I listened to one of my favorite Bon Iver songs today. It’s called 715 Creeks. The song is acapella, and he sings it with a vocoder. The more I listen to it, the more it sounds like he’s reading a poem rather than a song. It’s beautiful.
The lyrics partially describe thin
gs around creeks, like reeds and herons. But I never saw any herons or even any reeds near the creek behind my grade school. There weren’t any birds or tall grasses underneath the bridge behind the science building either…
“Okay, kids! Listen up.” Mr. Newberry said, getting the class’s attention. Mr. Newberry. Can you believe that? What an incredible name for a grade school science teacher. Mr. Newberry played acoustic guitar and sang nature songs during school assemblies. He sometimes played this other instrument too, the hammered dulcimer. Mr. Newberry’s hair looked like George Washington’s, but not white. It was black and curled grey on the sides. He had a big nose with an even bigger smile, and his teeth were usually tinged with coffee-brown, just like his breath. His breath never bothered me though.
“Go on and make a single-file line behind Jin to get your gear for the creek walk today.” Wait — did he just say “get in line behind… Jin?” Like me, “Jin?”
“Alright now, Jin, come on up. What size shoe are you?” I stared at my Nike Hehachi basketball sneakers in disbelief. I’m first. Oh god, I’m first. I’m never first. I never win. I never win anything. I usually come in fourth, fifth, sixth-
“I’m eight?” The words slipped out before I could catch them and the girls at the corner table giggled. Gah, I hated this. The spotlight. Everyone’s attention turning me into a brown-eyed tomato.
“I — I mean I’m an eight,” I said. My eyes stayed fixed on a day-old eraser shaving next to my shoelace that looked more like a finger nail.
Mr. Newberry smiled, then handed me a pair of olive-green boots. “And here’s a net for catching, and a stick for walking.”
As soon as the pale wooden shafts touched my fingers, I evolved. Right then and there, I became Mega Jin. Maximum Jin. Ultimate Jin. CAPS LOCK JIN, now outfitted and on the lookout for any critters that crossed my path. I think creek walk days were the only days I could ever be patient. You’d think waiting for 14 other kids to put waterproof boots on would take forever, but I wasn’t worried. I was too busy staring out the window. At the creek. Dreaming. Envisioning the crayfish. Crayfish. Must. Find. Crayfish. Crayfish like to hide under rocks. That’s what Mr. Newberry said. Where the water’s calm. Usually in murky water too. At least that’s what they did in this creek. The Wairona Creek. That’s what Mr. Newberry said it was called, and I believed everything Mr. Newberry told me. Just like the four-legged mosquito looking things that floated on top of the water. Water striders. They usually collected in groups in calm water, but they weren’t that much fun to catch because they were everywhere. This one time, like two years before, I caught a salamander on the mud bank closest to the science building, and Mr. Newberry told me it was actually a newt. I never remember the difference between them, but I think it’s that one can swim and the other can’t. Whatever. Salamanders don’t matter. Crayfish. Crayfish are what matter. And I had to catch at least one during the 45 minutes we had to walk in the creek. I wonder if we went there at 7:15 in the morning, like the Bon Iver song. But that song is so sad, and this memory makes me so happy…but also, sad again. I think it’s because this memory is a reminder of who I really am: the explorer.
Know myself: the crayfish catcher.
Know myself: the water walker.
The boot squisher. The net swinger. Searching. Squishing. Slipping. Sliding on the algae. Waiting for the murk to settle. Looking through the brackish glass. Scanning for movement. Scanning for the prize. The grand daddy. The sugar mama. The crayfish.
Know thyself: the crayfish catcher.
I am the crayfish catcher.
I am the water walker.
I am the boot squisher.
The truth typer, and I cry typing this. I cry because I know this is true. I cry because I know that this is who I am. Who I really am. Yet I also cry because I know this is who I am not. Not today. Not yesterday. Not now.
I cry because I see myself in these words. I see the creek. I see the net filled with mud and leaves. I see me digging for what’s underneath. I see everything that used to be. Everything that I let pass by me. Everything that is within me.
I cry because I am me.
I cry because I am happiest when I am in the creek.
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