My dad is a fisherman. For decades he wakes predawn, slurps his miso soup under the lone pendant light hanging above the kitchen table. My mom sews mesh pockets into his fishing vest, fashioned for easy portability of his catch as he climbs the steep hill back to our Hawaii home. He says he likes the quiet, the peace, the solitary sunrise. To the fish he is a hunter, to the ocean he is miniscule. He is a witness to simplicity, to grandeur, to the significance, the impermanence of it all.
He regales with stories of almost being swept away: a riptide, an irritated eel, an aggressive ulua he fights to reel in, almost to his own demise. He says if he has to go, this is the way he prefers: swallowed up by vastness, not dust to dust but water to water.
Mom waits for him on the beach, latest novel in hand in the grey dawning light. They leave just as the tourists saunter onto the sand with their bright towels, their sweating coolers, their rented snorkel masks and fins.
We run to him when he arrives home, rinses off his fishing gear and his salt water soaked tabi boots, a type of Japanese shoe with a split toe and rubber sole. He proudly displays his catch as he transitions to the galley kitchen, deftly cleans and fillets the fish, readying it for that day’s dinner.
He settles in the turquoise armchair to prepare his fishing pole and reel for the following day. His clothes dry in the afternoon sun as his lids lower for a siesta.
Most nights Dad pulls out the deep fryer, lowers the breaded morsels into the sizzling oil. We three kids wait impatiently at the kitchen table for him to place a large plate of freshly fried fish next to our bowls of calrose rice, of pickled daikon radish. We complain about having the same meal every night for six summer weeks on end.
Now I crave fish, expect it, miss it when we make a pilgrimage to the Aloha State. I never learned the skill, had the temperment, the patience, the passion for catching fish. Nearly 80, my dad still wakes before the sun, ventures out to commune with, to capture the sea life. My dad, he is a fisherman.
