Pelican Passing

We took the ferry across the Big River, and drove a half hour to Bonaventure. As we rode across the sparkling water, through the piney woods on the two-lane highway, and later sat on the sun washed deck of a waterfront restaurant with our dog watching the wild horses play on the barrier islands just across the marina, I had that woozy, lighter-than-air feeling that I sometimes have when I see myself living this new, prettier, completely different life. It's a feeling that, if I let it go that way, can nauseate me or make me feel a bit crazy; but if I contemplate it as a spectator rather than as if it were mine, that feeling just makes me grin like a fool.

After lunch, I struck up a conversation with the captain of a yacht with whom I had a lot in common, including the university from which we had both graduated. He now takes people out on cruises, he said. Better life, he said. I passed the million dollar mark this year, he said. That's how much money I've put into this tub. Then, before setting sail with the business casual types who had just contracted his services for a Saturday afternoon cruise, he handed me the long, clean, white wing bone of a pelican. "Don't know what those bumps on it are," he said, handing it to me with a wink. "Might be a message."

And he was gone.