Just 20 minutes earlier I’d been deep in my mom and dad’s couch, a nestled egg of leave- me-alone and vacation zone-out. It was morning, but no longer early. I hadn’t finished the final Harry Potter book and flipped page after page until, like a building drone of mosquito noise, my sons’ song and yelp broke through my concentration.
“Let’s . . . Let’s . . . Let’s go fishing.”
They said it until it stuck in my head like a rhyme.
I tried to redirect their enthusiasm toward something more sedentary, something that wouldn’t involve uncurling my legs, getting up, movement. Unsuccessful, I put the book down. I was lazy like a koala, a cow, lint. Movement is effort, movement is work. I didn’t want to.
“Let’s . . . Let’s . . . Let’s . . .”
And so we go. The boys are 100 steps in front of me and moving quickly. I see their fishing poles, tips flicking, but nothing more. The sleeves of my sweatshirt, dirty from yesterday and clutched down over my fingers, act as mittens. I’m far above the beach and heading straight down, sluggishly. I’m cranky about all this get-up-and-out effort, but I look at the view despite myself.
The eucalyptus trees are filled with scraps of kites. The sliver-moon leaves — pink, dull green and silver — trap them. They wave from branches, become like leaves themselves only orange, neon blue, bleached white and dangling shredded ribbons. From the top of the beach trail I look down and see a pelican fly, its body like a sharp and accurate checkmark with wings. The orange-beaked seagulls mine the sand, opportunists in every way.
I continue down the endless stairs. By the time I get to the wharf entrance, the boys have almost reached the wharf’s end, heading for their just-right spot.
And that’s when I see him: a man in ironed pants and sturdy shoes. He’s moving so slowly. And I mean slow like swaying, slow like stillness, almost. He’s inching forward, shuffling, one itsy-bit at a time. He has the final Harry Potter book open in his hands. His head is tipped down. He’s reading.
I watch him closely. He isn’t moving slowly because he’s reading, he’s reading because he can only move very slowly; it’s as fast as he can go. I don’t waste time right then wondering about the cause of this (a stroke, a fall, some other malady?). Instead, I picture someone who loves him insisting he walk the wharf. I also imagine him coming up with the idea of reading so the trek seems shorter.
The wooden wharf is straight, very wide, and railed on both long sides. Bikes aren’t allowed, neither are dogs or skateboards. I watch the families with sticky children, sea-wet and happy, easily steer around him. The fisher-people and the tourists in bunches weave slightly left or right so as not to interrupt him. No one gives a shrug or a hoot. It’s perfect. Smart man.
A car horn bleats, and I come into myself enough to know I’m staring at him. The horn again; I turn. All the handicapped parking spaces, right beside the wharf’s gates, are taken, the final one just filled. I watch a man get out of his car. He uses his arms to swing his legs, one at a time, from the driver’s seat to the sandy pavement. He sits for a moment, half in and half out of the car, then rises.
Long minutes later, he is at the passenger side door with a wheelchair he’s maneuvered out of the car’s trunk. He fetches his wife. The smooth dance of transfer from one seat to another is practiced; they’ve done this before. He rests his hand on her shoulder and readies for the wharf push. She tucks a blanket and its fringe around her legs.
And then they move.
Her face is simply a light. She raises it up and breathes the sweet stink of bait, scales, salt. The lingering eucalyptus tang drifts from the cliffs down to her.
Impatient, the boys call to me. I see their mouths move; a small wind grabs the soundless words. Their arms wave. Their bodies say “Here we are.” Their bodies say “Come.” Their bodies say “Move.” I do.
E-mail Fort Collins poet and writer Natalie Costanza-Chavez at grace-notes@comcast.net. Read more of her essays at .
