Bonita Fishing

 Bonita fishing 

         The bay was shaped like a perfect mandala, enclosed on one side by the rocky and grassy beach, on the other – by the distant steel lace of port structures, and in the very far-away fading distance completed by the masts of a few sailboats.

         The quite unnatural colors came straight out of my oil pastels box: emerald green for the lawn, light blue for the sky, and café-au-lait for the waves of this industrially polluted bay.

         The pier dissects the mandala right in the middle. I walk briskly towards the deeper end, with my hair intermittently blown away from my brow and back into the eyes. The air, of all the things around me, feels real – sweet and fresh, coming from Africa or some other nostalgic place. I feel foolishly young and exhilaratingly happy.

         “This must be a poor neighborhood, - I figure out, succumbing to the dark socio-cultural stereotypes lurking in my psyche, - with all the fishermen on the peer Hispanic, and all the mothers on the beach overweight.”

         Suddenly a streak of silver catches my eye – a fish wiggling and dangling on the line, and setting himself free – back he goes into the brown waves!

         The fisherman laughs and says something in Spanish, I reply in one of the languages that I usually use. For a second there is an intimate connection between us.

         He is tall, and brown, with creased face, and of my favorite age – about 60. My favorite age for men increases, as I grow older.

         I think his name is Diego. We used to go deep-sea fishing together in the sunny golden days of long ago. Bonitas were jumping out of the ocean, Diego was murmuring “Te quiero” in Spanish, this best language for passion and love.

         He took my picture with an ancient camera: the huge oval shape of the bonita ready to be released back into its beloved ocean, the slender self-conscious shape of me, trying to pull in the non-existent belly.

         “Don’t be scared of the fish, you silly girl, just hold it under the gills for the picture!”

         And then another picture – the wedding day! Diego stern and uncomfortable in his Sunday suit, myself looking stiff in a lace gown and veil, with red nose and eyes –t o come down with a cold on the day of the wedding!

         His big hands on my tummy, his laughing eyes and warm smile.

         I reach the end of the pier and turn back. It’s time to get into my rental car and be on my way. As I leave the parking lot, I see the old Mexican in his big beaten truck. We look at each other and exchange a conspiratory smile.