Dusk

A faint path lopes along the top of the isthmus that separates the mooring lagoon from the sea. I didn’t notice it for a month, and trudged the rougher scree that tried to throw me off balance. Imagine my delight one evening, in the slanting rays, to find an easier way. And it was always there. Life doesn’t have to be so hard.

Immense relief upon entering the water. Fins slipped on, mask and snorkel adjusted, I bend forward, plant my face under the surface and push away from the shallows. Gravity is no longer relevant, nor is much else.

Immediate fish greet me as I’m embraced by the sea, though one crashed into a rock once, startled by my sudden appearance and forward propulsion.

Just to be here is enough, and most days I don’t go far. At dusk everybody’s feeding, large and small, with fights and chases and stalking. They dart and cruise and nibble and hide and ease through crannies and nooks. Circling needlenoses prefer the surface, with larger darker round fish along the bottom. Abundant yellow-stripes fill the water column any old how, their silver undersides catching the dim glow as they turn. Transparent jellies float with the current, and starfish move slowly across the ocean floor.

Even muted by waning light, the creatures dazzle with grace and color: Confucius fish with amber tail and green mottled sides, bejeweled blue fish with teal tail dot flashing. Is that an eel? wriggling under a rock, both mustard yellow. And the shy octopus, now beige, now black, now gone. Such wondrous diversity of shape and size and fin and spine! Those larger silver fish appear to be swimming backward, their flapping fins closer to tail than head. Is that a horn? It lies flat or rises up to help steer — a forehead fin? The single golden fish is also shy, but a tad curious. What am I?

Ballet. Flow. Humor. Drama. Life.