These days I feel like cousin to a pelican – ponderous creatures relying on thermals to gather them along as they soar above the sandy shores of the California coastline where I grew up. Rarely alone and most often in small groups, pelicans possess a sharpshooter’s eye. As these stork-like birds target a meal below, they hang suspended for a few seconds, pondering position – then, head-first, free-fall into the depths. Moments later, up they pop, contentedly bobbing onto the surface where they repeatedly stab the sky with long necks, settling catch into storage.
This is a time of gathering, of measuring the value of the catch and then digesting what I take in. It clearly is not a time to dole out more than a day’s worth of energy at a stretch. Me and staying in the moment breathe the same air. Life marches along and I am stark witness to its pace, swept along on the shifting tides as though my will had vanished. It becomes clear that control will get me nowhere, if it hasn’t been crystal up until now.
Watching small Hawaiian children rolling in dangerous surf has always been a fascination for me. Twenty years ago I lost a front tooth when, instead of relaxing with the undertow and tumbling inside the tube, I lurched forward, biting down on my knee. The tooth fractured in three places above the gum line. Ever since then, I have been acutely aware of those places of rigidity. As aware, that is, as I can be. It never ceases to amaze when I discover there is always more to release. Aside from fly fishing, casting off is not the American way.
Each time we would spot pelicans anew as kids, my father would recite his version of the 1910 limerick penned by Dixon Lanier Merritt:
A peculiar bird is a pelican;
It can hold more in its beak than its belly can –
It can hold in its beak enough food for a week;
But I’m darned if I see how the helican.
And every time I spot a pelican in flight, I am drawn back into that web of the past, cruising along in our little ChrisCraft on the great grey Pacific waters, watching these majestic birds free-fall and soar through the receding fog.
image: djringer.com
As always …. super piece of writing Bela. Beautiful post. You are too good.
Why thank you, Arindam!
I love your fathers limerick and how those old sayings complete with the voice that said it will often pop into your head.. me too.. c
Yup, they sure do! What I memorized as a kid has stayed with me all these years and I can conjure those rhymes out of thin air.
Life marches along and I am stark witness to its pace, swept along on the shifting tides as though my will had vanished.
I sometimes crave this. Not that I haven’t experienced it, but it seems like a distant memory — so long ago it was.
It is true, I think – creative individuals long for other than where they are, much of the time. I know it has been a pattern in my life and hear enough from others to assume it’s what motivates us to seek new frontiers, whether artistically or physically. Or maybe we simply get the two mixed up and wander aimlessly about, wondering what’s next – when channeling that wanderlust into creativity may prove more productive. I don’t know – sounds like another blog post