#31 Work

Work.

The overnight rain has changed over to snow. Dawn’s light made evident an angry gray chop coming out of the north, an unpleasant morning. Puttering about, engrossed in household routine, I looked out upon hearing a motor. A sit-low-in-the water lobster boat was making its way away from shore, the view of it blurred by the snowfall and gray murk hanging over the water. Soon it would disappear into the “marine layer”, out of hearing and out of sight but not out of mind.

The work done by those who make their living from the sea can be viewed through many prisms and I am not qualified to do anything but observe from my window. I can think of the hard physical toil that must be part of such work but I wonder if it is accompanied also by a sense of freedom, of provenance, or desperation, making a living as one can? At a one point in my life I worked hard via the homestead model, of physical labor that comes with large gardens, putting food by, and tending to pigs and chickens, yet I understand that I know nothing of the magnitude of sea work.

Late in the afternoon as the light began to fail I saw the same lobster boat headed home, still the only boat I saw out there all day. I hoped there was a good catch coming home with it. One intrepid boat moving steadily out then back. May you stay safe today and always. Godspeed.