The One That Got Away

We lost a loved one this month.  A very special lady who will be in both of our hearts always, as she has for so many years now.  For people who say online lovers aren’t real, I say two things, first that they are and second they are better than 😉  Because in our avatar worlds we can do more, be anything and love more deeply than the daily dishes and laundry might allow.  Suffice to say she was loved.  Each of us mourn in our own way to be certain sometimes we seek a shoulder or soliloquy, a dark room and old country heart break tunes or we pre-occupy our mourning mind with a project.  That’s just us wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve-open-book kind of people.  The redneck of course can walk away from anything (and anyone, I am no exception to be sure … except that I’m not 😉 )  He also believes that anything worth DOING is worth OVER DOING.  You know, go BIG or go HOME.  And this month his focus has been his 75 gallon fishtank that sits in our meditation nook in the threshold between our closet, bedroom and bath.  It’s a wonderful small space that is simply filled wall to wall with this massive tank that holds some massive fish including two Eclipse, one 7 inch severem and a rare African Sail that fancies swimming upside down.

When the redneck wasn’t in front of the fishtank he was on youtube learning everything there is to know about rhizomes, carbon dioxide and substrate pH.  I’m certain there was more, but there is only so much I could soak up from his summaries.  And in truth, I mourn in my own 3D modeling way.  But I could tell he was super focused on his new undertaking.  He had a detailed plan that was growing faster than the parrot fish was eating the new anubias.  He’s be quick to correct me that the severem was munching the west african marsh plant, but I’ll be darned if I didn’t see the parrot fish nibble off a chunk of it so she had at least a role to play in it’s mysterious disappearance.  It’s all about “loss” anyway is it not?

As grieving goes through stages, it’s no surprise that just as the green new deal was picking up steam, a road block came by way of a citizen uprising.  In this case it was the chiclids who absolutely love live plants more than live food … to eat.  I know how frustrating it is, when my mesh isn’t weighting the way it needs to.  Even virtual gravity can be a byte buster when we are trying to walk  a straight line.  And so it was, all of this new information … a man with a plan … and no place to execute his vision.  Did I mention the $189 full spectrum programmable sunrise and sunset simulating four foot light that is arriving today?

There were options of course.  We could… buy more aquariums!  But while I respect his “enthusiasm”, I was hoping for a more pragmatic solution.  And while he truly loves his big fish, he was beginning to see that the ideas that were in the iris of his mind were forming a different type of tropical fish tank with smaller residents who would live in harmony with the green house effect he was planning.

So for the man who can walk away from anything, he began calling pet stores to see if any of them would take some fish for store credit (or for free because he really just wanted help re-homing these swim fins.)  But no luck.  None of the chains or small business fish stores where interested in taking on outsourced fish.  Then he found a local facebook group and carefully looked through past postings to confirm that they had people putting fish up for adoption.  And they did.  He spent a long time getting good pictures of the crew he needed to remove and he put up an post only to be taken down within minutes from the moderator who informed him that pet sales were not allowed.  It wasn’t worth pushing back with the posts for other fish and tanks that were in their past listings and so another wave of disappointment came down the stream.

But that’s what life is, is it not?  Everything comes down stream, we cross the river, we dip our toe in the water, we sit on the river bank waiting for a nibble on a line we tossed in hoping for the right byte.  Some of us are super aware of every piece of gravel in our internal aquarium.  We know the temperature of the water, the chemical changes and every ripple on the surface or deep below.  Dang, I can sometimes feel the flow of cerebral fluid on my brain, but then again I’m often a quart low 😉  But other people, not mentioning any names (Monks) is content to take it all in without labels or scrutiny.  So much so, that at times he’s completely unaware that his sunny disposition has changed and a green furry trashcan dwelling muppet has taken his place.  And you know, that’s really okay.  No one needs to be perky and pizazz all the time.  We each get to have our dark times for however transient or lingering they may last.

I imagine it may be helpful if we are aware of the color of our mood ring, but even if others don’t see they are in a uptown funk you up, all it takes is a little grace and patience to sit beside them at the waters edge and wait for the tides to change.  Easier said than done at times of course.  As my 2 year old grandson who loves to count exclaims ZERO PATIENCE!! when he’s having a melt down and we are trying to settle a bit with counting.  That kid is going to be the king of one-liners when he grows up.

The last plan for the fish kingdom was to place an ad on Craigslist to see if any hobbyist had a spare 100 gallon tank in need of some super groovy residents.  I was working on my own 3D-mesh-therapy so I didn’t offer to help (for transparency sake I probably declined to help).  But the redneck is tech savvy and put up a wonderful ad and made sure HIS phone number was in place of mine on the account we use together for such purposes.  So I assumed (you know how that goes) that text messages would be coming to his phone.  The ad went live just as Chinese food was coming to the front door. Or perhaps it was the doorbell that prohibited him from checking over the ad one last time before committing.

I’d forgotten completely about the ad being up while we were lounging with our housemate in our room watching The Voice.  Until my daughter came to the door.  She was amused, shocked and with a slight smirk announced that there was a man standing in the driveway asking about fish.  Mind you it was after 9 p.m.  No one had even rung the bell and I’m fairly sure we had forgotten to even turn on the porch light.  Gigi and the redneck both thought she was doing that lyin’ thang and teased back that they weren’t biting.  But she insisted it was true.  She said a truck drove up in the dark, and saw her husband in a second floor window and hollered up to him about fish!  I locked eyes with the redneck and said some version of YOU PUT OUR ADDRESS LIVE ON THAT AD?!!!!  Before I could even contemplate the consequences he had jumped out of bed and ran to the front door.  In a moment he was back with a 5 gallon bucket from Home Depot and two large nets.

The next few minutes were a blur of water splashing everywhere (I don’t know if you’ve tried to capture an unwilling 8 inch catfish before) but he succeeded in safely netting the four big fins.  I walked with him down the hall and turned on the lights at the front door.  Small wonder the dude was waiting with his truck lights on. It’s DARK up our road at night.  He looked in the bucket and saw the black sail and said he was “bitchin”.  Which he is.  He talked a bit about his other tanks, something about peacock bass (who knew? .. ok the redneck knew but I had no idea … much like I had no idea that he had put our address on the craigslist ad).  The guy said he’d emailed us (I rarely check the webmaster account it only gets junk mail) and when he didn’t hear back from us he said he just drove up to see if we still had them cause he really wanted them. 

As soon as we were back in the house we DELETED the ad.  Everything happens for a reason .. does it not?  These fish were meant to go to this stranger in the dark with the pick up truck.  I don’t know why things happen.  Sometimes we don’t even know who they are.  But letting go of expectations, people, places or swimming things is just something you do when you are watching the river flow.