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| Egrets wading in the marsh |
At night, the
water makes no pretense of color. Its ripples are neither blue nor green, but
dark and deep. Yet within the liquid darkness, a pale blue light rises up and
floats away. It is joined by another that creeps from the shadows of the dock.
My girlfriend reaches into the water and allows it to flicker up at her touch.
I dip my hands too. I gaze with disbelief at the sparks that fly from my
fingertips. Somewhere underwater, a comb jelly drinks in these fragments of
light. Then it signals its coming with its own light. I cup my palms, hoping to
catch it. The drifting luminescent vessels swim just out of my reach, but the
water is warm. The touch of the tide is gentle. We came not just to see, but to
listen, to smell, and to feel the wilderness about us. Running our hands
through the water in the cool night breeze, these wonders communicate with us
in a special way. Not by sight or sound, but by the full experience we build a relationship
with the place that we take with us along our way.
Of course, I
had seen this dock before. In fact, I could rattle off the names of every body
of water we must cross between the Marine Science Consortium on the mainland and Chincoteague Island. I had ridden past these marshes on my bike so many
times, and more than once I had stopped to take in the sights. However, not
until earlier this afternoon had I truly come out to meet the wetlands.
The
much-anticipated clamming trip brought my classmates and I out into the marshes
by boat. We snaked through waterways that I had previously identified from the
bridges. From Mosquito Creek to Cockle Creek, we floated between islands of
cord-grass. Our ride took us from warm sun into the shade of light clouds that leaked
delicate drops of rain on us as we anchored near the shallow mud. With socks on
our feet, we slid into the muck to begin our search.
Recounting my
trip, I boast to my girlfriend about the clams I had caught. However, I find
myself speaking so much more passionately about the feel of the mud beneath my
feet than the three trophies I had carried home. Indeed, what greater boast
could Curtis Badger make of his clamming experience in Salt Tide? “But I enjoy, most of all, the very fact that I am here,
wading on a mud flat with my trousers rolled, enjoying the cold of spring
tides, the healthy suck of mud.” I myself remember the slurp of the wet ground
as I tore out the blackened mud beneath the surface. I recall the sticky puddle
that perched on the roof of my sock as I took each step. Try as I might, I can
barely convey to Sarah the exhilaration of feeling the hard clamshell against
my probing toes. It mattered very little that I actually claimed it. So I
caught a few clams, Jim had caught ten! Frankly, I enjoyed, most of all, the
very fact that I was there.
We sit awhile
longer at the dock, Sarah and I. We continue to watch the comb jellies glow as
they come and go. These living bubbles looked so lifeless out in the mud this
afternoon, but are now coming to life. Something they have taken in transforms
them into these magical lanterns in the sea. Just as they draw in the glowing
plankton to set themselves aglitter, we draw in our experiences and we come to
life. We draw in not just sights or sounds, but our experiences. We place their
brilliance in our own spheres to brighten our way as we sail along.
When we get
lost along the way, when we wonder, and when we wander, we can let our journey
illumine our spirits. We can search for meaning in the marsh, beneath the
woods, or at the edge of the sea. We can respond to the specific invitation
that meaning offers each of us. Finally, when like the comb jellies we must follow
the tide, we can carry the experience with us, pulsing with our own light. Sarah
and I watch these shining orbs and we listen to those lapping waves, but we
know we didn’t merely see or hear them. We were there.
By Jarrett Voight
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