Ramblings

Free Write Friday: Beach Run

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I step onto the sand, fine and sinking under the weight of my upright frame. Feet imprint as sand spills over my running shoes, mesh fabric not immune to the elements. I hurry to where it is more compact, recent tide receding to give way to damp beach, level and accepting to the jogger.

A quarter mile down, I reach my stride, rushing Pacific to my left, chilly and predictable in the June morning fog. I like that the sound lures me to its wake, wary seagulls, dormant sand dollars waiting just ahead. The Pacific teases with its name, as if it would be peaceable, cooperative. Instead, it is a force to be adhered to, to acknowledge fully.

I nod at other joggers as we pass, feet wet, gait off from the usual city asphalt run. I don’t wear headphones, don’t rush my cadence. Running on the beach is a gift to the senses, to the muscles, sinewy body substance aligned with nature.

Ridges appear from waves past, uneven ground bumpy beneath my feet. Shallow water from recent tides remains in places. I’m used to hopping over puddles, formed after a midnight Seattle rain. But this is different, diffuse, a slight impediment, a refreshing coolness.

I pump my arms, lift my legs, admire the burn of the muscles, the arc of the tree line in the distance, knobby evergreens gesturing to the sky. At a mile and a half I turn, make my way back down the coastline. Salty sea air igniting my lungs, the gentle cushion of compact sand accepting my footprints, my mark as I travel back from where I came.

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Ramblings

Free Write Friday: Fish

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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.

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Ramblings

Free Write Friday: Cliff

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Note: This week I’m trying something new with the free write – a prose poem incorporating synesthesia. I was inspired by a Till writing workshop I recently attended, presented by poet Jane Wong. As always, feel free to use the photo above as a prompt for your own free write. Consider joining me in experimenting with an unfamiliar format this week. 

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Crackling of palm tree, fronds brushing carmine in the breeze. Squawk and tweet of birdsong, just beyond ear’s reach, punctuating high above. The turquoise wash of crashing waves below, colliding onto ebony rocks stoic as the spray recoils, resorbed by the expanse. Memories of jumping off, sound muffled, then expanding beyond into the greater sea. I climb the cliff, handholds of familiar crevices. I swim into the current, decades of tracing the reef map a mind’s fingerprint of coral phalanges. Thick blades of grass underfoot infuse the yellow taste of papaya. Nenes swoop in, then saunter through air thick with humidity. Specks of snorkelers flap fins, return to lie beached, their skin leathered like dragon fruit. Cloud shadows caress the ridged mountains, marking them like a bruise, feeding them with rain. One drop, then two trickles. The sea turtles gulp the air then dive into dry sweetness. They disappear but I never saw them, only heard shells cracking from a memory decades old. Momentary waft of plumeria, ginger, coconut, lilikoi, banana leaves suspends in the air just long enough for it to roll on my tongue, breathe into my lungs, absorb through my skin leaving an imprint, marking me home. 

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