Starfish & The Luck of the Tides

Episode 07:24:2023 - Prompt: Patience

Where Patience took me…

It might be too soon to write about the past week.

About the foreshadowing of a snake coiled around the decorative wrought iron next to our front door.

The shape reminded us of the Rod of Asclepius, the single snake coiled around a staff. It’s the Greek symbol of healing & medicine.

Hospitals require patience.

Recovering from illness requires patience.

Writing about emotional unrest requires patience.

Once I can run my finger across the settled dust on this story, I’ll write it.

For now…

My thoughts about patience brought me to nature.

We must be patient for rain, patient for warmth, patient for wind.

I was born in the city. I always lived in the city until we began spending summers in Maine where I began to understand nature’s power.

Which brings me to starfish and lobstermen.

I must have been five or six…

When my mom and some of her colleagues at the Corcoran School of Art started a summer program in Tenant’s Harbor, Maine.

I believe someone donated the property to the school, which included a small island. My parents and I went up for multiple summers with a group of grad students and other artists.

This was the late-70’s. There was lots of nudity. Lots of photography, installations, life drawing.

Just a real feeling of freedom without having to name it.

There were a few kids other than me.

My mother’s friend brought her son, a very uptight boy who I knew from the city.

And then there were the local kids, the children of lobstermen.

I made fast friends with a girl named Rebecca. She had long red hair and was fearless. We’d play games in broken down cars grounded in fields of wheat, stamp through mud puddles, and eat lobster meat right out of the claw.

We had a mission to climb under a dock to collect starfish.

As we were holding onto the wooden crossbeams, reaching for starfish, the tide came in.

The uptight boy from the city stood on the shore shouting at us.

How long would it take for the tide to recede so we could return to safety?

The adults came to rescue us, but we never felt any fear.

We knew safety would be restored if we were patient.

At some point during the summer, my father loaded up a small outboard motor boat with supplies, his Nikon 35mm, my mother, Rebecca, and me.

We went out to the small island to have a picnic, and my father took photographs.

Then we noticed the weather changing and the sea becoming choppy.

My dad quickly packed up our things and loaded the boat. He gave my mother and me life preservers and told us to wait on the rocks until he had started up the motor.

Rebecca got on board the boat, I’m not sure why.

As my father pulled the cord to start the motor, which was flooding, the boat began to drift. It was no longer tethered, and was being pulled out to sea.

My father said he told Rebecca to jump and swim back to the island. He thought, we all thought, that the daughter of a lobsterman knew how to swim.

But Rebecca was afraid. As the boat bounced farther away from us, I saw my father take her hand and jump.

They swam to us. The boat disappeared with all of our gear.

The storm rolled in, and we took shelter in the only structure on the island, a small cabin used for art projects.

Drying off with costume clothing.

My father wore a Victorian gown to stay warm and dry. We patiently waited out the storm and returned to the rocky edges to signal for help.

My parents used the bright orange life preservers to flag down a lobster boat. As we climbed aboard, I remember looking at my dad in the gown in contrast to the weathered men who worked on the sea every day.

I remember thinking that we lived a different life as city folks. We didn’t fully comprehend the power of nature, but we did understand the importance of patience, of waiting until the skies cleared and the water calmed.

I don’t remember being scared. Only of being completely present.

---

YOUR TURN: Is patience a virtue? Does impending mortality dictate patience keep us alive for as long as possible? Can patience be confused with procrastination? Or faith? Or God’s will?

Where does Patience take you?

Share your story in 150 - 200 words.

POST IT IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.

Click the HEART when you read a post so the writer knows to read yours.

Heart = Heard. 

Don’t comment on my or other people’s stories. 

For more about the rules & intention of this Zine, check the About page.

---

Want to publish in TPYL Zines’s Anthology series?

The Zine will live on its own website (URL) separate from Substack. There are no submission or reading fees. The only prerequisite is active participation (4 post minimum) in the TPYL Substack community in a 4-month period. 

The first anthology with artwork is already underway with 21 Contributors!

More info in the Forum!

Happy writing!

My mom shooting 8mm film. Tenant’s Harbor, ME. 1976