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| My Mu, who feels about mornings as I do! |
My Dad loved to fish.
He had a 15’ army-green Sears Bass boat that I grew to hate long before
it capsized in a Kentucky TVA lake & nearly killed him. It was ugly, & drab, & parked on a
trailer in our yard, but I didn’t merely hate its appearance. I despised its sense of timing. For some ridiculous reason, it always had to
be taken out between 3:30
& 4 AM . The excuse was that fish preferred this time
of day to get caught. I tried to wrap my
head around this logic & as a seven year old, decided they must get hooked
while they were yawning.
I’ve always been abominable as a morning person & my
parents eventually gave up on changing that, wrapped me in an afghan &
bundled me into the back seat of the car on those mornings. I would wake an hour later to the crinking
sound of the winch lowering the boat off the trailer & slipping it into the
flat & quiet water. I had a white
Zebco rod with a zebra striped reel, & they spent the day baited &
dismissed, resting against the side of the boat. I was wedged crosswise in the center of the
boat, reading Trixie Belden books & ignoring my Dad’s pleas to cast my line
at least once.
So I had a pretty strongly-held belief that early rising was
a waste of time, & I clung to that even tighter when I realized I had been
duped. Fish are awake all day. Snorkeling
in the Caribbean, I have encountered endless schools of all manner of fish…at
all times of day. If my Dad were still
alive, he’d tell me that was because I wasn’t fishing & they didn’t feel
threatened. He’d be making my argument
for me. I never had the stomach for
fishing, not even for catch & release.
Ironically my Dad was a latent pacifist.
He even collected & refurbished antique guns, only to use them for
target practice. So somewhere, deep
within his evolved older self, I think he’d understand (if not agree with) my
hesitancy to put a hook in something I enjoy swimming with.
He’d probably only concede this point if I give him the
following ‘told you so’ opportunity: Now
I get up at 5am so I can be on the beach at dawn. 5am gives my pup time to roam
the yard, & me time to do some yoga stretches & brew a big stainless
cup of freshly ground Peet’s to take along.
Mu (my pup) won’t go with me because she hates the beach despite having
been born on an island. Go figure. Maybe she hates 5 am?
I even enjoy the twelve minute drive from my house to the
water. People are taking their
plaid-uniformed kids to school, & I pass a very efficient, white-gloved veteran
crossing guard on my trek. If I’m early
enough, I pass my favorite local farmer too.
Grantley has a small Jeep with a tow-behind trailer, & obvious pride
in his life’s work. He has the best-tended
garden I’ve seen since my Grandfather’s in West Virginia. His permanent produce stand is right by Queen
Mary Highway (main drag) & he waves when he catches my eye. Years ago we vended side-by-side, & his
wife makes the best carrot cake imaginable—very dangerous to be next to all
day! I usually see him in one of three
stances—riding his little red tractor, roasting ears of corn over a small coal
pot, or showing an interested teen some facet of agriculture they won’t find in
a textbook…and making it acceptable to be up at 5am . And then there’s the sunrise over the sea…
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