"Recently I’ve been reading an obscure little book, On the Spine of Time, by Harry Middleton. I now know more about trout, ontogenesis, and Gatlinburg than I thought possible.

Not that the book was boring, I became addicted to Middleton’s passionate detailed descriptions of mountain trails, mountain streams and mountain people. I yearned to go fly-fishing, and then I remember I’ve been fly-fishing. And, like so many of my well thought-out ventures, it was a disaster.

I was quite young but old enough to have a well developed sense of dignity so that when I was included in the older children’s invitation to go fishing, I was thoroughly pleased. Since my well-developed sense of dignity demands I have a solid grip on events, I rummaged through my older brothers’ fly fishing gear. I laid it all out on the front lawn and taught myself how to cast.

Or what I imagined casting might be like. Since I had shown initiative to learn a skill without disgracing myself in front of others, I was applauded for my seriousness. This began the makings of my disastrous outing because when a few weeks later, I set out on my fishing jaunt, I set out with a false sense of confidence. My heart swelled with certainty that I knew what I was doing.

I could indeed flick my rod very prettily on the front lawn. However, the trout of Cape Breton are located in freezing cold rocky streams, surrounded by trees and scrubby shrubs. My very first overhead cast landed deeply in the fishing pond of a spruce tree. My second was better. The fly embedded itself in one of the other children.

Then, while tearfully holding the leader’s million-dollar titanium plated solid platinum super rod, I was overcome by a swarm of black flies. While I courageously (I swear there are stories about bull moose eaten alive by black flies) fought off the biting menace with helicopter arms, I dropped the “my-father-spent-his-life-savings-to-buy-me-that-rod” into the spirited rolling Cape Breton stream where the great mother of all trout swallowed it whole. It was the fish that bit back.

Since all of this took place in the first hour of the jolly weekend adventure, the weekend did not turn out as expected. I was never invited again. I never fished again. Then here I am reading this book that is tempting me, urging me to try fly fishing one more time. Probably not. But I can’t help think about how we can try so hard to get things right and still accomplish nothing.

For example: in prison we are given a set of rules that we try to obey. Then we’re given new, different frequently contradictory rules that we also try to obey. This continues until it slowly occurs to us that we are chasing carrots over our heads. At this point, a lot of us give up. There is no meaningful reward. It’s a maze that goes nowhere.

Perhaps this is the lure of my fly fishing fantasy. I climb a difficult dangerous mountain to wait in uncomfortable circumstances (freezing water, bugs, bad weather) for unpredictable results. Perhaps this could be the new parole guideline: Once a year we would go angling and anyone who caught a trout (catch and release, of course) would be paroled home. Those who caught nothing would try again the next year. The results would be arbitrary and unfair but it would at least, as any fly fisherman will tell you, be a valid test of our characters. These yearly-fishing excursions would even contribute to our regenesis." (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, July 27, 2006).

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. This column is one of a series, published under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'