I'm sitting here in the wake of a salty July breeze, the smell of diesel and coffee alive around me, the engine roaring while the bottom of the vessel's hull carves time through sea.
I spot ‘AK,’ my husband's initials (which are also those of Alaska, his beloved home state) scratched fervidly onto a corner of the worn wooden table in the cabin of the Mary K. The letters were etched long ago during one of the many summers when Arron commercially fished sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay with his father, Walt, who previously did the same with his father, Robert — the latter of whom laid elemental groundwork for salmon conservation and its education based on reverence for the fish, which became a purpose that trickled directly into his bloodline.
I lean back and listen to the argument of some seagulls, and witness a pod of orcas dancing in and out of the horizon, before the steady hum of the engine lulls me into a seated nap and I get lost in a sweet, sleepy trance of questions:
Could young Arron with his hands calloused from weeks of fish-picking, have ever imagined while he engraved his letters, that one day his own son’s mini hands would press against that same wood, and onto the steel of the Mary K’s steering wheel, his 21-month old gaze seeming to somehow already hold the wisdom of his ancestors?
Could my husband have known then that his future would be a reflection of his family’s past, and that the lessons learned on the back deck of that very vessel — which was designed and hand-built by his own father — would unfold into Arron’s personal mission?
Truly, could Arron have considered that his initials and this place and these people and this purpose were not a coincidence, but rather the sacred coordinates of his destiny? That these silver waters were the pages upon which his family’s saga would be inscribed?
Then I wake up from this brief moment of in-betweenness to our arrival back to the harbor, renewed by wind and water, and anchored to the great honor and pleasure of being a tiny part of this epic story.
So, here’s to finding nuggets of joy in those happy, summer-y moments of relaxed in-betweenness.
Live wild!
Monica
Pictured Above: A few favorite snapshots from a recent trip to Halibut Cove, with three generations of Kallenbergs aboard the Mary K.
