The sun will bake it out well now, he thought. It should not cramp on me again unless it gets too cold in the night. I wonder what this night will bring.
An airplane passed over head on its course to Miami and he watched its shadow scaring up the schools of flying fish.
"With so much flying fish there should be dolphin," he said, and leaned back on the line to see if it was possible to gain any on his fish. But he could not and it stayed at the hardness and water-drop shivering that preceded breaking. The boat moved ahead slowly and he watched the airplane until he could no longer see it.
The old man is not in charge of his destiny at the moment. He's at the whim and pull of the fish and the ocean. Until the wind shifts or the current changes or the fish rises, Santiago must wait and hope.
It's been a strange day. My sister ended up in the ER this morning with severe abdominal pain. My daughter drove her. I was at a doctor's appointment myself when she called to ask to be picked up. Like I said--strange. My natural morose disposition had already come up with a scenario in which my sister was having a massive cardiac event. In my mind, she was on the table in an operating room, a surgeon massaging her heart, trying to coax it back to life.
Instead, the ER doc diagnosed her with GERD. Too much pizza last night, maybe. I'm skeptical. My sister was pale. Diaphoretic. Her hands were freezing. That, to me, seems like a heart problem, not a stomach problem.
Why am I writing all this? Because I'm in a little boat. We all are. And the sea is limitless and deep. If the last few years have taught me anything, it's this: nothing is for certain. I woke up this morning with my day all planned out. Work. Doctor's appointment. Work. Taco Bell for dinner. Watching Hocus Pocus 2 with my family. Because I'm that predictable. I like predictable.
Well, most of those things actually happened. I went to work. And the check-up with my doctor. Had Taco Bell. Spent the night with Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, Sarah Jessica Parker, my wife, and kids. My sister is okay. She even worked tonight and stopped by afterward with a pizza. And I watched Hocus Pocus 2 with her again.
All of those small things happened in my small boat today. Some of them planned. Some, unplanned. Yet, small things can seem huge. My sister at the hospital this morning for GERD--huge. Eating quesadillas with my family and watching the resurrection of the Sanderson sisters--huge. Doctor's appointment where I arrange to receive a CGM (Constant Glucose Monitoring) system--huge.
In the grand scheme, though, none of those things will solve world hunger or fight homophobia or end climate change or put Donald Trump in prison or lead to Armageddon. They're tiny, like Santiago's hand cramp or the airplane that passes over his boat on its way to Florida.
But, for Saint Marty, they're Titanic-sized.
Blessing for today: Winifred and Taco Bell.
No comments:
Post a Comment