The Boy at sea.
The Boy loves to be driven places. The paradox of a constant scene always changing is soothing, I think. But it’s only recently that he’s been able to get on a sea-going vessel without panicking.
A few summers ago, my father, The Boy, our stepmother and her kids went to the beach. They chartered a boat to take out on the gulf for a day of fishing. The Boy quite enjoyed it — here, finally, he found his peace in the ever-shifting sameness of the sea. My father wisely brought a portable CD player with headphones and a CD he’d made of favorite songs of his and The Boy’s. (Some of which might make you seasick as you sit there — Foreigner, Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee,” The Moody Blues [which I admit I like quite a bit, a private shame that is both nature and nurture].)
So The Boy listened to his songs, sitting there on the deck of the small boat as it bobbed through the great dark waters, and the family fished. After he’d listened to his fill of the music, perhaps playing Alan Jackson a few times over, The Boy pressed Stop, removed the headphones, picked up the CD player, and flung the works into the sea. He laughed, and then the family laughed.
Far beneath the never-changing waves, the fish wondered what new thing had settled here among them. One of them must finally have pressed Play, and indeed it was only the weight of water above them that prevented the fish from throwing it back out.
Oct 9th, 2009 8:07pm
