Stalking the Wild Abalone

One of the first questions I could answer when I emerged from my awful depression was: “What do you want for your birthday?” Without hesitation I said, “A guided abalone dive.”

This is a good test question for mental health. Healthy people usually want things and if they can get those things for free they should have no trouble remembering what those things are. If you’d asked me the same question over a month ago I would have been absolutely stumped.

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Sunday I cashed in Kathleen’s gift and went stalking the wild abalone-- that terrifying mollusk of the deep! It was after 5 PM. The water was murky, the swell was picking up. Strands of bull kelp and sea grass clawed at my head like blackberry vines. Visibility perhaps 15 ft. Seawater in my snorkel, damn! They come….…

sliming, sliggering, slouching, suctioning forward on dirty tongues with the black ruffle around them, the army of angry mollusks pursue their ancient grudge against vertebrates: "The shell was it, man! Impregnable. And now you feast on me. I'm gonna go Pre-Cambrian on your ass.”

“That’s because you evolved far enough to survive and afterwards got lazy.”

"Beware, vertebrate!”

When the abalone attacked I was already fitted with 30 lbs. of weights (to counteract the flotation of my wetsuit), so that the weight of each additional abalone that grolloped on my bod would drag me further down to Davey Jones' Gym Locker no matter what manic counter-propulsion my fins attempted.

Here come the limpets on steroids! The Barry Bonds Barnacles!

"Belt first!" Their general cried.

I tried to release my belt but the damn clams wouldn’t let me get my hands on the buckle in time.

In ten-foot depths I clung to a large rock and hoped that my house—the one with a spine and real lungs--would not have its subprime jumbo shrimp bluff called.

On they came, sucking, seeking…

When my eyes dipped toward the waterline and I took my last breath, I realized that the mask and snorkel were of no use now—but before I tossed them a thought arrived: What if I were to blow air underneath the abalooneys with the snorkel! They use water cannons above ground, why not reverse the elements?

I began air-goosing every parasitic mollusk I could find clinging to my suit. Miraculously the damn clams ran from air like black from rice. Lightened, I rose to the surface; frightened, they twirled back to the bottom, licking their tongues and whining invertebrate excuses.

Despite these initial difficulties I managed three legal abalones in my first hour.

Afterwards I bought an abalone hammer and pounded the beasts into delicate strip-steaks of firm white flesh for my dear wife who had never tasted abalone. It lived up to its reputation; she said it was “to die for,” and indeed, every season five divers agree with her.

Sorry to leave you with the taste of death in your mouths.


Happy Halloween,

Craig Erick

Enjoying My Euthymia; Poem, "Salad Burial"

No crises, no depths, no chemical aberrations to report. No doubt my readers will quickly become bored with my newfound wellness, though I am delighted with it. To --not be depressed-- is the greatest blessing I can receive in this life. Sure, I love my wife and daughters and friends. But when depressed I can feel none of that love, neither for me nor for them. I feel like an insignificant fly speck or worse, a tiny curse in the world, or so my chemicals would convince me (until whipped into shape by modern psychopharmacology).

My poem, “When I Am an Old Man” in Chimaera was a take-off on “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple.” It’s worth a peek for a laugh, though I do wax a little surrealistic at the end--which reminds me of some paintings I saw yesterday, categorized as “hyperrealistic surrealism.” And damn, it fit!

Today I attended my mushroom identification course, per usual, except my memory for recalling Famoptosis cajanderi and countless other strange monikers is much improved with the depression at bay. It is amazing how much my mind improves when free from a depression, just amazing. I can think of many delightful, forgotten grudges from the past, not to mention all the new slights I look forward to.

Next week we’ll begin our field work with fungi, thank goodness, as I am so tired of the classroom experience. The rains have come so the mushrooms will follow. I can’t wait to be foraging for fungi in the forest. That line reminds me of another poem that no one has deigned to publish, a poem in a light-hearted vein. I labor to be reader friendly. I try to write for readers, not poets. But this is not a new poem. I am holding to my vow to eschew poetry.


Salad Burial

I made it on a Saturday
with romaine and green leaf lettuce,
stems crisp and firm,
fresh-boiled eggs in slices,
the rose-white flesh of radishes,
mushrooms cut kidney-style,
spinach with that suede feel
and chicken strips
grilled in garlic oil.

If it had been eaten at the party
or I hadn’t dressed it for convenience
I wouldn't be standing here, a week later
afraid to open the blue ironware pot
where Hansel and Gretel are lost
in the furry forest of the fungal underworld,
where spice of meat and greens are married
to the ghoulish sponge of Miss Havisham’s
spider-riddled wedding cake.

Holding my nose I look away
and blindly bag the mutant gallimaufry,
dropping it in the trash, but as I do
I wonder what alien stews must be
composting in my neighbors’ cans—
See how the imagination festers?


Did you like the phrase, “mutant gallimaufry?” I was proud of that.

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So what does the immediate future look like for me if I stay euthymic?

My main goals are to wrap up all my art from the past, to record all the songs I’ve ever written, to revise or complete all the prose and poetry else toss all I've written, and to improve my website so that my music can be downloaded. I also aim to complete the workbook, A Graceful Farewell, so that in the event of my own death things will go smoothly. So many die unprepared! I don’t want my brothers fighting over my Stratocaster and my Martin guitars, for instance. As for a literary executor, it is not clear at this point whether one will be needed unless my writings obtain a higher visibility. Right now this blog is the best thing I got going, because more people read it than all my poetry buried in all those publications for the semi-elite. Strange, isn’t it? Journaling gets me more readers than composition.

Other goals? I want to paint our living room and purchase better furniture and use our space more elegantly. Our unit has two rooms, upstairs and downstairs. Upstairs holds the bedroom, TV and closets; downstairs Kathleen and I each have our own office in opposite corners from which we sometimes e-mail each other in lieu of talking. Our dual schmegg zones eat up all the available space. We can't even have guests over for dinner, having no table to speak of.

The rain is here. So is my birthday, October 17, for which Kathleen has purchased me a guided abalone dive. I can’t wait! That’s what I asked for when she asked me what I wanted. Can you imagine me just two-and-half weeks ago asking for anything at all? Nope. Neither can I. What a different when the light is turned on.

Like that old film star, the only presents I now accept are those I can eat, read, wear, listen to, or spend. No knick-knacks.

For those with budget constraints a simple genuflection to my blog photo will do. I do also kinda want a cat. (Hear that, Laurel?) We are not ready for a new dog yet.


2 Kilobunnies,

CE