Monday, September 19, 2011

Swimming in Tang

Not the ersatz orange drink that the Mad men had convinced the country, at least for a while, was just as good as orange juice but the tropical fish, the one played by Ellen Degeneres in Finding Nemo.

It was one of those magical moments of my life. I am snorkeling off some tropical island completely surrounded by blue tang, hundreds of them, each a slightly different shade of bright turquoise blue. They are right at my finger tips. I should be able to grab one but they are always just out of reach. I try to capture the beautiful moment with the underwater camera Steve had bought me and snap several pictures. Two weeks later, the developed photos show just ordinary silver fish. Did I see the beautiful blue and I didn't have the camera on the right setting or was the photo the  drab reality? Well at least I had my photo of the barracuda (silver!) and the  baby sea turtle.

Swimming separately are the schools of yellow tang. These fish are about a quarter of the size of the blue tang. They are juveniles and school with their peers, not their parents. At some point, the bright yellow fish morph into bright blue fish. I did not see any schools of tang teens..would they be green or blue and yellow spotted?

So why do I write of tropical fish that I am so far away from? The elusiveness of things that seem so close at hand. I am sitting on my patio trying to quiet an inner voice..you are not wanted! The hummingbirds are up to their usual antics trying to crowd each other off the feeder. The male has presumably already left for Belize or where ever they go. At one point, one of them abandons the feeder and  flits from tiny flower to flower of the impatiens just a foot away from me. She is right next to my head..I should be able to grab her but I suppose the microsecond I make a move, she is outta there.

I will be missing from this blog for a while, I will be in Massachusetts helping Shanna move and she has canceled the internet. I hope that I will have one last time that I can run along the ocean before we head inland. It is a long drive but I will use that time to settle my thoughts.

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