Pacific Prayer

Peer into the ocean through a fisheye-boil over the rising tide.

Starry fish scales shimmer through waves breaking. A grain of Lahontan wilderness sparkles for a moment. Or maybe it’s the Finn of a transplanted cousin.

Earth and water embrace Life here.

Let Humility flow through you.

Remember family, past sadness to hopeful future.

Enjoy bread’s sweet smell before tasting it.

Let the sweet pup rest his weary head on your lap before waking him with a stroke.

Watch the sun setting, but do not look directly at it.

Treat people at work with respect and honor, and take pride in their achievements.

Thank yourself for being where you are.

Thank others for being with you.

Give special thanks for little sisters.

Allow a Regal Penguin to fill your mind. Smell its cold, stiff feathers in the spiking wind. Shake a laugh to imagine a Penguin’s love. Now open your eyes and be home.

Embody Grace.

Stars can be thought of as Twinkling Birdies

Finn woke me a few minutes ago with a kind of squeal-shriek. Usual mid-night stuff, but I went in to check anyway. Uncharacteristically for one of his mid-night jolts, he had woken himself up. As soon as he saw my dim shadow in the room he clutched Bear and stood up in his crib. Admiring the novelty, I picked him up and headed downstairs in the dark. At 4 o'clock even Halibut rolls over and goes back to sleep, which is what the dog did until I opened the fridge door. The light jumped out at us into the dark kitchen. Finn's eyes were pretty wide. I rifled around in the crisper and pulled out a carrot. Finn immediately took it from my hand, which startled me, and then swung his arm over my side and said, Ha-blit! The dog was at our side almost instantaneously, and he gingerly removed the carrot from Finn's offering hand. After that we all three went into the front yard. Ha-blit peed over at the side of the house. I looked way up then pointed to get Finn's attention. Stars, I said.

Birdie? he replied.

No. Stars.

Birdie, he confirmed with his extended index.

We went back inside, had a couple gulps of peaches from a jar in the fridge, and went back to bed.

Buv

Finn woke us with a moan from his room at 6:30 AM. It’s Saturday after a week of Flu bug passing first from Finn (last Sunday) to Tricia (Tuesday) and finally to me (Thursday). We all stayed home all week and mostly slept and moaned and groaned and the other things that go with Flu.

But this morning’s moan was more energetic—more bellow than moan.

I’ll take care of him all afternoon if you let me sleep-in, Tricia spoke slowly through her post-Flu grog.

Blaaaghh. OK, I re-snorted.

I brought Finn into bed with us, put him on his tummy between us, and rolled over—back to him—and tried to doze. As my lids fell shut I dimly registered wisps of stirred creamy fog sailing by our bedroom window—a ship moving through an offshore bank, so quiet you could hear a gull wing past the bow.

Bird-ie!

The two opposing syllables rang me from my doze. Silence filled the room. I wondered if it was a dream. Then starkly:

Car!

Finn’s voice was clear, like a stream’s crystal burble in early dawn. It had a high, bird’s note, and a deep ker-plunk.

Wee-lay (Finn’s interpretation of Wheel).

My mind raced, trying to blow the fog from my eyes. I finally caught up:

Truck! I said solidly.

Car, he countered quickly.

Wheel. (I said it properly and, in the ensuing pregnant pause I could tell he was smiling because he knows I think it’s funny when he says it.)

Go-dur! (Yogurt.)

Halibut!

Mamma!

Hair!

Noze!

Scratch!

He scratched his nail on the pillow near my ear.

Scatch, he tried. Then a cascade:

Ha-blit! Duggie (the generic term for things like Halibut)! Nanna (banana)! The tempo told me we were on our way to having a complete discussion, in full non sequitur, consisting of Finn’s entire vocabulary, strung together, mind, by phonetic emphasis, humor, and a shared inner picture of the context and whole meaning of each concept.

Apple (I remembered Frost’s pane of glass melting and shattering an orchard of bare apple trees, and I smelled a stiff East Coast October morning and felt cold apple-sticky fingers and hard hands).

Fishie (he jerked me back).

Light (I jerked him back with the first word he ever spoke).

Jackie (the name of the UCSC student who has taught Finn some words).

Book.

Sox! Shuze! Car! Fishie!

It was a request: Breakfast on the Wharf and a viewing of the fisherman and the Sea Lions.

Love, I said.

Silence on his end. Then:

Buv? He asked quietly for a repeat of the new word.

Yes. Love.