This series is a collection of moods, moments, themes, and images that emerge from the story that is my earliest memory:
Reaching back as far as I can, I find a memory of my Pop and I in a skiff that he built and called the Whisper. I loved that boat the way a child loves a family pet. We were deep in a star-thick night, skimming over the mirror flat bay of our home—a small, coastal town guarded by the massive bulk of Morro Rock. I was around two years old.
That night, we were one of many skiffs in a darting squadron of revelers. Voices, laughter, and outbursts of song echoed and bounced around me. The grown-ups were always goofing off, and here their goofing was at its best. There was a vitality to them when they were outdoors, with strength and skill they wielded the oars, controlled the boats—most of which they had built themselves. Our frictionless speed filled me with an exhilarating courage, a particular state of being that I still chase to this day. The vast dome of shining stars and the mystery of the endless waters had me wondering at the hugeness laid out before tiny me. The sheer scale of it all lulled me into a pleasant disorientation.
And then, click! A switch flipped and initiated a permanent change in my frame of reference. It was as if my brain, in that moment, had grown just enough connections to shift into self-awareness. Left behind was the toddler perspective of being at the center of a constant now. I began to register a sense of earlier and later, our progression across the broad bay became a visual indication of the passing of time. I began to understand myself as a creature in relationship with other creatures. I considered the various connections between us and thought about where we had been compared to where we were going—and the stars, they wheeled above us in relationship with the steady roil of sea below.
This reverie was interrupted by Pop, who said, “Look down, kid.” He used his big, laughing Father voice, so I knew it meant something good. No time wasted, I grasped the bulwark, leaned way out and peered down into the silken, black waters. A beat. And then, in silent eruption, brilliant blue lights burst forth from within the flawless dark. They formed a trail, falling back from our stern as we leapt forward.
Stunned, I turned to check Pop’s face, my glance telegraphing some eight questions in a flash. Pop was just grinning, beaming with knowing—loving every bit of my astonishment and discovery.
After that I could see the lights were blooming everywhere. Clouds materialized at every plunge of oars as they cut into the water, falling in cascades as the oars cycled out. Each boat made its own watery trail of light. For hours, all night long, a lifetime, I don’t know, I was lost in the strange beauty of those lights. My concentration absolute, my curiosity ravenous for the What?! Why? How? of them. My eyes devoured the feast.
That night on the bay shifted my experience of the world permanently. It marked the beginning of my sense of time, it placed me into awe in the face of the huge and mysterious, and gently nestled me in a humble joy knowing my small spark was in relationship with it. With shocked delight I received what those lights had to tell me—that I did not see the whole picture. And, that at any moment something new, true, and beautiful might emerge.
Pop told me later what those lights were, and that there were called bioluminescence. A word that, like a little poem, meant: Life and light.