like the ones you get when you yawn too much at night. And that’s how I played it off, if anyone was watching. In the dark theatre I wondered if I would ever see inner-Mongolia. It was so beautiful I could barely stand it. I wondered, because at that moment it occurred to me that it didn’t really matter. It paled in comparison, I realized, to my sweet wife and my baby at home. I could never be away from them for that long.

In that moment I was transported not to the Mongolian mountains, but to our little home. I realized then that I had changed. Wanderlust has turned into something truly new. Something even more profound. I’m going to be a papa. I’ve been a little emotional about it lately. Commercials with puppies really get my soft spot.

After the movie let out I walked down the dark back streets of downtown St. Paul. I was charged to get home. I ran. Doors opened and drunks spilled out onto the sidewalk. I flew past them. I realized I was slightly lost. Everything looked different. I couldn’t find the door where I had exited. I was on the right corner, but it wasn’t there. I could see the lot, but everything was dark. I ducked under the gate and ran up the entrance ramp. I ran faster than anyone has ever run before on earth. I flew up the spiraled ramp to the fourth floor and found the car. At the parking exit the attendant was missing (I thought of breaking through the gate, but eventually got a security cop to let me out.) I drove home as fast as prudence let me, and it took forever to cross the cities.

At home finally I found my wife in bed asleep. Tucked in and safe, she and baby slept. I couldn’t wait to get in beside her and appreciate her cello shaped backside. But first I had some food, and looked out the kitchen window at the snow and the darkness beyond. I caught my reflection and thought, man, you are the luckiest old dog. You were so nearly a wanderer. You were lost at sea. But you got hooked by a pretty girl, and she reeled you in and landed you. And grounded you. And you’ve never been happier, or luckier.