Monet Painting

A Lori Tale

Writers, from what I’ve read, some anyway, are visited by a ‘muse’ for literary inspiration. Such a tool is commonly used by me and comes in the form of Lori, a child roaming out there in my storytelling universe. She will pay me visits at odd times, such as this day, looking out on a clear ocean horizon; the first in a few, with a sky swept clean of cloud. The ocean, as far as can be imagined, is without malice.

To the sailor in me, that’s a good thing. I have a bulkhead of memories in my brain, full of tempestuous seas. Dad, no longer walking the earth, was at home on the waves. By his own admission, dad always felt a slight unnerving twitch when his vessel dipped into a trough. Free falling into a dark blue valley, then shuddering violently as the boat hit the bottom of the crest. The sea, he always said, takes those who love her most. He was right, but it didn’t take him, I gifted him to the ocean after a lifetime’s fishing.

“Mr. Harry…you there?” It’s a voice I’ve come to know very well, having taken up residency in my heart.

“Hey Lori. Sure, I am.”

“Help me with the gate, Mr. Harry.”

She bursts forth. Years off my life glide away. Not because the child is angelic, not because she is without imperfection. Indeed, one eye is cast, but because her young limbs stretch out, freeing herself in my garden to begin her games. It’s always the same game; life goes on forever.

“Hurry, Mr. Harry. Or you’ll miss him!”

“I’m coming, Lori. Miss who?”

“He’ll be gone a moment from now,” she says, her hand reaching into mine.

“Well, we’d better hurry then.” I say.

Mystery is all there is to mystery, unless you count on the coming of it. As her tiny hand fits into mine, my heart winging through a hole in the mist. From our vantage point, I can see dad’s vessel, clear as a Monet painting. Some men turned for home when winter came, he did not. The sea held dad as mother, wearing a shawl of ribbons, held him at home.

Dad cared nothing of adverse implications that dogged mere humans. His blood diluted with the salinity of the oceans. He taught me that the most ‘hostile’ environment is the one we ourselves live in. Not the barren, hard, savage ocean places where he worked.

Dad never asked me about writing. I never had much to say about it, how I do it, or even why. Dad wasn’t a difficult man to deal with; nor hard to please. He made happiness his life’s habit.

“Why did you bring me here, Lori?” I ask, shading my eyes from the burning in the sky.

“I didn’t bring you here Mr. Harry.” She says…a petal on the grass. “He did…” Her arm risen horizontal, its directing finger as sharp as a stab to my soul. Dad was my ocean and my stars, my God and all his heaven.

Before the first day of school we took a picnic down to the harbor. It was thick with tourists, the air’s fragrance that of suntan lotion and ice cream. We sat under the harbor wall, in the cool shade. I paddled around waiting for dad. He had gone searching between the rocks. I caught the expression on his face — an excited, gleaming smile. He came wading into the water, his hands holding seashells and sea pebbles.

Whenever dad was home he told stories about the mighty seas. The deep-sea fishes, un-acknowledged, but living all the same. I enjoyed summers, but far more, the winters . The tourists had gone home. The prevailing winds, floods, and storms are an integral part of coastal living. A time when the sea is at its most powerful.

“Hold my hand, son,” he says smiling.

I take hold of his hand. Its strength, knowing all its work, and its beauty.

“Put these in your back pocket, lad.”

I don’t know how or why, but it’s a moment that feels an hour long.

I look back from this vision on the sea. Lori is holding her hand open, raising it to me. This child befriending a man who has the unique ability to lose himself in a mist that covers his reality. I have protected myself well. I will always be what I write; happy, sad, rich, or poor. I am what the words say and no longer feel any ambition to prove otherwise.

“What do you have there, Lori?” I ask.

At the gate, Lori holds open her hand. In it are seven seashells; the same seven seashells that sit on my desk in the study.

I pull open the gate. “You have found seashells, Lori.”

“No, Mr. Harry, the man who gave them to me, told me they were continents. Bye for now, Mr. Harry,” she says.

My work gets done. Life moves along, and there are times — a few minutes every day — when I forget about dad.

Well, maybe less than a few.

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