Fishing matters a lot to me and my dad.
Not because either of us actually likes fishing – I know I don’t, particularly, and I suspect he doesn’t either – but rather because it’s just…I don’t know, it’s our way to be together. Out on the water, in the air and the quiet, talking when we want to and throwing a line out into the ocean when we don’t.
It matters.
I’m having a hard time with this move. For a lot of reasons, but mostly because of my parents. I don’t want to be away from them ever, and the idea of being so far away feels, a lot of the time, like too much. And so we’ve been trying to make these past few days and weeks count. Not because we won’t see each other – we will; they’ll come there; I’ll be back – but because…this is our home, you know? It’s where I was a baby, and then a child, and then where I had my own children. It’s where our family memories have been built.
Thursday morning, my dad and I decided we’d take Indy fishing. He’s never been on a real fishing boat, and he’s just old enough to go out in Sheepshead Bay (which is where my dad grew up, and where we try to go fishing at least once or twice a year). And so when 5AM rolled around we all (grumpily) poured ourselves into our clothing, and then into the car, and then onto the BQE. And then we showed up at the dock for the Sea Queen, and discovered that – despite what the boat’s website advertised – the hard times that have been hitting the leisure fishing industry have put an end to half-day trips during the week. The only boats going out were the hard-core fishing boats; the ones that come home at sunset and are far far too much for a three year old (or, to be honest, me).
I was so sad. It felt like such a profound loss, this last opportunity (which I know isn’t the last, but still) to get my dad and my son onto the boat where my dad spent his own childhood. The guys who ran the full day boats could see it in my eyes, I think; they took my son out onto the deck and showed him seagulls and told him stories of catching The Big One. But he was still disappointed, and I think (know) dad and I were even more so.
Ordinarily this would have been a loss.
But I thought: no. Not this day.
And so we drove to Coney Island. It was 7AM, it was windy and cold, and the boardwalk was shuttered and empty of people, trash bags blowing along the wooden slats, our only company a Russian lady in a bathing suit wading into the freezing water.
And it was the best.
We found empty crab shells, took photo after photo after photo of the boarded-up shops. We buried our feet in the sand, wandered through the aquarium and laughed at otters washing their faces. We pressed stingray designs into pennies, ate Nathan’s hot dogs with extra sauerkraut, and promised we’d come back. And then my dad and my son fell asleep on the drive home, and we were happy and sandy and a little bit sunburned, and it was every bit what is wonderful about New York and about my family and about this life that we’re living, no matter where it is that we go.
