telrod cove

A clear and crisp morning. My bed has a deep in-slope, a hopeless depression in one corner. My body gravitates toward the low point and in my sleep I wade into this pit and curl up like a fawn. I dream of being reabsorbed by the earth, eyes closed and floating in the womb of this place. That’s why people don’t fly, we’ve already been cast out, already feel the chill of our supposed disconnectedness, what use do we have for more elevation and more wind? No we’re not ready for wings just yet, we’re still working on roots.
I put some boxes underneath the broken frame hoping to firm up my resting place, but this bed is shoddy and frumpy and completely uncaring of what the world thinks. I disrobe, shedding my sleeping bag like a winter coat. The chill of the morning snaps me awake better than any cup of coffee ever could. My co-worker is deep in sleep, per usual. I prepare myself for the day, starting with slipping my feet into my extratuffs (or Alaskan tennis shoes as the locals call them). I boil water and put an obscene amount of coffee grinds into a paper filter. Licking my finger, I clean out the cup’s residue from previous day’s use.
“Another day” I say looking out at the serene midnight blue of a half sleeping cove. The fishermen are up no doubt, brewing the sort of tough coffee that makes my wimpy cup look like watered down ovaltine. The tide is extremely low, exponentially increasing the amount of walking space I will have this morning. In fact, if I wanted to I could almost walk right out to the seiners and if you shot me from the ankle up, you’d think I was Jesus walking on water. Alaska has a way of tricking your eyes, making you see all sorts of fantastical things. And yet, the longer you spend in this place the more you come to realize that there is no trick here. Alaska has a way of opening up your eyes and revealing the brilliance we’ve been gifted to be born into. The world comes into view, hazy, distorted and blue and every morning I clutch my heart, “my god, it’s beautiful!”.
One of the nice things about living so close to the water’s edge is that it makes you humble. Sure, you can track the tides, know when they’ll be at their highest or lowest, but you can’t change them. You learn to be thankful for what you get, when you get it because you know within fifteen minutes or less, it can be taken away. I drizzle hot water over my mound of grinds, letting it percolate slowly, saturating each grind and pulling at its essence. I set myself down roughly upon the trunk of a large beached cedar. I pull out a cigarette and position it ever so gently between my lips, I pretend not to care if it falls, I hold it loosely, no one wants to look desperate. I watch one of the boats start its set, the seiner charging East through the water like an elephant and the skiff buzzing along West smooth as a dragonfly. A net falls from the backside of the seiner, the white floats poised on the water’s surface sophisticated as pearls, as jolly and aloof as the elite while lead weights race for the bottom anchoring a man-made mesh wall . I light my cigarette and inhale deeply. Coffee and cigarettes, since when did I decide to become a lyric in another sad country song? And yet, there was no denying that the couple worked well together.
The seiner hugs one edge of the cove, the skiff bobs like an innocent rubber ducky at the other end and the floats bask in the sun like joyous vacationers. All is calm. I dig my toe into the sand and stare down a sea bird. I smile to myself, “what if this with Jonathan Livingston?”. Then aloud, “hey Jonathan, can you teach me how to teleport?” The bird flaps its wings trying to shoo me away, guess that’s a no. The skiff begins to tow his end of the net, pulling it into a circle, grab your partner, round and round, dosey-doe! The seiner moves toward the skiff and if I were poetic, I’d tell you that the two crafts looked like eager hands, racing toward one another preparing to embrace the sea. and perhaps it looks like that from space, but not down here, down here you get an entirely different picture.
The skiff man, decked out in bright orange bibs and armed with a plunger pole about six to seven feet long, busies his hands. First, two big puffs on his Marlboro red, then a flick of the wrist on the wheel and finally four or so strikes with the plunger into the water. The pattern is more or less the same, perhaps save the plunger, some skiff men swear that the “clap” made by the phallic object actually does scare the wayward salmon back into the net, while others find it a waste of their precious time. Either way, he better look like he’s doing something or he could very well lose his prized position. And it is a prized position. While the other deckhands are busy untangling the net as getting things prepared, the skiff man is out on the wings where it’s quiet and he can smoke in peace. However, he does have the added pressure of making sure he doesn’t screw up the line of the net. But, in general, the skiff man has it best, except of course, for the skipper.
I watch them struggle to get the net in. That’s usually a good sign though it sounds like a contradiction. They’ve either scored big time or they caught a whale. Either one is completely plausible.