Catching On
Love with an Avid Fly Fisher
by Carol J. Morrison
List Price: $14.95
Pages: 138
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0971492409
Publisher: Freestone Press
Carol Jane Morrison, writer, editor, speaker and therapist—is a Mississippi native who, after sixteen years as a Northwesterner, lives, as Jesse Winchester sings, "with her feet in Dixie and her head in the cool, blue North."
Carol wrote her first poem at age eight, and she continued writing poetry and stories throughout adolescence and adulthood. Her muse beckoned more powerfully eight years ago, spurring her to study writing in the Seattle area with local novelists Janet Carey, Jack Remick, and Bob Ray, with editor Dorothy Wall in Berkeley, and with Natalie Goldberg on Cortes Island, British Columbia, Canada.
After six years as a college teacher and motivational counselor and fifteen years as a psychotherapist in private practice, Carol decreased her patient caseload in order to pursue her writing, editing and consulting interests. When her essay "Catching On" was published by Gray's Sporting Journal, Carol was inspired to write more about coming to understand her husband Ed's fly-fishing passion. That developed into her first book of creative non-fiction, Catching On—Love with an Avid Fly Fisher, which recently was awarded the 2003 Jim Angell Award for the best first book by a Presbyterian.
She currently creates and leads writing workshops and classes in the Seattle area for the King County Library System, the North Bend Library, the Redmond Association for the Spoken Word and for various community and academic organizations.
Carol was married twice before—to a professional tennis player and to a deep-sea diver. Both experiences initiated her to the inner and outer lives of obsessed men and these experiences contributed material for Catching On.
She and her third (and please, Lord, last) husband, Ed, live and love on the south fork of the Snoqualmie River in North Bend, Washington, with their cats, Emmylou Harris and Seattle Sunshine. Most of the time, Carol doesn't even care if Ed goes fishing.
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Q: You grew up in Mississippi fishing with a pole and bobber with your mother. Did those fishing experiences with your mom prepare you for fly fishing with Ed?
CJM: It made me comfortable with the rudiments of fishing. It didn't begin to prepare me for Ed's passionate stance toward the sport, nor for the degree of skill fly-fishing requires, and especially not for awakening at O Dark Thirty to freeze my booty off.
Q: In your book, you say that when you first met Ed, you knew that somehow, you'd be with this man. How did you know that?
CJM: I experienced a flash of "knowing" that I couldn't explain. There were no details in the knowing, just a sense of rightness about him. The feeling was quiet, but very sure, very solid. If I had spoken, I would have simply said "Yes".
Q: Had you ever had that kind of insight before or since? Explain.
CJM: Yes. The realization that I wanted to write. I was sitting in my living room and I heard the words in my head, "I want to write." It wasn't joyous or scary or even exciting then. It was a fact. And it changed my life, just as Ed did.
Q: You and Ed have a therapy practice together in the Seattle area. You say that you miss him when he fishes, but do you ever get tired of working with him all day and then going home with him at day's end?
CJM: At work, we often don't interact much. We're busy seeing clients and trying to find time to eat, and on our breaks, we welcome the comfort of being quiet together. I'm usually excited about getting off work and heading home to our place on the river. I don't get tired of Ed, but I do tire of talking about therapy. We have a rule—when we reach a certain spot on Highway 90, no more talking about work is allowed. Most of the time we stick to it.
Q: In your therapy practice how do you help your patients work through their similar challenges?
CJM: I help them find their "real" selves, and, if they're partnered, to share those selves with their partners. I help them get more comfortable with their discomfort and their human-ness, and thus, more accepting of their partners' imperfections. I help them connect with all their emotions, even the negative ones, which allows them to feel more joy.
Q: What is the best thing about your husband? The worst?
CJM: The best thing is that he's sweet and sensitive, yet very male in his interests and outlook—a wonderful balance. The worst thing is that he's incredibly disorganized and forgetful. Drives me crazy. I'm constantly challenged to practice what I preach.
Q: How did writing down your journey to "catching on" help you? How has it helped others?
CJM: Writing "Catching On" was a tough but exhilarating process. I learned to show my experiences in story form, a powerful vehicle for relating to readers. I was forced to be honest about hard things. I learned to trust that the creative juices are always flowing in the mind's backwater. I gained strength through "putting myself out there", willing to take whatever reactions that entailed. People want to be loved. They want to believe they're lovable. They want to believe they're important to others. Readers have seen themselves in my journey and have been inspired by my coming to believe all these things. I often hear, "I laughed and I cried when I read your book. Couldn't believe how much I laughed and cried." Now, isn't that just what we human beings are created to do?
Excerpted from Catching On © Copyright 2008 by Carol J. Morrison. Reprinted with permission by Freestone Press. All rights reserved.
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