Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

Salmon Troller

 

When you leave the boat you’ve called home for the past three months, you will need two dock carts. Ridicu­lous as clowns spilling from a tiny car, bulging back­packs emerge from the cor­ners of your 7 by 2 by 2 ½ foot bunk, the one space here that was sole­ly yours. Gath­er the ragged sweat­shirt that served yet anoth­er sea­son, the pock­et knife you thought lost, the bare­ly used Irish Spring and coconut sham­poo. Gath­er the books and socks – so many books and socks! – the Red Dwarf DVDs, the gra­nola bars nobody else on board liked. Gath­er vac­u­um packed por­tions of coho, pris­tine fil­lets to feed your fam­i­ly through the win­ter. When all of these things are loaded into the Sub­aru, stand before your ship­mates and gath­er your words. 

You will want to thank your cap­tain, but won’t know where to begin. Do you begin at the begin­ning, with the sev­en year old boy who grew into this gray­ing man who still calls you Sis? Or do you praise the con­sci­en­tious skip­per who woke in the mid­dle of blus­tery nights to ensure the anchor held fast and avoid­ed those grasp­ing rocks where the ocean was too thin? At sea, you and this man share a lan­guage of flicked glances and raised eye­brows. Now you won­der where the sum­mer went and wish you’d used more words while you had the chance. 

You will want to apol­o­gize to your crew­mate, wish­ing you could erase the times you were impa­tient, dis­tant. Wish­ing you’d laughed at more of his jokes. Not for the first time, won­der what’s wrong with you, that even after going into this sea­son know­ing what a bad ship­mate you’d been in years past, you still didn’t behave any better. 

But your friends are tired and you are tired and you don’t have strength or grace enough to find any of these words. Gath­er hugs instead, your face crammed tight against broad chests, and tell them you love them. They are smart men who know you well; trust that now, as in all sum­mer, they hear every­thing you don’t say.

Dri­ving home, recall your mom’s assur­ances to your teenaged self: “If you can dri­ve a boat, you can dri­ve a car!” These days you do both of these things, but as rub­ber rock­ets over asphalt, no oppos­ing cur­rent or wind muf­fling your com­mands, you don’t see any com­par­i­son between the two. Thir­ty-five miles per hour feels impos­si­bly fast, reckless.

Your return coin­cides with your sweetheart’s absence, a long-antic­i­pat­ed trip to the Cana­di­an Rock­ies. Eager as you are to reunite, you enter the emp­ty house with relief. (Emp­ty, that is, except for the talk­a­tive cat who twines her­self around your ankles.) This is the first time you have been alone, tru­ly alone, for months. The sea­son crash­es over you — record-set­ting salmon runs, 48 hour turn-arounds between 16 day trips, the weary push/pull of miss­ing your part­ner, your boat, while being grate­ful for your cohorts – and you are dowsed with exhaustion. 

When you open your eyes the next morn­ing, you’ll lie immo­bile. Bed­ding crush­es you against the king-sized pil­low­top, the bil­low­ing lay­ers of flan­nel and fleece oppres­sive after all this time spent in a sleep­ing bag. Stare at a ceil­ing that is not inch­es from your face, try­ing to iden­ti­fy the dis­com­fort you feel. Real­ize you still occu­py the same posi­tion that you fell asleep in eight hours ago. Your bed hasn’t pitched you hith­er and yon, the sea’s rest­less night ensur­ing your own.

As you pre­pare to leave the house, hes­i­tate at the door. Remem­ber you’re Down South now, in a fish­ing town no longer, and return to the bath­room. Reach for eye lin­er, mas­cara, iron­ing your fur­rowed brow with an irri­tat­ed fin­ger. Slide steel spi­rals into your ears, jan­g­ly jew­el­ry that’s not safe on a boat. Study the woman in the mir­ror. Won­der who she is.

The gro­cery store will over­whelm you. Wan­der the aisles with an emp­ty bas­ket on your arm, hope­less­ly lost in options. You haven’t planned or pre­pared a meal all sum­mer; your biggest task has been to fin­ish clean­ing the fish in front of you when your cap­tain calls you in to eat, peel off your rain­pants and bloody gloves to receive a steam­ing bowl of oat­meal, a small moun­tain of cur­ry. Real­ize you have no idea how to feed your­self. Text your ship­mates that the gro­cery sto­ry is freak­ing you out. Final­ly, more out of com­pul­sion than con­vic­tion, select a car­ton of orange juice, rice crack­ers, gra­nola, and Greek yogurt. Pay $15.27 for four items that would have cost over $22 in Sitka.

