Away We Go: Goldfish

I’m wiping sand off a fish. Of the cracker variety, not the kind that actually belongs in the water rushing under my feet and away towards the Grand Canyon.

I hear snatches of children playing further down the beach. The ones where you pay attention because the difference between joy and the wails after a fall aren’t that dissimilar. It’s me and my boys and one other family on this stretch of white sand on a Wednesday morning. I wonder what they think I’m doing and wonder if they wonder the same in return.

The other children were here earlier, checking things out in the way groups of kids check out unfamiliar kids. Perhaps determining our suitability as playmates. Maybe observing the sand creation my boys had been diligently constructing for an hour. Intent on what might happen, I dropped the bag of goldfish snacks in the sand.

The four kids walked through and tested the edges by stomping on the sand around us. My ears were sharply tuned for signs of conflict. Instead, from my boy who feels things fast and hard: this is my creation, he say quietly. Please don’t step on it. 

This is my creation, I think. Please don’t step on it.

Here’s a thing I made. Please be kind with it.

Here’s a thing I am. Please be gentle with it. 

The wind echoes off the canyon walls. Please be gentle with it. The echoes have the benefit of wisdom from untold years here. Please be gentle with me.

These rocks will be here long after I am gone minus a few grains of sand pried loose by ice. The precarious rock on the rim will likely be in that same position by the time my boys are no longer interested in building dams of sand by the riverside.

I am a goldfish to this canyon. A momentary presence. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be gentle with myself and with those that surround me.

So instead of throwing the sandy snacks in the bottom of the beach bag I’m wiping them off. I know they are his favorite snack. I am guilty for the times I didn’t practice the care I should have with his feelings and his things and stepped on his creations.

I’m wishing I had the ability to ask for others to be as careful with me and the thing I am. My momentary occupence of this body being a good reason to do so. In the meantime we will sit in these sandy seats by the rushing river and create temporary monuments in the earth.

This story is based on an experience in Marble Canyon, Arizona.