Love The Fish
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009This is a true story. I know it’s true because it happened to me.
For a while, a couple of decades ago, I owned a funky little beach house and a parcel of land in a cove near St. John, Antigua. It was a very private place in a very exotic paradise. The cove was protected from passers by on land and by a gorgeous living reef in the bay.
I used to go there to write 2-3 times a year for a month or so at a time and wrote a number of musicals there and many songs that always seemed to come out with a distinctively Caribbean flavor. It was an idyllic time I shall never forget.
Because of the incredible beauty of the reef, the clarity and warmth of the water and the shallowness of the cove, we would always spend a great deal of our free time snorkeling.
We often went out once or twice a day and I got to know the reef like my own back yard. Actually it was my own back yard, or perhaps better, God’s back yard.
While exploring, we would often come across some pretty large fish. At those times fear was a factor because even though we were well equipped with masks, snorkels and fins and were good swimmers, the fish had it all over us in the water. It was always dramatically clear that any large fish that we encountered could have his way with us at any time he chose.
And so we reasoned that our only protection really, was to love the fish. So each time we went into the water, we all took a moment to stop and get our minds clear that we really loved the fish. We would practice this every day. It was not hard actually. They were all amazing creatures, each with their own individual beauty and grace.
