Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

I wrote this for Fish­er­Po­ets Gath­er­ing 2019. All this time lat­er, I remain thank­ful for the deeply heal­ing gift of shar­ing these words with a com­pas­sion­ate audi­ence in the sacred space of Asto­ri­a’s KALA Gallery. Maybe it’s strange to post now, a piece on depres­sion amidst sum­mer’s buoy­ant days. Or maybe it’s exact­ly right to post now, as Joel & I have our sea­son­al Sit­ka home­com­ing & pre­pare to start the Nerka’s 2019 sea­son, open­ing July 1. As we come home. 

Like a lot of fish­er­folks, there are many rea­sons why I’ve built my life around this work. Few of those rea­sons are about mon­ey. For the bemused land friends who some­times ask how long I think I’ll keep fish­ing — the first answer is, “As long as it’s an option.” The sec­ond answer is in this essay.

Thanks for read­ing, friends. If you’d pre­fer to lis­ten, audio link here.

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On Decem­ber 28, 2018, after spend­ing an hour sob­bing in my parked car for no iden­ti­fied rea­son and unable to stop, I drove to a walk-in clin­ic and begged to be seen. With­in min­utes, I sat with a doc­tor. He eased into his assess­ment, first inquir­ing what I do for a liv­ing, then gen­tly ask­ing what was going on. I described the pre­vi­ous ten months, near-con­stant bouts of uncon­trol­lable cry­ing, anx­i­ety, and pan­ic, relieved only by wel­come peri­ods of numb­ness. He peered at me through heavy glass­es. “Maybe you should con­sid­er a career oth­er than fishing.” 

I laughed. A real, hon­est-to-good­ness laugh – the first of its kind in a long time – with the indul­gent smile you’d give a child, because his sug­ges­tion was so assured­ly, absurd­ly not the solu­tion for my par­tic­u­lar prob­lem. Fish­ing is the one true thing hold­ing me togeth­er. It always has been.

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The sad­ness washed over me last win­ter. What start­ed as one con­crete loss swelled into a tsuna­mi hope­less­ness I’d nev­er expe­ri­enced in my 41 years, so full-bod­ied it was like being sea­sick. Sad-sick: nau­seous, limp and bone­less, yet limbs so heavy I couldn’t move. Any­one who’s been inca­pac­i­tat­ed by sea­sick­ness knows it’s the worst feel­ing in the world. You want to die.

The back roads lead­ing to my house are forest­ed S‑curves twist­ing over deep ravines. With­in the throes of sad-sick­ness, it’s easy to dri­ve those roads too fast, take the turns too sharp. Part of fishing’s lure was self-preser­va­tion. The ocean has no invit­ing edges. I am safest on the ocean. 

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The ocean has been sav­ing my life since I was a child. As a hurt­ing teenag­er, I left my mom’s house at fif­teen, yet still came back every fish­ing sea­son to crew on her boat. At twen­ty-six, I fled the trau­ma of my social work career to return to fish­ing. I did it grace­less­ly, exe­cut­ing the most pure­ly self­ish act of my life, and it worked. The ocean healed my hurt­ing places. It made me feel whole again. 

This is my sto­ry, but so many of us could tell it. So many fish­er­folks go to sea by our own unique ver­sion of the same dilem­ma: we don’t quite fit any­where else. Land life is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly chaot­ic and mut­ed, too loud while say­ing lit­tle. We go through the motions, pass­ing time between sea­sons: we are either fish­ing, com­ing back from fish­ing, or prepar­ing to go fish­ing. Some claim to be over it, want some­thing dif­fer­ent, yet I see them back on the same decks year after year. On the ocean, we under­stand and accept the risks. It’s where we’re hon­est with our­selves. We know when we’re afraid. When we’re hurt. When we’re alive. On land, I’ve slogged through the days and every inter­ac­tion is exhaust­ing and with every unan­swered email and ignored voice mail it’s ever more evi­dent something’s miss­ing, I’ve lost my bear­ings, but out­ward­ly I hold it togeth­er, out­ward­ly I seem to have my shit togeth­er, and when any­one peers too close I swing diver­sions like a gaff  – “Tell me about YOU, how are YOU doing?” – sum­mon­ing what­ev­er last bit of ener­gy I have to keep them from know­ing how far out to sea I real­ly am. 

