Two four-year-olds hang over the sides of the old whaler, fishing for jellyfish with beat-up butterfly nets. Wading to the boat, her son picks up a round rock, It’s a worry stone! he says. They’re searching for moon jellies, shining circles softer than beach glass, the size and pattern of the bottom of a coke bottle. Today though, they’re only catching the stinging brown jellies, Lion’s Mane and sea nettles, nemesis of both their fisherman dads. Sloshing their catch into a stinging brown bucket. Last night his mom looked so strong in the late summer light, a baby on her back and a toddler leaning against her legs, while sunset melted gold across the path of boat lights and her worries trailed out along the space growing between skiff and seiner. I took that photo thinking at least I’ll have something if I don’t see him again, she said. This is the first time I haven’t cried saying goodbye. She was crying now though, holding the baby whose name graced the boat we’d just traveled away from in the skiff. I woke up thinking of fishermen’s wives, standing by through these seasons. Wives scribbling part numbers onto scraps of paper, piecing together scraps of conversation over Satellite and trac phone calls. Carrying on and carrying stories like stones worried in our thoughts. A skiff man lost when rough weather broke the tow, a brother and sister drowned when a net shifted and flipped the boat. Wives willing them all home safely. I try helping the jellyfishermen by using a paddle to push the jellyfish closer to their eager little nets, but they slip under and away, drifting without volition. Living water is the Portuguese translation of jellyfish. Drawing water in and out, wave-borne, current-borne, retreating and returning. How to give yourself up to it? To live gracefully with unknowns. Open open opening.
