Some people take sleeping pills. Some people drink a glass of warm milk. Others, a snifter of warm brandy. Some people practice a series of muscle relaxations starting with their toes, then their ankles, then their calves, working their way, muscle group by muscle group, up their body. Some people, at least in cartoons, count sheep. There are many things people do to fall asleep. There are books devoted to the subject. But I don’t do any of those things. When I can’t sleep, I think about fly-casting. I think about the Yellowstone River in southwestern Montana. I envision sections of the upper Yellowstone, below the park, casting dry flies for cutthroat trout. I think about drifting along the middle section of the river through the Paradise Valley, fishing bead-head nymphs under feathery attractor patterns in search of hefty rainbows. I muse on certain runs flowing through and below the town of Livingston, stripping-in large streamers in quest of big browns. I reflect on rocks and overhanging brush where a trout might hide. I mull over patches of foam and log jams, where a trout might search for food. I consider seams where faster water meets slower water. I ruminate on deep holes and drop offs.

But really, it is more about the cast.

I never actually catch trout in these nighttime mental meditations. I just cast. I work the water as best I can. What type of cast works best in the different types of water. Slack line. Right reach. Snake roll. Power haul. I even watch the mend. In my mind’s eye, I see my fly line forming tight loops in the air. I see the sequence and pattern of the line as it moves aloft. The forward cast. The back cast. I am more of a spectator, watching myself cast. But I am really watching the rod and the line. I watch the rod load and the transference of energy to the line. I watch the cycle. The rise and fall. The presentation. There is a rhythm to it. A pace. A uniformity of movement. There is a pulse and a cadence. Like a symphony conductor. There is a measure and a flow, like a lark ascending.

I don’t concentrate. I just observe and let it happen. It is more of an absentminded activity. Casual viewing. Attentive inattention. Breathing in time. Like daydreaming. I was telling a friend about this and he said that I was practicing a form of mindfulness meditation. What? That’s a good thing, he said. Okay, I said, but I’m not trying to achieve enlightenment or a state of grace or anything like that. I’m just trying to fall asleep. I’m just watching the progression of motion. The kinesis. The surge and sweep.

It is absorbing and spellbinding. It is entrancing and hypnotic in its repetitiveness. Watching the line curl through the air soothes and lulls me to sleep. Forward and back. I can almost hear the quiet woosh of the line. Sometimes it is a ten-foot cast. Other times, a thirty-foot cast. The line dances in the air. It is graceful. Balletic. Willowy and fluid. A Chaconne. A Passacaglia cavorting over the water. Forward and back. Landing supple on the water. Then I pull back on the rod and the line zings into a back cast and I watch as it reaches forward again.

Maybe I am achieving a state of grace. Of sorts. All I know is that as I breathe in sequence through the casts I feel myself relaxing both mentally and physically and, soon enough, I fall asleep.