He watched the flying fish burst out again and again and the ineffectual movements of the bird. That school has gotten away from me, he thought. They are moving out too fast and too far. But perhaps I will pick up a stray and perhaps my big fish is around them. My big fish must be somewhere.
The clouds over the land now rose like mountains and the coast was only a long green line with the gray blue hills behind it. The water was a dark blue now, so dark that it was almost purple. As he looked down into it he saw the red sifting of the plankton in the dark water and the strange light the sun made now. He watched his lines to see them go straight down out of sight into the water and he was happy to see so much plankton because it meant fish. The strange light the sun made in the water, now that the sun was higher, meant good weather and so did the shape of the clouds over the land. But the bird was almost out of sight now and nothing showed on the surface of the water but some patches of yellow, sun-bleached Sargasso weed and the purple, formalized, iridescent, gelatinous bladder of a Portuguese man-of-war floating close beside the boat. It turned on its side and then righted itself. It floated cheerfully as a bubble with its long deadly purple filaments trailing a yard behind it in the water.
Sometimes, things that seem like not-so-good ideas turn out to be miracles. Santiago rows far out to sea and ends up catching (and eventually losing) the biggest fish of his life. This morning, I took my son to a used bike sale at my church and bought him a bike, which I thought was a terrible idea.
When my wife mentioned the sale last night, I inwardly rolled my eyes. My son has never expressed interest in learning to ride a bike, even though I've offered to teach him many times. I even bought him a bike several years ago at a neighbor's garage sale. He never touched it. It's still sitting in our garage. So, buying another bike to store in the garage did not seem like a great notion to me.
When we got the bike home, I asked my son if he wanted to practice riding it. He agreed, and we took the bike into the alley. For about 15 minutes, he launched himself over and over down the alley, with me running beside him, helping him balance. He did okay. By the time we were done, he was almost pedaling by himself, with my hand only touching the seat lightly, my fingers more of a security blanket than anything else.
I went back into the house for about an hour or so to prepare for our trip to Calumet, Michigan, this afternoon. Then, my son came out of his room and asked if we could practice again. We went back to the alley. After about three or four attempts, he was pedaling by himself and not crashing into bushes and trees. We moved to the street in front of our house, and he easily balanced and pedaled away from me and returned. He was still a little wobbly and needed to practice steering and turning, but he was doing it. By himself.
We went for a walk around the block with our puppy, and he biked like a pro. At one point, he stopped, straddling the bike, and put his face in his hands. I walked up and asked what was wrong. "Nothing," he said, not looking up at me. "I'm just so happy," he said.
"You should be proud of yourself," I told him.
My son continued to ride his new bike while my wife and I went shopping. Right before we left for Calumet this afternoon, he jumped on his bike again and rode it around the block one last time. He made me take the bike inside the house and leave it in the living room. He was afraid someone might steal it from our front porch.
My son is in love with his bike. As I sit in a hotel room typing this post in Calumet, my son is asleep on his bed. Before he turned in for the night, he said, "I miss riding my bike."
There aren't too many days as a parent that you can say you hit it out of the park.
For Saint Marty, today is one of those days.
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