The World According to Bo
They call me Bo. I’d prefer you didn’t think of me as a sea cow. I don’t see myself that way. Cows don’t live in the sea, so there’s that. I also don’t believe there is such a thing as absolute progress. Because of boat propellers. You might look a while at the deep scars on my backside and feel sorry for me, but I don’t question the things that cause me pain. These are experiences without words to me. Boats were not my idea.
Ponce de Leon Inlet is my home in Volusia County, near Daytona Beach. I am estranged from my family, but not in the traditional sense, as in we got into an argument over temperature tolerances and sea grass. It’s always more complicated than that, isn’t it? One winter I decided to stay behind in Ponce de Leon while they migrated north to Crystal River where the waters stay warm. I don’t mind the colder waters in January. They do. I don’t mind the solitude of the intracoastal waterway. They do. Give me a less traveled canal or quiet lagoon brimming with sea grass and I’ll be content for weeks, months. If that separates me, then it separates me. I have grown accustomed to solitude, like the man who went into the woods to live deliberately. I chose the Ponce de Leon Inlet. He wrote. I move slowly to conserve my energy and have not written a word. This happens more by habit than intention. I don’t mind not having a goal. Not everyone needs goals. Not everyone needs a place to be or something specific to get done by a certain time.
It’s a reality that injuries happen, especially in the canals. There’s nothing you or I can do about them. Even though I surface less for air these days because of my size, it’s nearly impossible for the fishing boats to avoid grazing me from time to time as they come in from the open water. It’s not like I can pin myself to the canal wall as they pass. Propellers will do what propellers do. Oh and by the way, did I tell you that I’m going on 52 years? How do you like that? As I count the sunrises, so they count themselves upon me. My cousin Charlie up in Charlotte Harbor is 65, believe it or not, and he has the wisdom to show for it. When we used to see each other more, before the falling out, we agreed that we couldn’t be bothered with the worries of others, those of our own family or those of the ones who consider us threatened. Charlie would say, “Aren’t we all threatened?” and that would put a weight around our tails, no longer endangered but threatened. Being endangered is a special kind of expectation because everyone’s looking at you, you can’t swim anywhere without being gawked at or pestered or having your picture taken, whereas being threatened, you might get a concerned glance every now and then.
Have I told you that the idea of being in a picture makes me feel like a zoo animal, an oddity? I was born wild and I’ll die wild and that’s it. Life feels long, but it’s brief. That’s all the knowledge I have. That’s all the acceptance I can muster and pack into a little cardboard box. And if by chance you don’t love sea cows, that’s okay. Try flamingos maybe. They are cold in every way but for their color. They don’t have whiskers and they are unlikely to end up on someone’s wall unless the photograph captures them with both legs down. Or sea gulls. They certainly love gliding over the sea. I don’t know what else to say. My name is Bo. I live alone in the Ponce de Leon inlet. My family isn’t coming back from Crystal River. What else is there?
I’ve grown not to like thinking as much as I used to. I’ve found that it ties you up in knots and makes the blue waters of the waterways less immediate, less clear. You could call it a blessing and a curse, a joy to see underneath the why of everything, but a curse in how it gets you stuck on things like why isn’t there more sea grass, why did the conservationists try to move me into the sanctuary, the cycling of these thoughts, the needless circles of them, taking you away from the delightfulness of gentle swimming as an end-all-be-all. I used to not think at all, but then I started listening to people at the seaside restaurants and it seeped into me, the formulations. It took on an unstoppable life. I don’t write down my thoughts, but maybe I should. Maybe in my next life I will have legs again. I hear it’s good for you to do some walking, if you have legs. It’s good for you to think about your next life. How this one can never be repeated. If push comes to shove, I always have the ocean to swim out into if I ever wanted. I have a feeling that I am old upon this earth, older than anything I see. 60 million years ago, I could have spent the afternoon on land and the morning in water. I am a Sirenian, they say. I am of an ancient lineage but so is everything on the earth and above it—the stars at night, the sun by day—and so is everything in the sea. It’s as if we could live forever there in its depths, without trying to eat each other to survive. Just so you know, I’m not in favor of the food chain. It’s why I stick to sea grass and water hyacinths and mangrove leaves. I never worry too much about my weight or feel self-conscious about it. There is the infinite within, calling you to it in every moment. I hope you can go there. I have. More and more. You know one day I might just venture up to Crystal River to enjoy the winter warmth there. When my family sees me again, they’ll say wow, you seem different. And I am. And they will want to know how I became that way. And I’ll say I can’t tell you how. You have to spend a good deal of time alone in the Ponce De Leon inlet and look into yourself and not get swept up in thinking about too many things for too long.
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