Bay CrossingsJournal

CAVORTING

By Bill Coolidge

Miss Darlene leads the procession of shrimp boats up Taylor’s Creek as the cloud laden peach orb settles behind the old clapboard buildings of Duke Marine Lab. Small splashes kick right and left as I paddle my blue kayak toward town. The Relics, a rock and roll band from Raleigh, are playing at the Dockhouse. I can hear the refrain,‘What’s going on,’ drift downstream even on this night passage, surrounded by water and islands of sanctuary, so much of my thoughts veer back to September 11. ‘What’s going on?’

Abundant beauty this soft evening, immense suffering on another island adjacent to the Atlantic. What I can do, I do. Paddle, listen, experiencing creation groan, the buoys clanking, warning of the shoals. I paddle, letting the slipping water, released off my paddle be my prayer.

The whine of the shrimp boats’ engines comes to me like mammoth dentist drills, a steady whine, they will turn right at the end of Taylor’s Creek and head toward Middle Sound, then around the backside of Shakleford Banks and into the Atlantic.

The current slides my lightweight vessel sideways. I lunge into a forward stroke to make any headway, not exactly what I want to do on a full stomach but I love music and water and the night. I stay close to the anchored sailboats and make my way between them while the current re-converges downstream. Here I find an eddy, a calm places to paddle.

Just as I near Beaufort’s docks I hear what sounds like the bellows of an old tuba. I stay the kayak, peer into the dusk, there it is again, "om pah whoosh!" I turn around quickly, the blue boat rocking back and forth and I see one and then another. A pair of dolphins cavorting around my little boat. Their dive leaves only ripples, like a platform diver making a perfect entrance into the water. I wait. I hope. I paddle a little to keep myself in place thinking they might want to come and play.

‘Om pah whoosh." They have swum underneath me and are now on the other side, one then the other, like twins, diving shallow and surfacing. I paddle, trying to keep up with them as they head toward town. I want to be with them, I want to chuckle and laugh and talk.

I wait, circling, but the dolphins have left, probably going up the Newport River and into the Intercoastal Waterway, a nocturnal journey along the Neuse River, then on to Oriental or New Bern.

The Relics are singing some Neil Young songs, guitar, percussion, two voices as I paddle in circles in front of the dock. Tiring of the unrelenting tide and the bright lights, I turn back and let the current carry me and any number of small fish back down the creek, a nursery, this watery expanse we call home.

What sense can I make of a visitation by a dolphin? A sign of succeeding goodness? Peace and harmony? I doubt it. As I write this I notice the ibis have returned to the island, the high surging tide is outgoing now, giving them green spaces to plunge their beaks. Earlier this morning I saw a half dozen of them a mile inland, pecking on a lawn. Life recovers, reclaims, continues on. For half of my life I have grieved and I have searched. The motion of life often left me behind, a little island, tears welling, wondering if I could go on. Finding no sanctuary, knowing I would betray the memory of those I lost, I, nevertheless, stepped into the whirlwind of American life.

Those grieving on Manhattan Island, where are the eddies? Who will stop the motion of time and activity and sit with them, stilled in the immense silence?

This night passage offers a certain sadness rewound backwards when I hear her sing "What’s going on? What’s going on?" I keep on paddling, crabbed at by a night heron as I cruise along the banks of Carrot Island. The current returns me to my dock. It doesn’t seem like much of an offering, this witnessing, remembering, the touching of ancient grief. The surprising joy of meeting two dolphins. Life offers twin injunctions: ‘Be serious, be playful.’ Out on the salty expanse of Taylor’s Creek, I was both.