You will be fur­ther over­whelmed by the abrupt anonymi­ty. You will feel the pres­ence of every one of this city’s 82,000 res­i­dents, hordes of peo­ple every­where you look and not one a famil­iar face. When you flee back to soli­tude, 35 no longer feels too fast. 

In the silence of your house, you will hear dis­tant ring­ing. This is yours to keep, a per­ma­nent sou­venir from months liv­ing with the generator’s ‘round-the-clock relent­less growl. Notice that your back is stiff as you shuf­fle from room to room. Under­stand that this ache is not from the work of fish­ing, but the absence of work. Your body protests unyield­ing sur­faces – the floor that doesn’t shift beneath your feet, the seat you don’t sway in. This motion­less world jars you. After a sum­mer marred by only one lumpy Sep­tem­ber after­noon of sea­sick­ness, you are land­sick your first day ashore. 

Com­ing from a 46-foot boat where you for­ev­er jos­tled elbows and shoul­ders with your com­pan­ions, the house’s high ceil­ings and open floor plan feel glut­to­nous. Last night you didn’t even go down­stairs, unable to stom­ach the stim­uli of two sto­ries. But now you drift through rooms, pick­ing things up, plac­ing them down again. With each item comes a mem­o­ry – the cloth you bartered for in a Tunisian souk, the Gatorade bot­tle filled with Sit­ka Sound, every card and pho­to you sent from Alas­ka cov­er­ing the face of the ‘fridge – and with each mem­o­ry the knot in your chest loosens. 

Your sweet­heart has left a trea­sure trail of rhyming love notes though the house. As you fol­low the clues through the kitchen (ful­ly loaded cof­fee pot, Eng­lish muffins, Adams chunky peanut but­ter), the bed­room (rain­bow striped socks, socks with crows, socks with cats), and the bath­room (clean tow­els, fresh soap), you will begin to remem­ber that with­in these walls lies the non-boat home that you and your sweet­heart have cre­at­ed togeth­er. This space is expan­sive not to con­tain Stuff, but love. 

Final­ly, armed with a cup of cof­fee, you will enter your writ­ing room. Smile at the inspi­ra­tional trin­kets in the win­dowsill, the sag­ging book­shelves, the bul­letin board stud­ded with pho­tos, quotes, and cards. Fac­ing the butch­er paper-plas­tered wall, study your book’s out­line. A final note of encour­age­ment waits in the cen­ter of your desk, accom­pa­nied by choco­late. You will tear up as you read it, sup­port so explic­it it leaves you weak in the knees, fum­bling for the chair. Once seat­ed, you will pick up the black Uni-ball pen you inad­ver­tent­ly stole from the boat, and begin.

 

Welcome Home

 

 

I some­times think that the writers/essays/poems that have most moved us are hov­er­ing some­where over our shoul­der as we write a par­tic­u­lar piece, a sort of divine lit­er­ary pres­ence we may not be con­scious of until after the fact. That was the case with this one. It wasn’t until after post­ing this piece that I real­ized how obvi­ously I’d chan­neled two of my favorite Fish­er Poets, Toby Sul­li­van and Moe Bow­stern. Toby wrote a piece called “Things You Will Need,” and per­haps a few years lat­er, Moe wrote one called, “Things That Will Be Dif­fi­cult,” which she cred­ited Toby with inspir­ing. Both Toby and Moe are tremen­dous writ­ers and humans; you can hear them read their essays on the In The Tote site. Please do. 

Lis­ten to “Things You Will Need,” by Toby Sullivan

Lis­ten to “Things That Will Be Dif­fi­cult,” by Moe Bowstern

Apart from shar­ing some pho­tos on Twit­ter, friends, this sea­son was my worst for keep­ing in touch. You’ve been in my thoughts – I’ve missed you! How are you? For the blog­gers among you, I’m ter­ri­bly out of touch with everyone’s work. Got a favorite sum­mer post you could link to here? I’d love at least a glimpse into what you’ve been writing.