Winter Fishing by Barbara Earl Thomas
Friends had the distinct pleasure of hosting local artist and writer Barbara Earl Thomas at a recent gathering at Waterfront Space, where she shared her essay “Winter Fishing.” The ideas that came through Barbara’s reading remind us that as a waterfront city, our connection to the water is both physical and psychic. A community’s proximity to the water: its ecosystems its industry and function, and its ever-shifting state of being, fuse people to its constant rhythms.
In addition to exhibiting her artwork at such institutions as Seattle Art Museum and Tacoma Art Museum, Barbara’s written work has appeared in such publications as RavenChronicles, A Single Mother’sCompanion, and Never Late for Heaven: The Art of Gwen Knight.
“Winter Fishing” captures Barbara’s childhood memories of the communion found in journeying to Magnolia Bluff’s edge with her family to catch and release fish. It is a beautiful reminder of the role our shoreline plays in shaping our bonds with nature, each other, and our individual identities. Barbara has generously allowed us to share the below excerpt with you. Please follow the link to learn more about her and her work, here.
"On winter days, perched above Puget Sound, I can smell the salt in the air. It sticks to my skin like sweat. The ground, like the air, is heavy with dampness, seeping out moisture that soaks up through my clothing, chilling skin and bones until my body is so numb that it moves like cold rubber.
Moving along the path, the sodden earth gives way under my feet. My eyes glimpse the cliff’s edge. I have inherited my father’s fear of heights and, for an instant, I am transfixed. I don’t know if it’s the edge that fascinates me, or the mystery held in the distance between the edge and the watery drop below. All I know is that I feel an urge to jump. In the space of one step, I imagine myself falling, air leaving my body as my stomach lurches upward into my throat. It’s a curious sensation of lusty fear. It’s an excitement, the thought of which makes me queasy. Heart pounding, I continue to walk along with my family, in silence.
The place we find is a circular, grassy promontory facing west. Planting ourselves, poles unfurl. Each one of us takes up position on the ground where the earth, molding itself to our bottoms, will hold us. And there we will sit, waiting through long, uninterrupted spells broken only by a request to pass the bait, or a comment on what looks like a bite.
There is something about these old people in my family that allows them to sit for long periods in Buddha-like positions, breathing silently into the overcast fog, fingers molded close around a pole, waiting for a fish to bite. To wait well is to survive the space inhabited by hope, desire, fear, dread, and want, like waiting for a lover to return from the sea, or for something good to happen in your life. Theirs is a quiet, enduring reserve, one not to be explained, but lived. One that bares at its center a secret that is earned through long hours of practice, forged by concentration and will – like the forces of persistence that bring them here.
This is my instruction in patience. Under gray skies, gulls fly overhead, swooping down, gliding on invisible current, calling in high-pitched, plaintive cries, hypnotizing us in their floating dives, melding into the grayness the way one day melds into another. We have no gear. Everything is makeshift. Food is simple communion. Adult hands unwrap and pass sandwiches – bologna and sweet pickle relish on white bread. Taken in salt air, mixed with the soil of earthworms from the digging we’ve done, they taste like the mud of two countries pasted there under our fingernail.”
