Following Elias

Anything is Possible

Happy Friday!!

Why I Stand in the Water with a Net

I'm working on an essay about dipnetting that combines our different experiences over the years. Last year, Nick and I caught 55 salmon in one day, often pulling two ten pound fish out of the water at one time.

My parents watched in awe from the beach as Alaskans from every stripe converged on the Kenai on the hottest day of the summer run.

This year, well, the sun shone down on us as we stood chest deep in frigid water, but I spent a lot more time thinking then I did catching. Over four days of fishing, I only caught nine fish. I lost more than I landed and spent almost eight hours in the water over two days before I dragged my first sockeye to shore.

But you know, I loved every minute of it, even when the waves went up my nose and down my waders, and I had to stand on my tip toes to compensate for being only five foot two. I loved the calm mornings and the three foot waves to jump in the afternoon. I love the ache in my arms and the easy conversations with the people around me.

And most of all, I just love the idea of catching my own dinner. Of a direct line from sea to plate. I love the down and dirty work of fishing, work you can taste and smell and that makes your body remember its alive. In this world of abstraction and screens there is something so sweet about holding a five foot net attached to a six foot pole and waiting for a salmon to find you.

Not the person next to you.

But you. 

Your net.

Oh, and when it hits, there is nothing like the rush of trying to tangle that Red in your net and drag it to shore.

So I will stand in the water and wait.

And wait I did.

But you know, I stood watching the mountains change in the light, with my back to the beach where my family and beloved friends played in the sand, and for those few hours everything was alright.

In our uniforms of waders or drysuits, I am no longer a white 40-something special needs mama but a hopeful provider in a long line of humanity wanting nothing more than to feed our families well.

And wild Alaskan salmon, it doesn't get much better than that.

So I'm already looking forward to next year.

 

Back...

...from our annual salmon dipnetting trip.

More soon.

Classic Elias

Sitting around the dinner table, Olive makes a comment about how she can see small things but Elias really can't, which leads us into a discussion about vision and impairment and how all our eyes work a little differently. We talk about Nana who needs contacts or glasses to see clearly and our friend Dan who lost his eyes to a bear.

"Elias's vision may not be as clear as yours but he can see a whole lot," I say to Olive, as Elias looks at his plate, listening, but not yet participating in the conversation.

We talk about the difference between being fully blind like a girl we often see skiing at Challenge and legally blind like Elias.

I remind Elias of the camp he attended two summers ago where all the students were blind or visually impaired.

 "Oh," Elias says, "I didn't notice that." He raises his eyes from his plate and rests them somewhere between us and the ceiling above. "I was too busy looking at something else."

God I love him.

And here, while Olive and I smile with ease before a lens, putting on our social face, Elias struggles to manipulate his expressions for a camera-- but as is often the case, the result is just a bit more true:

 

 

Happy Friday all!

 

Oh Olive

                                                    ***********

I just left you in bed with Superman and I can't hear the words you share with your coveted balloon, chosen in Seward, after you ran in the mini Mt Marathon race, number 247, you at the back of the pack looking at the crowd, 1,000's strong, cheering on a group of 4 year-old girls who know nothing of winning and losing, of competition that breaks a soul, only know the feel of sneakers on pavement, your arms swinging as your little legs churn.

You who learned how to ride a bike on two wheels, without all the pomp and circumstance, just as if of course you would ride, and why not now, pedalling on your own as you do at playgrounds when I make a choice to leave you stranded on the rock wall, unsure how to climb down, to observe and most likely mediate your older brother's interactions with children younger than you who flock to the same slide.

You who tells other kids at the library, "My brother struggles with balance, that's why he grabbed you." Or when Elias sits directly in front of the TV, announces to the women gathered at a friends' home to watch the World Cup, "It' because he doesn't have very good vision."

My girl who says, watch this, and pulls a perfect tree pose while standing on a log at Tonsina Point, after hiking down the switch-backs and waiting for your brother at every second turn-- letting him know you were in front, but wanting to wait all the same.

My girl who straddles the cusp of understanding, the edge between the sun and the view from the planets that surround, this enlarging time of stepping out into a world bigger than our own.

When I zipped up your sleeping bag, after a time spent in the shadow of mountains and above the sea, surrounded by Hemlock and Fur, when the meltdowns were fewer and farther between, you looked up at me with your eyes that mirror mine and said, "I'm so glad we're back in our country."

And you might have meant Alaska, and not our four person tent, but as I kissed your forehead I wanted nothing more than to weave your words into the fabric of my life.

To embrace the moments between all that is to do.

I love you.