the tide is low now, and the waves not too boisterous, allowing me to step gingerly across the spluttering volcanic rock and splash into the swim with the fishes. the sea washed up a pair of underwater goggles one day, which allow me to see the golden, green, dark blue fishes in all their clarity. i have a big blue bag tied round my waist which does not overly obstruct the streamline. our plan to cover the patio outside the cave with sand motivates my good morning swim. i emerge from the frothy waves at the hidden sandy cove where i fill the bag with sand and am almost dry by the time i balance it on my head back to the cave.
el guanche gave me a new way of seeing the coast when he invited me to come fishing with him. el guanche is a local man who lived in the cave years ago. jenifer said he presented himself in a rather imposing manner when she first met him, but over time he has softened. he is full of sprightliness and is very interested in trapping wild animals and eating them. el guanche always has bright eyes. he says that he asks for the animal's pardon the moment before he takes its life.
what sort of animals are you looking for? i asked him as we move cautiously over the pristine rocks.
after a pause, quietly: "vamos a ver"
questions posed to el guanche are often followed by pauses, which at times are not even broken by a response.
in the end all that was collected was a little bag of limpets, but my way of looking at the coast had genuinely been changed. it was all about paying utmost attention, sensitively absorbing the world through my senses, allowing nothing to go by unperceived. i follow el guanche, imitating his delicate - almost tiptoeing - gait across the rocks, eyes wide open, until he suddenly freezes and turns round to me with his finger hushing his lips. it is all very hush hush. crouching down, his eyes focus intently on something lurking in the shadow beneath a big rock. he slowly hands me his hooked harpoon, and with spear in hand he lunges into the shadow, upon which we hear the scuttling of the crab retreating further into his recess.
el guanche told me that the dark red crabs do not taste so good but, if one is captured, it can be used as bait in the pools to tempt the octopi from their underwater caves.
we continue our sensory great attention paying game, absorbing all the details. the empty red shell of a crab lying in a pool could be indicative. el guanche gives me the spears to carry and sets about pouncing down to where there are limpets. he strikes them off the rocks with a brusque thrust of his knife.
what i have learned from jenifer is to pay attention to the Beauty of all of nature. for jenifer, any object of nature - a stone, a twig, a piece of moss - can be seen as an object of beauty.
jenifer says why not leave the crabs alone?
- some of them are over fifty years old -
she says that they have become used to her and do not scuttle away now when she walks past in the morning
she says that they have become used to her and do not scuttle away now when she walks past in the morning
they are longevous, they are noble, they are quick-witted, and they look at you keenly with their eyes.
Pepe the old fisherman sees me coming from the sea and asks: "¿viste algo?"
"si, vi un pulpo" i tell him
i had glimpsed great tentacles curled under a stone on the bottom of the sea.
"¿intentaste agarrarle?" he asks with a smile
"no, me da miedo" i respond.
can you really catch them that way?
yes, you have to be quick. pepe did so a couple of times in his youth - but never again! no, they have a very strong grip. he once got very hurt. now he does not enter the water. contents himself with his rod.
it would be a fascinating challenge, i muse, to pit oneself against the astuteness and the vital will to live of the mysterious tentacled ocean creature. perhaps if i was hungry and had nothing else to eat i would be impelled to give it a go. but, as it is, i am quite happy to not to disturb mr octopus and instead eat other things which are easier to obtain.
Pepe - the old fisherman - a life spent taking fish from the sea and eating them - does not really respond. he invites jeni and i that night to eat shellfish paella outside his cave with him. he tells us of the time of the Big Storm when the waves came all the way to his cave; the next day he returned to find that everything had been taken away.
was that the big storm back in november when jenifer's cave also flooded?
"no, fue en 1976" pepe says.
"el mar te da todo . . . y te lleva todo"
the sea,
a symbol of the great life-death continuum.
it gives you everything
then takes everything away
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