Because nothing else disturbs the silence, their chugging seems musical. The ears warm up to their sound as though to a pet dog’s joyful barking. And when the boats pull away beyond hearing, the wind’s hiss fills the channels of the ear with the whisper of absence.
A flock of migratory birds beguiles the eyes, pulling the sight across the sea to where the sky begins to take the birds into the blue ether.
I love the view. My aunt lived across the road from the sea. We spent the school vacation in her house once. Every morning, after breakfast, my cousin and I would pass the hours on the beach. Far off, like little white insects, the ships would glide by voyaging due north.
When I was growing up, at dawn, the beating of drums would break my sleep. I knew what that meant. The boats had come in from a night of fishing. Alerted, the fish merchants would rush and wade towards them, carrying their buckets and pails, to bid for the fish.
Had I joined them, had I forced myself to get up and foot the road and dodder in the dark towards the shore for close to half a kilometer and there merged with the men and women waving their buckets and pails, and charged towards the boats inching towards the shallows, I could get a handful of flying fish for free. Custom allowed those who came to the boats – mostly women and children – enough helping of fish for the next meal. One of the fishermen stood as sponsor at my baptism, and surely, even if only to make up for the Christmases when he hid himself, he would gift me with groupers, strung through the eyes with a midrib, ends tied to form a loop.
The sea speaks to me of faith. Towards evening, a neighbor would pass by our house carrying his fishing gear – lamp, spear, hooks, bait, goggles, lines. Who told him that he would have a catch that night? A voice in his heart.
Luke writes of a voice that told Peter to put out into the deep. That voice came from the Lord. Peter had beached his boat after a fruitless night of fishing, and already his companions had fallen to washing their nets, having decided to call it a day. But Jesus told Peter to launch into the ocean and throw out the nets again. Initially, Peter expressed reluctance, having labored all night for nothing. But then Jesus’ voice struck a chord, and Peter did as told, and in no time found himself in the presence of the marvelous – nets close to breaking because of the huge catch. When Peter fell on his knees, remorseful, Jesus raised him up, promising to make him a bigger, another sort of fisherman, fishing over a vaster, another sort of sea.
When it came in, the tide must have erased the footsteps that Jesus and Peter, and the others, had left on the sand, as daily, for centuries, the tide has cleaned the sand of marks, turning it into a fresh page for the next day’s script. And soon only the view of the sea would remain, the same that now lies before me, while I stand on a rock, feeling the brush of the breeze and the sway of the sea, and I look at the boats riding the waves, and far off at the white ships, and beyond a flock of birds as they disappear into the last of the blue hazes.