Ray Day

Today I bopped around town, doing the errand thing - purchase the last Christmas gift at Starbucks, mail the Christmas cards, put gasoline in the car, visit an auto repair place to see if they can help me find the impossible halogen headlight for my old BMW with an aftermarket conversion kit, and go in search of Publix's new Greenwise Market hidden somewhere in Hyde Park (I found it - not your usual-looking Tampa grocery store - very urban).

Then I decided to drive to my favorite park and swing on the double swing, but instead I walked along Bayshore Boulevard. What a fantastic day! Warm, sunny, no clouds. The perfect winter day in west central Florida. Someone had, however, thrown beer bottles, Coke cans, food waste, broken styrofoam containers and assorted other garbage in Tampa Bay. It was just floating on the water like seaweed, like it belonged there. Made me want to jump in the water and gather it up and make the water clean again (as clean as Tampa Bay can get, that is). A little farther north of the lolligagging trash, I saw two dark points going up and down with the lazy waves. Curious, I walked toward the mystery. As soon as I approached the points, they disappeared. I waited. It's a beautiful day and I have all the time in the world since I'm unemployed and there's no rush to go anywhere.

A few minutes later, the dark points appeared and they were coming towards me, then they turned away. Up and down, visible, not visible. At a certain angle, perhaps illuminated by the sun, the mystery was unveiled. The points belonged to a small manta ray swimming slowly, searching for lunch perhaps. It was alone, its pectoral fins 'flying' gracefully in and out of the cloudy water. I watched it for several minutes, the black points here, then gone, then here again. The ray seemed so at peace, so at ease in its environment - unlike me who lives a zigzag, chaotic life for no other reason than I don't accept who I am. The wildlife-loving part of me wanted the little ray to come closer to me, perhaps so I could understand its strangeness, it being so different from me, but the ray had other ideas. So I let it go and walked away, back to my human existence with its worries about money, neighbors, house/car repairs, job searching, etc. etc. etc.