Small is grand. Also funny when magnified in ways that omit explanation. This morning, for instance, when, lacking anything much to post on FB, I mentioned watching seals in the Arm--which makes perfect sense if you live in Halifax. The comments that came back pointed out how weird that sounds to anyone not from here. Objectivity. The struggle, always, to put yourself in your reader's glasses, in his or her skin, his or her Hawaiian shirt or Bermuda shorts or whatever.
Seals in the Arm: some kind of tattoo? Like the huckleberry leaves that as kids we licked and fixed to our wrists, the yellowy imprints they left, utterly temporary. This in the day when serious ink was exclusively naval. Anchors, undulating babes, text: "Mom" inside an inky heart.
Ephemeral--the huckleberry ones. As short-lived as the sighting of a seal's snout, its wake stirring the deep, narrow channel at high tide. Mornings best, the water a green wind in the rockweed. Just like when we used to swim there. Dog-paddling.
A solitary seal doing its best to motor past a speedboat. Head just like a retriever's on the breakaway before sounding.
And gratitude from the land-bound for such small things: their presence swimming out there as if the water were pure. As if all might be so resilient
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