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Old 07-07-2007, 12:12 AM posted to rec.ponds
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Default She Dances at Night - A Post from the Past

Fuss at me if you must for such a long post, folks, but I've got to tell
this to someone and I don't know of any other people who would
understand ....

She Dances At Night

It all started because of Sushi. She didn't have that name then, she didn't
have any name at all. Just a feeder comet 8 for a buck at the local pet
store. Bought her to feed to an albino Oscar named Ernie, who did have a
name and also quite an appetite. Nothing was special about Sushi, except
that Ernie didn't eat her like he did all the other comets. Perhaps Ernie
wanted some company, since he was all alone in his tank, and suppressed his
hunger to keep this not-so-special comet as a pet. Bigger and bigger grew
Sushi over the next few seasons, so big that I worried that Ernie might
change his mind about having her as a pet and kill her instead as a
fair-sized rival. So to her own tank went Sushi, and a few other fish to
keep her from being lonely as her former master.

Sushi kept growing, and I moved her in turn to larger and larger tanks. By
now she was starting to become a little bit special to me, having been with
me so long, though I still had no urge to name a fish of such humble
heritage. Not quite a pet, but still something to be cared for and watched
for signs of hunger or distress.

Something about Sushi kept calling to me at times, even though I had no idea
what that call might be. Over the next few years, as Sushi continued to
flourish with only a few sad days when her former master passed away, her
calling to me grew stronger. She transformed into a robust and elegantly
finned beauty, nothing like I had ever had in one of my tanks before. Too
large, I thought. Too large to live in four glass walls in spite of all my
rearranging to accommodate her as well as I could. And still she called to
me, and still I felt her call but did not understand.

A few months ago, while at a birthday party for my father at my childhood
house, I went next door to give best wishes to an old neighbor. As we
visited, he showed me some new exotic plants that he was growing in his
backyard ponds. Ponds. Ponds. Ponds. As we approached the water, I saw
lush hyacinths, lily pads, water iris and parrot's feather. I knew the
names of none of these, but how I marveled at their vivid waxy green and
delicate fronds. And then among the lustrous green boats and lacy sails I
saw the fish. They came and crowded and begged to be fed with little "O"
mouths and jumped and writhed and wiggled and looked so alive and bright
and. . . . happy. Happy? Happy goldfish? How absurd! But there it was in
front of me in one bright orange and white and calico wriggling ball of
delight. I marveled out loud as my neighbor stooped with a handful of food
and dipped into the water and fed and fussed and petted. "They love their
pond," he said with a beaming smile. Their pond. Their pond. Their pond.
I have always had a great deal of pride on my tanks, and how well I attend
to my scaly pets, but at that moment I felt a flush of shame. My fish
didn't
act like his, didn't act the way his did at all. Could they possibly be.
.. . . unhappy? Just as absurd, but again, right there in front of me. I
thought of Sushi at that moment and pictured her in my mind. A pond. A
pond. A pond. A pond? Now after patient years of calling out to me, I
heard her! Now I understood! Now I knew what to do!

The summer break from teaching school came a few weeks later, and then it
began. Digging by day and reading at night. Learning, digging, learning,
planning, learning, digging. Every shovel full was a little closer to the
answer for my silently calling Sushi. And call she did - A Pond, A Pond, A
Pond. I hear you now, little fish, and I'm working as fast as I can. A few
weeks later and 5 cubic yards of earth were missing, and in their place was
one thousand gallons of water and sweat surrounded by 10,000 pounds of rock.
Not yet time for Sushi, though, for first the plants and then the 8 for a
buck cheapies to cycle and then to see if it all will work the way I have
learned it must. And still she calls - A Pond, A Pond, A Pond.

A few weeks later it all looks good. Now. Net her, into the bowl of tank
water, and then to float the bowl in the pond. And now, the moment of truth.
In she goes! A look around, a little wiggle of the fins, a longer look
around, a longer wiggle of the fins, and then a trip around the edge to
explore her new and non-rectangular world. A few days later I noticed that
she was pushing the hyacinths around and coming to the top and splashing
with her fins like a porpoise. I asked the mailman if his did that. See,
he had started stopping by and eating his lunch in my front yard when he had
a little time on his route - he has a pond. He said that his did that, too.
I asked him if that meant that the fish was happy. He said he thought that'
s what it meant. Then, then I gave her a name. Sushi. Former Oscar food
promoted to Oscar pet and gradually gliding into my heart so she could
patiently, patiently call to me. She reached me. I did it. Happy fish.

Tonight, though, tonight made me cry. Stupid, silly me, it's just a fish I
tell myself but seeing what I saw her do I just couldn't help but weep from
some strong emotion I just can't quite name. You see, today I put some
lights around the edge of her pond, partly so I could see the fish at night,
which I told my wife, and partly to keep me from accidentally kicking some
of the larger rocks in the dark, which I didn't tell my wife. In the box
with the path lights was a little spotlight, so I stuck it in the rocks by
the ripple going into her pond and turned it so the light was on the water.
As night came on I washed and ate and took a nap and then went back out to
see the lights, and there she was. Staying right in the glow of that little
spotlight she swam, and circled, and looped, and wriggled. I wondered that
maybe she was hungry, so I tossed a few pellets on the water. No, not
interested, not hungry. She just kept swimming, and circling, and looping,
and wriggling, staying in the glow of that light -- then she called to me.
Happy. Dancing. Happy. Dancing. Then I cried. In her pond, she dances at
night.


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