I know, sweet­ies, I know… Hooked is sit­ting awful­ly low in the water with all these Fish­er Poets posts. Apolo­gies if you’re a wee bit weary of my shiny eyes and daz­zled reports; I’m new­ly in love with this crowd, and am not ready to let go quite yet. Give me about a week to wrap up this pub­lic pro­cess­ing — still have anoth­er hand­ful of sto­ries and videos I’d like to share with you — and then we’ll move on to oth­er fishy things.

(Things like our fast-approach­ing depar­ture. Cap’n J, Bear the Boat Cat, and I will be reunit­ing with the good ship Ner­ka in 3 weeks.)

Thanks to every­one who com­ment­ed with kudos for Cap’n J, Hil­lel Wright, and the oth­er con­tes­tants. Some of you also left nudges: “So, when are we going to hear about your read­ings?” As it turns out, friends, I’ve found it more dif­fi­cult to share my own sto­ry than to cel­e­brate some­one else’s. Shock­ing, I know.

We got our pro­grams at Thurs­day’s wel­come dinner/open mic. Pecu­liar expe­ri­ence, see­ing a dream laid out before you in offi­cial black and white.

Fri­day start­ed lazi­ly. (For one of us, at least — Cap’n J jumped out of bed at 5 to shoot sun­rise at Eco­la State Park.) Swedish pan­cakes with lin­gonber­ries, admir­ing the waves rolling in under clear skies, a new post up, rehears­ing that night’s piece, even time to snug­gle with my sweet­heart. Pret­ty good stuff to lead into a big day.

Joel’s sis­ter Ash­ley joined us that after­noon, and we head­ed into Asto­ria. The clear morn­ing sur­ren­dered to a har­bor day – side­ways rain, win­dow-rat­tling gusts by the end of the night. Some­where after Sea­side and before War­ren­ton, the glow I’d worn from the pre­vi­ous evening slipped off, reveal­ing wide-eyed, elec­tric­i­ty-under-my-skin anxiety.

We parked as close as we could to the Baked Alas­ka and scram­bled to get inside, heads ducked against the build­ing storm. Flashed our FPG but­tons to the vol­un­teer at the door and claimed seats near the front. I gave a thought of grat­i­tude to co-orga­niz­ers Jon Brod­er­ick and Jay Speak­man for putting me in this inti­mate venue. The “stage,” a 6‑inch ply­wood rise, faced a mel­low audi­ence scat­tered through­out two nar­row aisles. Com­pared to wilder venues that the pros han­dled, the Baked Alas­ka promised a gen­tle introduction.

The show kicked off with music. Jon on gui­tar and Jay on har­mon­i­ca, our emcees began with an ode to “the girl with dark eyes at the can­nery.” Author Penn Wal­lace fol­lowed their set with the sto­ry of his own green­horn debut – an 8 year old boy accom­pa­ny­ing Pop­pa on a 1949 alba­core trip. A Cor­do­va fish­er­man stepped up to fill anoth­er performer’s absence. In tes­ti­mo­ny to everyone’s gifts, for a while I for­got my nerves and just enjoyed the show.

Then Jon invit­ed me up.

Care­ful to side­step the tan­gle of micro­phone cords, I sought refuge behind the music stand and looked for the crowd’s friend­liest faces. I told them how thank­ful I was to be there, then con­fessed, “I’m also a lit­tle nervous.”

[The next morn­ing, I would attend Ron McDaniel’s fan­tas­tic work­shop, “Pol­ish­ing Your Onstage Per­for­mance.” He’d declare, “Nev­er announce yer flaws! Don’t tell ’em you’re ner­vous — you just told the sharks ‘Hey there, fel­las, sor­ry to dis­turb you with my bleed­ing!’”  Huh. Good point.]

For­tu­nate­ly, there were no sharks in the Baked Alas­ka that night. A woman in the front row offered an encour­ag­ing smile, and I con­tin­ued. “So, I’d like to launch this maid­en voy­age with a piece for the best fish­er­man — and the best sto­ry­teller — that I ever knew. Maybe some of you knew him, too.”

With that, I began to read The Aquila Rides Again.

A revised ver­sion, it was­n’t what some of you have seen before. I’d won­dered if I’d be able to tell a room full of strangers about Steve Meier with­out crum­bling. And moments before I went on, I pan­icked, won­der­ing if it was­n’t a ter­ri­ble mis­take to lay that heavy of a sto­ry on the crowd. Oh well…Too late to pick some­thing else. 

*****

Cap’n J and I aren’t much for mariner super­sti­tions. Our oper­a­tion includes a woman and a cat, after all, and our best trips have start­ed on Fri­days. Yet the Nerka’s cab­in is fes­tooned with good luck charms: a sequined fish from Tunisia, a Gre­cian amulet against evil eye, favorite for­tunes from Ken­ny’s Wok. My win­ter writ­ing space offers sim­i­lar imagery: quotes from oth­er writ­ers, a mock-up of my book cov­er, pho­tos of cheer­lead­ing loved ones who’ve vowed to buy that book.

No sur­prise I’d cloak myself in tal­is­mans, too, for an event like this. A blue and white ban­dan­na, a gift from my social work­er days from a remark­able young woman. (May I get through this with a smidgen of your strength and grace, I thought, knot­ting it tight.) Seri­ous ear­rings — 6 gauge steel spi­rals, cour­tesy of my favorite piercer, Dana Burnidge. No one with such badass jew­el­ry would be scared on stage – right?

Fun­ny, the props we reach for when we’re feel­ing vulnerable.

But the truest sources of courage can’t be worn or bought. Cap’n J lat­er observed, “You real­ly hit your stride mid­way through.” Read­ing about Steve invoked his spir­it – his authen­tic­i­ty, his gruff com­pas­sion, his fero­cious truth-telling. As I described our friend, I felt myself slip into the self-assured way in which he walked through the world. Turns out, there’s no greater tal­is­man than the mem­o­ry of your hero.

*****

Cloud­ed by that oth­er­world­ly daze that comes of accom­plish­ing some­thing you weren’t sure that you could do, I returned to my seat. I felt grate­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to share some­one who’d been such a cor­ner­stone in our lives, and appre­ci­at­ed the kind recep­tion. But there’s a shale-rid­den slope between cel­e­brat­ing a life and exploit­ing it, and I don’t plan to read this piece pub­licly again. It’s enough to have relied on Steve’s strength for my first time on stage; I can rely on my own from here on out.

Pho­to by Joel Brady-Power

Were you at one of the venues that night? Or did you tune in to KMUN’s live stream? Who did you get to hear?