Fish Bliss
I have this fish tank.......
I have had a few over the years, big ones;
Smaller ones; a salt water one;
Fresh water mostly.....outside off my porch and inside, tucked away in a nook in my livingroom. I have had one in my life since I was a little girl, they are essential to me as a sofa or table. Over the years I have experimented with all sorts of fish; finding the right number and type to live together, mixing big and little, colorful and camoflaged; solitary and schooling kinds.
Once I had a Lungfish. He was eel-ish shaped, and had the ability to come to the surface for a gulp of air from time to time. He ate little discs of compressed fish flakes, taking the pellet in his mouth as if playing the harmonica, he would swim in loops and carry his prize like a puppy with a biscuit. He taught me that fish actually play pretty much all day long.
Crawfish are best to get as babies. I would find one living a solitary life under a rock in the river, snatching it up while still translucent and grey to be dropped in my tank. At first seemingly confused by how clean the water is, soon they come to busy themselves cleaning the bottom of the tank with what seems like a 100 arms. They grow and start turning red, orange, purple, blue and magenta under the neon light. I bend down to look at the colors close up as they point their claws at my face like swordsmen. Then I turn them loose back into the river before they are big enough to cause real mischief.
I wonder if they remember the glass tank captivity?
My besties these days are weather loaches, two little guys who are long and mottled, very social, and seem to enjoy human hands especially. Often, one will crawl into my cupped hand at the surface and stay there peacefully, or circle my fingers cleaning them. When they eat, they make a furious slurping sound and whirl like dervishes around each other pretty much all day long. Legend is, they were used in Japan to predict the coming of a Tsunami by suddenly jerking and generally acting weird as storms move int and the barometric pressure increases.
Every child that comes to my house pulls up a stool to let the loaches kiss their fingers. I don't tell them it is about the oils and salt on their fingers, it is just about kisses and friendship.
This morning I am watching them especially closely because I have just cleaned their tank. The slighly yellow, somewhat pissy water has been replaced by fresh, sweeter stuff that the tank light shines pinkish blue. My fish are swimming with new exuberance. The little neon tetras and gourami are exploring new placement of rocks and plants, even the tiny striped dania seem intrigued. It makes me happy to give them a freshen-up.
After changing the water, great care is taken to make an archway of sorts out of three slabs of limestone that Danny and I got 37 years ago for our first tank. Fish enjoy swimming around, between and under this archway and my pleichostomus loves to hang upside down under there sucking on algae. Every tank must have a pleicho.... once we had one that grew to at least half a pound. He was an ancient dinosaur of a fish, scaly and seeming to be in the wrong epoch. Alligatorish...
I then arrange my rocks. There are slabs of toothy chrystals, symmetrical and shining; striped granite discs from Puget Sound that Kim and my kids and I gathered at Deception Pass years ago; big chunks of native chert, broken cleanly to reveal a godseye that I position to stare right back at me from the water. I take care to arrange rocks and plants a little different every time;
Kim's granite discs,
My pretty chrystals;
Hudson's clam shells
And of course Ian's marbles........dropped in like rosary beads.
I have two special rocks, one pocked marked and denim blue; probably volcanic, as is the black lava chunk that sits beside it. They are my Mom's, from her tank over 60 years ago.
I think of her most often when I clean my fish tank. She worked the night shift at a nursing home. I would be getting up to go to school, usually laying on the carpet in front of a space heater next to my brother, sleepy and fighting for the warm spot. She would still be in her white uniform, at the end of her work shift. One of the first things she would do when she got home was to turn on the fish tank light and feed her guppies. She would move toward the tank and every guppy would move in unison to her, conditioned to associate that white uniform with food. If she walked fast, they'd follow her every move in a mass of little wriggling color. It surely was something to see.
Sonny and I would watch her and the funny behavior of the guppies.
This turns out to be one of the really good memories of my Mom.
I can be wistful when I consider the blue lava rock.
Something so small draws up every memory of my Mom all at once; how important her fish were to her; how she treasured them and yet was woefully discontented with life. She probably felt trapped too, like a creature from a different time dropped into a kind of glass tank herself. Yet that is not the entire story of Mom. She found her bliss nonetheless.
She loved her yard and weeping willow tree; her humming birds;
Taking walks with us down our country road...... squatting down low to consider a beetle or unusual plant; tipping her head back to see the clouds.
And yes, she loved her fish. Indeed she did. A love she passed along to me. I wonder if she knew that in these small rituals she taught me to find my contentment in the little fishes?
