florida

Skiff, January 22, 2016, 7:29 a.m.

0P1A0213-motherJPEG-smartlooks2-cropped for card medium save

Someone has tied up a skiff at the southern end of the marina flood wall. It sits hard aground in the outgoing tide amidst sea grasses and rocks. It has no oar locks, so whoever brought it to shore likely used a small outboard and then took it with him for safe keeping (a two horsepower motor can weigh as little as 30 pounds). There are two to three inches of water in the hull so the boat has been here since at least Tuesday when we last we had a heavy rain. Perhaps it belongs to the captain of one of those half dozen sailboats I see moored to the southeast. I wonder where the captain is now, and I turn west to study the houses and inns that line the quay, as though I might see him hurrying along on his business, as though I might learn in which of my mind’s thousand stories he belongs.

Surfer

Surfer
I hurried to his side as soon as I saw him standing by the water’s edge. He looked to be in serious trouble. He was bent over, face down, palms on knees. He breathed heavily, noisily as he inhaled, his mouth O-shaped, lips extended. His body moved with his breathing.

He must have sensed my presence because eventually he spoke, but head still facing the sand and only when exhaling, his words whisper-riding each puff of air. I had to move closer and bend further down to hear them.

– Big wave!
– Got tossed!
– Board tore loose!
– Rip current!
– Back in!
– Got board!

Without looking up, he pointed to a surfboard that lay in the sand some paces away.

I asked him then what I could do to help him, but he shook his head. Eventually, his breathing slowed. He pushed himself up off his knees. He adjusted his suit. He looked at me and smiled briefly. Then he walked slowly to his surfboard, picked it up, and tucked it under his left arm. He walked back into the surf.

 

Pre-Dawn Thoughts of My Father at the Saint Augustine Lighthouse

IMG_0397 motherwsuntoycameralomocontrast

Here, at the lighthouse pier, my rod rests on the railing and for a moment my line slices open the moving water below. It is early morning, not far past six, still too soon see the sun, but the dock to my north is now visible in the charcoal light, and the lighthouse now reveals its stripes.

In the summer of 1962, my father imagined aloud this life I now live, next to this very lighthouse and not far from our ‘57 Chevy with New York plates, though too far from ever reaching his own retirement.

I often say these days that I am living my father’s dream, though right at this moment I cannot help but wonder whether I am dreaming of my father, or for him, or (could it be?) my father is dreaming of me.