From the Dock

• A catfish, trolling for spilled crumbs from my crunchy Kashi Pumpkin Spice bar.
• A small sting ray. It rounded the dock in a wide circle, once, twice, again and again. I could see it plainly in the clear, shallow water, miniature replica of a cloaked alien space craft. And then, WHOOSH, in a cloud of stirred-up sand, it achieved warp speed. Gone.
• Purple Martin parents feeding babies popping out of the bird box.
• A blue million minnows etching the water in synchronized whorls.

Buck and I  dangled our legs over the edge and balanced our plate lunch from The Tiger (the neighborhood supermarket). A woman from England who seemed to be puzzled over how she wound up in this particular backwater served up the day’s special: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and great northern beans. Comes with a soft squishy church supper kind of roll and tea, sweet or un. We both got a drumstick, gnawed it to the bone, then threw it in for the crabs to feast on.

Spring is here. Puts us in the mood to sweep the roofs of the Shack, put in a new window ac/heat unit in the upstairs and a side bedroom, spruce up the plumbing, and scrub, scrub, scrub.

Azaleas of all sizes and colors are in full bloom. Sounds like an aviary with a felicitous mix of woodland and shore birds. Just being here, my fur begins to smooth.

In some ways, hanging out on the dock is better even than a boat. There is no work at all. No steering. No docking. No ropes to tie. And yet, once I set foot on that dock, I am as surely off the workday grid as if I were in the middle of some ocean with no land in sight. My musts, shoulds, and to-do lists float away on the out-going tide.

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