Fish­ing doesn’t allow that deceit. From boots firm­ly ground­ed on deck to spray sting­ing your face, fish­ing yanks you into your body, into this moment. Here and now, the ocean forces an aware­ness of your sur­round­ings – the enor­mi­ty of this wild world and nature’s forces, so much greater than amor­phous, exis­ten­tial despair. There’s com­fort in that. Yearn­ing for reas­sur­ance, bone-deep des­per­a­tion too heavy to impose on anoth­er per­son? The ocean can take it. The uni­ver­sal pains of being human – our fear, lone­li­ness, uncer­tain­ty, doubt… The ocean is big enough to hold it all. 

I went into last sum­mer pray­ing the ocean would once again deliv­er that same mag­ic. Fishing’s spe­cial blend of phys­i­cal labor, sleep depri­va­tion, suns ris­ing over moun­tains and set­ting into the deep blue, work­ing along­side my love, that would be the per­fect alche­my to fix me. The ocean would wash the sad­ness away. 

But that’s not how depres­sion works. 

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On Jan­u­ary 9th, 2019, less than two weeks after the doc­tor sug­gest­ed I quit fish­ing, the news broke about the Mary B II. The New­port crab boat had rolled while cross­ing the bar the night before. All three fish­er­men lost. By the unlike­li­est gift of grace and luck, the Coast Guard retrieved all three bod­ies. Small mer­cies mat­ter, when they’re all you have.

I was with a fish­ing friend that day. We were qui­et, walk­ing through Seat­tle driz­zle, rain­drops pat­ting our shoul­ders, when this mes­sage appeared spray-paint­ed on the side­walk beneath our feet. 

I want to believe in a world where you come home to me.

God, do I ever. 

I want to believe in a world where we come home to our­selves. I want to believe in a world where we weath­er the storms and right our ships. Where we get a May Day call off in time and make it into our sur­vival suits in time and ban­shee winds don’t rip the life raft out of reach and we don’t run out of time, we all man­age to pile in togeth­er and cling to each oth­er through the night, through the day, through how­ev­er long it takes until res­cue comes. A world where res­cue does come. Where white-knuck­led, puck­ered-up free-falls scream­ing down down DOWN the gul­let of a seem­ing­ly bot­tom­less wave end not with us being devoured but spat safe­ly across the bar, slid­ing limp and dis­be­liev­ing into a stall where we’re embraced by dock­mates who rec­og­nize the haunt­ing in our eyes; they’ve been there, too. I want to believe in a world where we are gen­tle and patient and love our­selves just as we are, leav­ing a light on so all our lost, bat­tered souls might find their way home. 

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I’d planned to sit this year’s Fish­er­Po­ets Gath­er­ing out. Writ­ing is an act of inti­ma­cy, an exchange of truth-telling and trust. I’ve spent the past year lying. No spark with­in; no artistry to give. In the sad-sick paral­y­sis, I’d dis­missed a para­dox­i­cal rule of writ­ing, which applies equal­ly to human con­nec­tion: vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty gen­er­ates strength. The ocean was where I went to be hon­est with myself, going deep in that stripped-down, silent space. I come here, to these words, to be hon­est with you. This is what I’ve need­ed to say. Maybe it’s what one of you need­ed to hear. 

So many of us have been here, or are here still. So many of us wear the cam­ou­flage smile, repeat­ing that we’re fine, we’re fine, only to lie awake at night con­sumed with inex­plic­a­ble grief, ques­tion­ing our choic­es, our path, our­selves. Won­der­ing if we’ll ever be the per­son we want­ed to be, the per­son we were sup­posed to be, the one every­body believes we are. And still we mud­dle through. Trudg­ing onward, we keep going. 

And you land friends liv­ing with your own sad-sick­ness: I see you. I wish you could see your­self as I do, your courage and resilience. Mov­ing through the days with­out a count­down to the ocean’s inter­ven­tion? I don’t know how you do it… but I’m thank­ful you do. How­ev­er you are keep­ing your­self afloat, please hold fast to what­ev­er works for you. 

As for what may work for me? I took that doctor’s pre­scribed ten mil­ligrams of dai­ly hope, but I won’t take his advice. Come spring, I’ll fill my own pre­scrip­tion and go fish­ing again. This time, though, in return­ing to the ocean that has always been there for me, I’ll remem­ber that you are, too. Maybe you’ll remem­ber that, also? I’ll leave a light on for you, in that world where we all come home.