The Bottom
This week’s guest contributor offers us a seaweed tangled reflection of what lies beneath.
Barbara
by Edie Everette
How did we decide who was next to look over the bow? One of us rowed with our back to the shore while the other leaned over the dinghy’s pointed bow in order to be the first to see ‘bottom.’ Bottom was the sand, mud, rock, or seaweed that slowly revealed itself as we got closer to shore. Would we see skeletons or monstrous creatures loom up from below? We feared what we had to see.
Our families were neighbors, our four parents all old enough to be our grandparents. Each of our grade school summers we chartered a boat and launched from Seattle, Port Ludlow, or Lund in order to motor up the coast to Canada. Decked out on Chris Crafts, Grand Banks, or house boats, we all ventured north by sea.
When we anchored in a cove for the evening, you and I would take the dinghy to shore. Seeing seaweed over the small boat’s bow was especially creepy because the sinuous arms of grass hid the bottom, teasing and prolonging our fear.
Back at your house in Seattle, across the alley from mine, was a Magic 8 Ball. Hard and black, the size of a grapefruit, we asked it questions then turned it over in order for answers to float up into a little window. Watching for the bottom was a lot like waiting for the Magic 8 Ball’s answers.
We hated ropes thick as arms with fine green hairs that swooped below the surface tied to docks and pilings. Those ropes were part of a world we could not imagine let alone see. It was all too much mystery, too close.
If seeing bottom was training us for life’s unknowns, I don’t think it worked. We never imagined, looking over that bow in some peaceful, lapping cove, that in a distant future your husband would die suddenly while mowing the lawn or that I would have a breakdown in college.
Upon reaching shore we’d jump from our little boat and tie it to a log. We once found a cabin with a green fork, green table, and green peanut butter jar—the past home of some lone soul. Meanwhile, offshore on the anchored boat, our parents mixed cocktails and shucked fresh oysters in preparation to play Bridge.
After exploring a small island or lagoon, you and I returned to the dinghy with nothing left to fear. When we looked over the sides and into the water, all we saw were reflections of ourselves.
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Edie Everette is an illustrator, teacher, and writer who drinks a lot of coffee in the Pacific Northwest.