Goodnight Julia

Goodnight Julia

Growing up Julia watched cartoons that featured fish walking out of the water on their tail fins. It was 1950 and TV was new. Cartoons were new and she was scared. I am Julia and I refused to go to bed because I was afraid that there were fish under my bed. They walked out of the ocean, out of the TV, up the stairs and into my room. They were waiting for me. Under my bed. My parents would dutifully check and “No Julia, no fish under your bed.” Reluctantly I would climb into bed, careful not to let a hand or foot dangle within reach of the fish. Fast forward, 75, 76 years and Julia finally knows that fish stay in the water. If there is anything under her bed she will have to do a better job of cleaning. Just old tissues and a lot of dust under this grandma’s bed. But then she started hearing noises, about a year ago. And seeing odd shapes. Stepping into dementia perhaps? No. Never. It has to be the medication. But then again… at night what are those sounds? Almost every night Julia walks carefully and cautiously from her bedroom to the bathroom. She turns on the light and - no noises. No fish. Just darkness and quiet. Very quiet. Once again, she is awake at two, three, four a.m. by noises or is it by memories? Memories of cartoon fish, of children, of years now gone. The cartoon fish walked. They walked on their tail fins. Why? Why would people frighten young children with such nonsense. Silly. Not real. Nonsense. I know that there are no fish under my bed. Just odd night noises but no-No fish.

Julia goes back to bed and tries to think about fish realistically. In high school she read Moby Dick. Big fish. Whales. What about small fish like the sunfish that nibbled on her young girl toes. Summers fishing in Maine and her Dad would have her bait the hook and clean the fish. “Julia come here. Take the knife. Hold the wiggly fish still. Cut off its head.” No problem for this girl, little Julia did it without flinching then calmly walked away. If she focuses on one topic she will easily fall back to sleep. Julia will continue to think about fish. Salmon swimming upstream - they turn pink. Rivers full of swimming fish. Oceans alive with dolphins and porpoises. “A fish out of water” some folks say. Does that describe me? Am I out of my environment, out of my comfort zone? I’m a human in and out of water. I swam a lot. I loved to swim. Every day I swam in the Gulf of Mexico. I would ‘show off’ swim. Then dunk. How I loved to dunk. How I loved to be in the water. Looking out at the horizon. The beach was empty back then. No boats. Just a clear view of the water and the vast horizon. I saw dolphins but never fish. The Gulf of Mexico is shallow and if I wanted to stop my long beach to beach swimming I only had to stand up. Once some men came by in a slow-moving boat, it was a rowboat with a motor. They pointed to the water and said “Rays.” Walking on the beach months earlier I had seen a large school of rays swimming with one fin exposed but not in shallow water. I turned to walk back to the shore but just as I was stepping onto the sand I felt a sharp sting on the top of my right foot. Sure enough, a ray had been in the shallow water, and it got me on the top of my foot. My leg swelled. My foot hurt. I now know better. If I were at the beach now, I would only swim with other swimmers. I would never go in the water alone, even in shallow water. What was I thinking? I was an adult, and I didn’t know to go to the emergency room. I just hobbled home and told no one.

I never liked cold deep lake water. We spent our summers in Maine. Left in the middle of the lake, I was alone in the water watching our boat as it moved away - so far away. No life vest. Staring at the shore. Treading water while my sister drove the boat unaware that I was no longer being pulled behind. What were my parents thinking? Shouting from the dock they tried to get her to turn around. My Dad took off his long trousers and was going to swim to save me. That never would have worked. Just in time, Lillian glanced over her shoulder and saw that I was no longer being pulled behind the boat. She drove the 15 horsepower motor back to my small head way way back in the dark cold empty lake. I was still treading water. Deep water. Cold water. Looking at the far away shore I had enough sense to know I could never swim that far. Memoires. Memories. Adventures past. Cold frightening adventures. Glorious Gulf of Mexico adventures. Julia is now past seventy and she has the time for memories, especially at night when she can’t sleep. Julia, you need to sleep. Go to sleep. Are fish walking on their tail fins? What are you afraid of? Sleep? Do you think that there are fish under your bed? Do you miss swimming in the Gulf of Mexico? You were such a strong swimmer. What about the little girl sitting on a dock letting sunfish nibble at her toes? One summer the lake was full of leaches. You didn’t care. While your parents looked on horrified you simply pulled them from your legs. You are not sleeping well. Ancient people referred to death as sleeping. Should you get up and make Nighty Night tea? Will the tea help you sleep? Why can’t you sleep? Are you afraid to die? Is that why you can’t sleep at night? Or is it the strange noises? The ones that you hear only at night? You will never again sit on a dock dangling your feet in a lake. You will never again swim in the Gulf of Mexico or be pulled behind a boat without a life jacket on. Are you afraid that there are fish under your bed? Everyone knows that fish out of water die.