The best way to experience a river is not by seeing it from the window of a car, or by gliding across its surface in a boat. To fully know a river you must stand in it and feel the current’s life force tug and twist around your legs, testing your very center of gravity. Viewing the river banks, the surrounding trees and grasses, the exposed underside of the eagle gliding overhead, the mountains beyond and the upward expanse of sky, while eye level with the water, is an entirely different perspective. If you also have a fly fishing rod in your hands and a friendly knowledgeable guide beside you ready to explore the unseen watery world below the surface, you know this day will be a gift to your senses.

Our favorite Montana water to stand in is a section of the Madison river, a tributary of the Missouri River; it starts in Yellowstone National Park, at the convergence of the Firehole and Gibbon rivers. Snaking across the state for 183 miles, the Madison joins the Jefferson and Gallatin rivers in Three Forks and flows on into the Missouri. For the past eight autumns, Larry and I have fly fished in the Madison, within and bordering Yellowstone Park. We have experienced every type of weather on this river, from balmy, bright sunshine and shirt sleeves, to below zero temperatures with ice forming along the water’s edge. We have been in vicious wind and driving snow and rain; the fish never seem to notice the weather as much as we humans.

Several years ago, Larry and our friend/guide Sam were driven from their Madison river fishing spots by moose, twice in the span of an hour! The first time it was a female bursting out of the willows on the opposite bank and down into the water with two bulls in hot pursuit. Fortunately she changed direction as the fishermen scrambled out on the other bank. Just as they were positioned in another section of river and ready to cast again, they noticed a family of four moose upstream, walking towards them. The moose family were given preferential treatment and the fishermen exited.

Every October when we return like migrating birds to the Madison river, we notice subtle changes. (To be truthful, mostly our friend/guide Sam points them out to us). The curve of a certain section of river bank is pushed out further from extra water pressure. A fallen tree branch has redesigned the underwater space, changing where the fish like to rest. Collected silt and rocks carried along by the current have changed where the deep pools lie. The damming efforts of hard working beavers take their toll. New calculations must be made to decide where to cast your line. The changes are small, without daily perceptibility. Over years however, the river morphs into a new and different flow. One may pine for the familiar but it is gone. The collected knowledge about this span of water must be adapted, adjusted, to fit the river’s course.

With the new year dawning, Larry and I have drawn heavily on the word picture of the changing river. It is a metaphor that speaks loudly to us. We are not as self-determinant as we would like to imagine. Life flows like the Madison, sometimes as a result of our personal decisions, but often adjusting course due to circumstances beyond our control: loss, cultural changes, vocational revisions, family dynamics, and viruses are but a few. I am certain each could add to this list. Change is one of life’s great certainties. We long to clutch that tiny child to our breast, but alas that child is now a full grown man. We pine for the familiar grooves in the pavement, but our cart must find a new path forward, never backward. Rivers always change and so must we. As the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, observed, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”