Rhapsody in Blue

Yesterday I pulled myself out of bed early, early, early and put on my fishing boots.  It was the third time this year that I have managed to get out on the boat with Dave, and my body was not really on board with the process, as the first full week of school hit me a little bit like a load of bricks.

Then again, I think most school weeks hit most educators like that.

So at the week's end, the 7 year-old in me really felt like I should be sleeping in and then watching cartoons.  My 33 year-old self reminded me about a certain resolution about improving my work/life balance, and how time on the boat with Dave had been identified as an important part of that balance.

Rargh, it was 4 o'clock, grumble, grumble.

When I opened up the chicken coop before we left, the sky was full dark and awash with stars.
When we arrived at Shafty's, the harbor was thrumming with the low murmur of marine engines, and the water dotted with cabin lights.  A sea alight with fireflies.  While Dave went into the building to pull some cow hide out of his barrel, I stopped to breathe, to watch, to enjoy early morning open-air work that doesn't involve a lot of talk.

The joys of being both sternman and wife.
You finish the coffee on your own terms.

A bit of a balm after a week full of afternoons and evenings in committee meetings.

We got to the boat, put on gear, and prepped for the day.  Steaming toward the first string, I dropped red fish into bait bags, careful of their spines, and a morbidly bemused by their giant eyes.  The sky began to lighten in the east, and I would turn to the west: as ever a fan of the dark, the quiet, the gentility of a world asleep.  This is the romance of fishing- the first hour.  When you still have coffee, and you are tired from waking up, but not tired from the day's slog.  Regardless of the weather, dawn is always a miracle.

Dave took this photo:

Color and light

                I took this one:

Clinging to the last vestiges of the dark.

He faces East, I face West, and we muddle along with a fuller view for being together.  Which is why it is nice to actually be in each other's company.  It will surprise no one that while Dave spent the day concentrating on the work at hand (since he's the one who actually does the thinking and the operating of the heavy machinery), I spent the day in my head plotting elaborate escapes from public employment- when I wasn't mentally reciting "one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" in honor of the day's bait.  

This morning, we slept in- when Dave came down, I'd already made the coffee, and had started to journal about work, and shared the thought:

"I much prefer having you as my boss to having a whole committee and tax roll of employers."

"Well, when you're on the boat, I am not really your boss, wifey."

"Exactly."