January 8: Sweet Smelling and Good Tasting, Predictability, Tradition

Santiago starts fishing . . . 

He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as el mar which is masculine. They spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.

He was rowing steadily and it was no effort for him since he kept well within his speed and the surface of the ocean was flat except for the occasional swirls of the current. He was letting the current do a third of the work and as it started to be light he saw he was already further out than he had hoped to be at this hour.

I worked the deep wells for a week and did nothing, he thought. Today I'll work out where the schools of bonita and albacore are and maybe there will be a big one with them.

Before it was really light he had his baits out and was drifting with the current. One bait was down forty fathoms. The second was at seventy-five and the third and fourth were down in the blue water at one hundred and one hundred and twenty-five fathoms. Each bait hung head down with the shank of the hook inside the bait fish, tied and sewed solid and all the projecting part of the hook, the curve and the point, was covered with fresh sardines. Each sardine was hooked through both eyes so that they made a half-garland on the projecting steel. There was no part of the hook that a great fish could feel which was not sweet smelling and good tasting.

Santiago knows what he's doing.  He has a plan solely based on his experiences with la mar.  Decades and decades of blue water, white water, strong currents, doldrums, flying fish, marlin, sharks, and sea birds.  The old man doesn't really leave things to chance.  Chance is for people who really don't know what they're doing.  Who have no practical knowledge.  That is not Santiago.  His actions are guided by an innate instinct developed throughout his lifetime on the sea.

I am a person who likes predictability.  In fact, you could say that I thrive on the element of non-surprise.  When I wake up in the morning, I pretty much know what I need to accomplish before my head hits the pillow at night.  Spontaneity is not something I seek out or enjoy.  I much prefer to know that, at exactly 6:17 p.m., I will be eating a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a homemade biscuit.  Or I will be trying to finish a report for work or putting the final touches on a grant.  

For example, this morning, I knew that I had to put together music for church.  Then I had to go to Ace Hardware and buy a couple filters for my furnace.  After that, rehearsal for this afternoon's Mass.  And then I lowered myself into the crawl space that houses my furnace and changed its air filter.  After a couple minutes of downtime (my only this entire day), I was sitting on the organ bench, pounding out the hymns of the day.  Pizza for dinner (always on Saturday), and then games with my kids.  

Very little of what I typed in the previous paragraph was unplanned.  I knew that I would be doing each of those things when I woke up this morning.  Because my Saturdays are fairly regimented.  That may not sound exciting, but I find a lot of comfort in it.  I've dealt with a lot of upheaval in my life.  So, based on experience, I prefer to embrace the ordinary.  Day-to-day.  Some people thrive on creating an element of chaos and chance in their lives.  That's not me.

This evening, I played the pipe organ for my parish.  A Catholic Mass.  Songs and music that I've known since I was a kid.  Comforting.  I know things change.  That's just a fact.  I can't fight it.

However, at the moment, Saint Marty feels like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, ready to break into a chorus of "Tradition."