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Show Fair Forever 2 Today, I am. I turn and take a deep breath and wade slowly in the shallows, out to my little skiff, finally climbing aboard. Overhead, a seagull calls, and on the sand only a foot below, a crab hurries from my shadow. I untie the lines at the front and the back-the bow and the stem-and drift. Rising from the middle bench, I lift one of the long oars. My boat rocks. I bend my knees and brace my feet and push, jabbing the oar into the soft sand on the rippled seabed. Fair Forever glides forward. And I smile. I search the bay as I pole. The sea is flat and quiet as if the waves are asleep and the sea is still dreaming. I spy no fishermen. No motorboats. Not even another small rowboat like mine, which is surprising for a late-summer's morning. I hesitate, knowing^ well that I'm being reckless, rowing out with no one in sight, no one to help. But I choose to continue. I need to continue. I decide that we're enough-just me and the oars and my skiff. And the sea, of course, smelling of salt and wet and life. When my oaf no longer reaches sand, I sit and face back toward the stem. Then, grabbing both oars, I take a deep breath and pull. My knuckles fade white. I feel the strain on my back and the bum in my arms. I've rowed before, but never like this. Never this alone. Never this free. I row toward the deep, watching as my oars rise and fall, rise and fall, like the porpoise I sometimes watch from my dock. Watch, too, the morning light on the water, broken and swirling as my oars cut the surface. I stop midway to rest, recording the moment with my eyes and my ears. I want to remember the light. The swirling of the eddies. I've been waiting so long, I want to remember everything. The strength of my |
