Spring into Psalms

September 2015

My husband has headed north for his annual fishing trip with friends. Every spring time he begins making rigs, then checks hooks, and selects reels to match rods he’ll need, based on the kind of fishing he’s hoping for. His mate with the boat calls planning meetings (at the pub) and they all begin checking weather forecasts off the coastline of far north-west Australia. I watch his preparation, a little bemused. He pulls out his old hat, begins stockpiling gear in the lounge room and tries to get ahead of work emails so he can be ready to leave at the agreed time. There is tension when the weather changes, or when he suddenly remembers he has forgotten to buy sea-sickness tablets, or when he runs out of fishing line to make rigs. I watch him prepare: selecting and planning and hoping for a good catch and a change of pace from his busy work life in the city office.

When I kiss him goodbye, he leaps into the car overshadowed by boat. I note how the men wave with glee and roll on down the road without a backwards glance. They are ready and excited; driving towards a shared space keenly anticipated and each full of wondrous expectations. I think of them out in the ocean: salty fingers grasping the hull as it rolls and tilts in fathomless depths. I imagine their banter as they cast their lines. I picture those moments where the silence of sun and roar of ocean hushes these good-hearted men and they sing psalms of the sea and salt and soul. Their pleasure springs from time in the moment – and time invested in learning, and from experience. On other trips, they have lost rods, caught no fish, been sea-sick and sunburnt, and frustrated by unexpected squally weather. Yet they have persisted and have also caught big deep sea fish, laughed a lot and learnt more of the ways of fishermen and of each other, and of Self. They come home, voices resonant and eyes sparkling. My husband always has a scruffy stubbly face and the smell of fish in his skin. He proudly shows us the shared catch; telling stories of filleting, cleaning, tugging, losing, catching, laughing, hoping.

I think of my own sung psalms in his absence. My children’s giggles, the whish of the washing machine and hum of vacuuming a domestic soundscape for my heart-songs. I reluctantly acknowledge the change of season now requires new songs to be sung, new dances to be made, new ventures to undertake . . . some things to catch and release; others to reel in under a blazing sun with calloused hands and wind-whipped skin.

Lucid spring into psalms