"I don't want to alarm you, but . . . ."

What you say to your kayaking-buddy when you're in 80 feet of salt water and your paddle contacts something moving beneath your boat.

(I think those were my words, but I kind of can't remember.)

______

P.S.  A friend wanted more . . . wanted the "end" of the story:

My kayak-buddy then had caught a lingcod, a predator fish, so I prefer to think that that lingcod had followed the last fish caught, had bumped my paddle, and then was caught himself.

Any other stories--and I have many in my head-- would cause anxiety.

So, happy ending for the kayakers.

(I really felt a moving body under my paddle: fish, seal, shark, other?  Mostly likely, a seal.  You tell me.)

_______

P.P.S.    So, the lingcod was 24 inches long, and at the time I figured he'd followed the hooked rockfish my pal Jeff was reeling in, but now I'm thinking I felt a seal or sea lion, most likely, following the rockfish instead.  (I've watched seals chase hooked salmon and bite off all but the head just before I could reel in the fish completely, for example.)  We hadn't seen any seals for hours, so we didn't think first about seals.  A shark is also possible, but I'd rather go with the seal.  I felt something solid but flexible, muscles shifting beneath skin, but that's describing the feeling I had while holding a paddle.

Shark Dream

A couple nights ago I had one of those dreams . . . . Keith was still alive, and we were free diving somewhere down south, for we had thin wetsuits and no hoods nor gloves. We were swimming about a quarter mile off-shore near a rocky reef that reached up to the surface in places, but not enough to count as an island. At some point, I realize a great white shark is swimming beside me, just appearing, as it were, not bent on attacking or feeding . . . yet. The shark swam beside me, or rather I swam beside the shark, kicking hard yet smoothly to maintain equal speed, not wanting to draw attention to myself by jerking or halting or anything, really. I wanted to warn Keith, to tell him to climb up onto the reef or something, to take care, but I was busy swimming and breathing, for I was using a snorkel, not a tank, and I was trying to keep my eye on the shark the whole time.

The shark leaned closer, swam closer, so I put my left hand out and touched the shark, holding it off, or attempting to, by pressing firmly and smoothly against the creature's side, though I ended up with my hand firmly against the creature's jaw just behind the teeth, the mouth. We swam like that, the shark effortlessly, me straining to maintain smoothness and speed, afraid to pull away, to make any sudden movements. This swimming, my hand against the shark, went on for what seemed like forever, but was probably only a minute or two. I wanted to warn Keith; I wanted to break away and climb up onto any protection I could; I wanted to kick and swim forever, for this shark was the most powerful creature I'd ever been so close to. Kicking and breathing, now holding my breath as the shark leaned in even further, pushing against my hand, bending my arm, and then my hand slid into the mouth of the shark, and I could feel the teeth tearing into my skin, the shark not yet even biting . . . .

And I woke up, lurching upright, dragging in that lungful of air as if I'd been holding my breath for too long, fully alert, fully freaked, happy to be alive, and unhappy in that dream-way that the long moment with that shark was over already.

A dream, as I said. Anxiety-expression? Longing? Power -- in part?

"Math Trauma" -- by Chase Twichell

MATH TRAUMA

If you liked geometry,
it meant you were a prude.
Girls who liked algebra put out.
The cool girls (I was not one)
sat cloistered, passing notes
and scoring high on tests.

The first time Mom and Dad split up,
kids from down the block and I lit the dry field
behind the development, then with wet towels
beat back the racing edge on the verge of panic
until we were sure it was out.
I always got that feeling from math.

I writhed like a snake over coals
if it came near me.
Mrs. X, drunk the year we did
multiplication and division,
never checked our workbooks
so no one ever saw the horses
where the answers should have been.
That’s when I first wandered off into
the white pastures on my own,
with nothing but a spiky quiver of words
and an urgent question.

--Chase Twichell,
from Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been,
Copper Canyon Press, 2010

Double Trouble: Recurring Dreams in Tweed (a bit threadbare) and Iron (a bit rusty)

Strange dreams last night: two different recurring threads as I slept and woke, slept and woke, slept and woke, over and over.

The first thread? Classic teaching dream: final exam time, but I've printed out, copied, and distributed the wrong semester's exam to the wrong class. Good students: they tried to answer the questions, tried to grapple with the topics, until someone came forward to point out that they hadn't read this material at all. I try to salvage something from the situation as I return over and over to this situation in the night.

The second thread? Much more heroic, no less anxious: I'm the squad leader of a band of soldiers, garbed in wool and leather and iron, armed with swords or axes, as we move through ruined battlements, a ruined city, at nightfall, seeking some sort of goal, seeking not to be ambushed in the deepening fog and shadow.  Light comes from the moon and from burning buildings.  Smoke chokes the throat, obscuring that moon and those flames.  Something is hunting us, a troop of men? a monster? The anxiety level is high as I struggle, here too, not to make mistakes, struggle to salvage something from the night's foray, even though in the dream I don't quite know, can't quite grasp the things I know I should know, and there is absolutely no one to ask . . . .