Author Archive: Christopher Waldrop

When I was a kid and we’d go over to my grandparents’ house, my grandfather would always start conversations by asking me, “What did you do today?” And I could never think of an answer. I’d just go silent and my eyes would glaze over, and I knew it was rude to not answer, but for some reason the question just wiped everything out of my brain. What had I done that day? Probably played with my friends, watched something stupid on TV, caught some bugs and put them in a jar and studied them, tried to build a log cabin in the backyard only to discover that it’s really hard to build a log cabin when all you can find are twigs, gone to school. We often went to my grandparents’ house on Fridays, so for most of the year having gone to school could have been at least part of my answer. Most days I took my lunch to school, but on Fridays the school served “fish” which was a square of breaded and fried fishlike substance warmed just enough that the slice of cheeselike substance draped over it would start to melt, and I thought it was the greatest food ever, or at least the greatest food the school cafeteria served, which, now that I think about it, it probably was. We all had to walk single-file to the cafeteria for lunch and each kid would get a turn being at the front of the line, and the day it was my turn to be at the front of the line just happened to be a Friday, so that was a pretty good day. And I’m pretty sure when my grandfather asked me what I did that day I couldn’t come up with a single thing.

Looking back I realize at least part of the problem was I wanted to tell him something interesting and, given what I knew about him, that seemed like a pretty tall order. If I’d turned the question around and asked him what he did that day he probably would have said, “Oh, not much. I finished varnishing the cabinet for a clock I’m putting together, pollinated a vanilla orchid in the greenhouse I built, reorganized my collection of fishing lures by color, size, type of fish, and date of purchase, rescued a snake that was caught in the rain gutter, went to the hardware store and demonstrated the proper way to calibrate the scale they use for bolts, and had a banana for lunch.”

Eventually I started anticipating the question. In fact, now that I think about it, knowing that the first thing my grandfather was going to ask me was, “What did you do today?” made me aware of both time and what I was accomplishing, or not. It made me start mentally listing what I’d done during the day, and also prompted me to try and do things, to stretch myself a little each day. Most days I didn’t think about it, but if I knew I was going to see my grandparents I’d try and do something that I could tell my grandfather about. And it’s not a bad approach to life, considering what you’ve done and using that as a prompt to try and do more, or do better, in the future. Maybe it’s why some people keep diaries; not so much to reflect on what they’ve done but as a way to push themselves forward.

Ask yourself, what did you do today? Just please don’t ask me because I know I did something but I’m pretty sure as soon as you ask me I’ll just go silent and my eyes will glaze over.

April is National Poetry Month and the beginning of beach season, depending on where you are, so here’s a poem I wrote on a beach several years ago.

A “mermaid’s purse” is a black, leathery rectangle that’s the egg case of skates, stingrays, and certain kinds of sharks. They often wash up on the beach once their occupant swims away.

Mermaid’s Purse

I was also born out of the sea, out of rocky oyster shells and polyphemous waves,

Under gulls riding changes in the wind.

Tied To coral, to warped twigs in green light, cartilage congealed

Into a diamond-winged body, brown above and ghostwhite below, and a trailing tail.

Swimmers all of us.

What I couldn’t see from my point on land I connected

To things I recognized. It rained.

Water met water, a million drops disturbed

 

The surface.

But the fish only feel it when the waves grow heavy enough to drag

Them into the air. They feel it always. Even fused to their element

They breathe the threat

 

Above. Where

I walked gulls ran at the waves, caught quick bites, and picked at tidal remains. No sun

Breaks. Not since my birth has the sun come

Through to here, and the cold water runs wild and foul abandoned

To itself. I never noticed the currents above and below that shook me in

The tasteless pouch of comfort and unliving,

My dark home. The light broke, called me to follow, and my world split and was carried

Upward to the gull cries and foamy strings playing on the surface. I catch

It as it comes in

 

With the waves: a black leathery rectangle with wiry

Arms at its corners. It’s a mermaid’s purse, still thick with the smell of the sea.

 

On the sand

Nearby, half-sunk in foam and nearly invisible where it lies exposed,

Is a skate

Thrown onto the beach by an earlier wave, tail still

Touching the tide as it goes out.

 

I skim the bottom while threatening shadows of gulls pass over

My body blended with the background. Only touches of white where

My wings curl over reveal

Me, and the waves protect me for now. I prowl for the dead, scavenging for leftovers

 

Of storms, starvation,

And the hard black tides that strand and take back.

An offshore squall washed up blowfish, foam, and bubbled tresses of seaweed.

 

A strangled heron

Lies spread in flight on a pile of driftwood, cracked beak pointed toward

Sky-blue crabs clustered in a collective grave. A rust-skinned hook threatens nothing,

Though it lies close to a fish still and silver in the gray light. All around

Are fragments of sponge and coral. A string of bleached and broken shells has settled

Into a ridge to hold

The water as it comes in, puts its arms out to the things in its reach, and pulls

 

Them close. When

I broke from the blackness it was freedom, it was the beginning

Of the new tide.

The wind dies

Suddenly and the sun pushes through. From over the water, for a moment,

 

It becomes

The same sun under the water, rays reflected into sea urchin spines.

The farthest

Waves turn blue then, as they approach, they change to aquamarine,

Shedding skin

And mingling with white. They roll in. Smoky quartz

Carries the beat of sand against sand. They reach forward,

And water curls

Over land, over itself. Its edges end, then begin, in the moment when the foam reaches

The highest point and remains trembling in the wind.