Water Boatman

For the past week or so I've noticed a tenant in our pool. It's a lone water boatman, which I usually find in the southeastern corner (shallow end) of the pool. It lurks near the bottom, and when I walk over there to prime the vacuum hose and rotate the return, it rows itself slowly away from my advancing legs and feet. I know it won't bite so generally it doesn't bother me that we have yet another pet around here.

Our first summer there were two or three boatmen. Last year I don't remember seeing a single one. I know that they aren't the least bit perturbed when I shock the pool - no manner of superchlorination slows them down. They feed on algae, and there's surely not much of that.

So most days when I'm cleaning the pool, the boatman and I respect one another's presence. It's fast enough that I couldn't get it with the vacuum even if I wanted to. But for some reason today, I didn't want it there, under my feet. After I gathered up several large, fat garden spiders from the bottom, I decided to use the hose end to fetch up the water boatman. The boatman didn't cooperate.

They are strong swimmers, indeed. I could see that it was caught in the current of the vacuum, but it kept rowing away, enough that it wasn't sucked into the hose. All the time I was doing this I wondered why - what in me needed such cleanliness as to deny the boatman his own personal 40,000 gallon aquarium? Maybe I was bored. I don't know. I finally got the hose close enough to it on the pool bottom and the boatman vanished into the hose.

Of course, I couldn't let it end there. I felt bad to have done it. It seemed more an exercise, a test. So when I reset to half-suction on each intake skimmer port, and after I reeled up the hose, I went back and opened the skimmer to fetch the boatman out and let it just go back into the pool. He was swimming freely in the vortex of the skimmer, and by the time I'd gone for the small mesh "net", the boatman had escaped back into the pool all on its own.

Now that's creepy. I had a dream a few weeks ago about a water boatman in our pool, and it was the size of a large kayak. This guy is only about a half-inch long, but it has the power to swim against the force of the pump. It's impressive. And it's creepy. Now I'm going to have to give it a name or something, get it a collar, a toy - I don't know. All I know is that the pool belongs to the water boatman. But it's generally a good sport, so that shouldn't bother us one way or the other.

What have I done?

Written in reponse to this question posed on a bulletin board I frequent:

I sat up and held my father's hand all night before he died, so my exhausted mother and sister could sleep. I was afraid. But I was alert enough to wake everybody else up so we could hold him as he left us.

I comforted my mother in her senility. I cooked for her and set her meals upon the table. I got excellent help for her, and together we helped her continue to live her life as she wanted it. I fought doctors for her health. Then I protected her from the doctors and helped her die. I wiped her ass, cleaned up her accidents without complaining. Then I held her hand and calmed her as she panicked right before she left us. And now it seems I'm my family's glue, even as unglued as I am.

I cleaned up my girlfriend's kitchen when she was grieving a miscarriage. Then I waited on her during her labor when she gave birth a few years later. I have nursed my aged aunt through a couple of devastating illnesses and heart attacks, by doing little things for her and keeping her company.

In my last job, I sat with countless people who had just been diagnosed with cancer and listened to their stories and their fear. I did the same while some of them succumbed to the devastating disease. I attended their funerals and met their children or their parents or their spouses and acknowledged their grief. And I wasn't afraid then.

When I can, I treat friends to getaways when they're in need of an emotional break. When I have extra money, I send it to my friends who don't. I planted my sister-in-law's garden this spring, as she was too weak from chemotherapy.

I offer my ear and my listening to friends who need to be heard, and my comfort and sincere presence to those who need some love.

I'll never do anything that will make me famous, and that's okay. But I show up.

Our country year

Our yard is surrounded by woods, thick and deep in some places, and overgrown with greenbriar, wild grape and Virginia creeper. I think for the most part it's a sanctuary for all kinds of animals and insects, and certainly the ticks find it habitable at certain times of the year. I had thought we'd find this place to be mosquito-infested in summertime, as our yard in Illinois was from the middle of May until August. We were here several weeks in July 2002 before we realized there wasn't a mosquito to be found. Of course, NJ was in the last days of a six-year drought, so I figured that pretty much summed it up.

But if you were to stroll down to the end of the street, all the way to the pastures, you'd likely donate more than a few red blood cells for the next generation of mosquitoes. The road isn't paved much past our house, and the canopy is enough that it's barely possible to see the roadway from overhead as you travel south. A regular mosquito haven.

And yet, not our yard. Over time we've come to realize that we are blessed with dragonflies (many different varieties all summer) and bats. On sultry days the dragonflies will perch on my toes if I'm floating in the pool. They rest only briefly and then continue their hunt. Some of them actually seem to pace the open yard, up and down, up and down, as if following some grid set up on the lawn. They are blue, red, brown, green, black or white. Sometimes they hover before me as if sizing me up: friend or foe? I count myself a friend.

In the evenings, bats begin their circling routine high overhead. Usually there are two or three - I don't remember seeing more. I know they are about most of the night, too, as two nights ago, I head a light thump on the balcony adjoining our bedroom. I got up and turned on the floodlight in time to see the bat swoop away. I don't know if it was resting or feeding. What I never knew before was that the bats actually hunt very close to the ground, and right over the water of the pool. We were sipping cocktails poolside one evening and noticed they would flit across the water right in front of us, silently and swiftly.

Now, I like bats. I know the statistics on rabies infection in NJ, and it's really low for bats. I'm not afraid of them - at least, I'm not afraid in the same way I'm not afraid of snakes. I am startled by them, by their speed and erratic movements, but when I have identified them, I calm down and observe. But last evening, just about twilight, I went out to check that there were no critters trapped in the pool. A bat flew around me, at about waist height, obviously successful in its hunt, and I wasn't startled at all. Perhaps I was a lure for the few brave mosquitoes that must actually be here. I heard nothing, felt nothing but the gentlest breeze from its wings. It was within arms length. I felt blessed and protected, much the way Sue Hubbell describes in one of the most lovely passages in A Country Year.

I hope it's not too stormy tonight. I want to go out there again and fly with the bats.

Hmmmm

Okay, I'm fatigued. I've been alone here for two nights and that means I don't have any sense about bed time. Yesterday I went into some sort of coma-like trance while lounging on a queen-size float in the pool. The only things that woke me up were the blazing sun when the clouds parted, and the stiff gusts of wind that shook leaves off the trees.

But I have been pondering family, and location, and responsibility, and purpose. And getting nowhere, I might add. Recent events such as clearing out my mother's house have left me dazed and confused. I want to cut and run. I want to take off this cloak of my life and put on another one, a cleaner one, a more peaceful one.

Then again, it's quite peaceful now. Earlier today, during the downpour that caused widespread flooding, I noticed that the hummingbirds were still at the feeders, undeterred. Hmmmm. I suppose that's a sign, or a teaching. Dayum.