FAMILY MATTERS
Favoring a moment in life's tide pool
By Michael C. DeMattos
My daughter's kindergarten class is learning about the ocean. I was surprised when she came home one day and announced proudly that an octopus was in fact an invertebrate and was also one the smartest creatures in the sea. When I was 5 years old, I don't think I could even say invertebrate. In fact, when my daughter first started sharing this information, I was sure she swore at me!
As it happens, my daughter was home from school recently while her teachers attended a conference at the Hawai'i Convention Center. I cannot speak for most dads, but when I'm alone with my daughter, I like to keep things fun, entertaining and moving. Experience has taught me that a moving child is an invested child, and investment is critical. Once children are bored, it is difficult to get them back in the loop.
While planning our day, my daughter shared that her class has been talking about turtles. There are few occasions when my being an angler is overtly advantageous, but this was one of them: I knew of a wonderful spot on the North Shore that is visited frequently by turtles. If the tide was right and the conditions good, I could almost guarantee my daughter an up-close look at a turtle.
We loaded up the car and arrived at the beach 45 minutes later. Because of an extreme low tide, we found the ocean floor exposed for nearly a hundred feet, with tiny tide pools formed in the pits and caverns left behind when the water escaped the shore.
Walking on the rocky coast, we discovered all sorts of treasure. A piece of driftwood once used to stoke a fire became an instant relic. Some pinkish coral in a pool found a home in my pocket, as did a small cowry shell. There were a million sardines racing around our feet and smaller mullet just a stone's throw away.
A crab, the size of my daughter's fist, sat in a tide pool barely big enough to hold it. Coolest of all, we saw a baby moray eel with black spots outlined in fluorescent gray slithering near our feet.
But we never saw a turtle, which did not seem to bother my daughter in the least.
We left the beach a couple of hours later filled with experiences that will return to us on the tides of memory.
But for me there was more.
We adults sometimes get lost in our goals. We are trained to set our sights on a target and pursue it at all costs, with success or failure measured by whether our goal has been achieved. I wonder about all the things we miss, blinded by our own goals. It seems life would be so much richer were we to only leave ourselves open to what may be.
Our goal was to see a real live turtle that day, but it did not happen and that's just fine with us. I was a child for a day and found unexpected treasure in the tide pools of life. I won't forget that day; I have brought back the memory and a small cowry shell.
Michael C. DeMattos has a master's degree in social work. He is a family therapist, educator, trainer, storyteller and angler, and lives in Kane'ohe with his wife and 5-year-old daughter. Write to him at: Family Matters, Island Life, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802; e-mail ohana@honoluluadvertiser.com or fax 535-8170.
