I was walking into the mouth of a tropical sea cave. Every sort of rainbow colored, twirling leaf, formed fish was swimming in the sunlit water at my feet. I was investigating an iridescent blue and violet sea horse hanging alone near a rock covered in a red lichen as if wrapped in an old pilled blanket. I slowly brought my hand down into the water and woke up shivering. I glanced out the window and watched the last bits of moisture being squeezed out of the clouds and dropping to the earth in a thin, almost invisible snow.

In the winter I see so much of our world though a thin partition of glass. I watch the snow and wind terrorize the ravens in the tall barren tree in the neighbors yard. Moments are lost watching the big shovelnose catfish hang almost motionless in the aquarium I installed in a wall some years back. With the slightest movement of his fins he lingers while his whiskers move constantly searching out contact with food or other fish sharing his world. Through the glass of the television I saw at least 4 sea kayaks during Super bowl commercials. Sea kayaking is mainstream.

My flat screen monitors take me traveling around the world and take me to work. The monitors produce light to satisfy the biological eyes that sit just feet away. Yet in truth, the computer needs no light. My flat screen let’s me interact with a world that goes on with or without me. I see my first ACA coach and fellow Midwesterner is going to attempt to circumnavigate Ireland. Fantastic! He’s doing a good job writing about he preparations as well. Must be an instructor thing. Through my Flat screen I check in on Andrew who is so close now. New Zealand is calling him to her. I read how our friend Carrie by some twist of fate may actually be a direct descendant of the Pirate Cofresi that we are heading to Puerto Rico to research. As she mentioned in her blog, they better keep the sharp knives away from her! Trapped in the flat screen are all the summer photographs, paddle vacations, and faces of the past. Behind the glass are the letters we’ve written and sent out so easily to our distant friends.

Sometimes I put my hand up to this thin partition of glass. My five fingers lightly touching the screen. I focus on your image in my mind. You hair, your deeply colored eyes, the light softness of your cheek, that one rebellious eye lash. I concentrate deeply and in moments of calm silence I wonder. . .

Can you feel it?