Conch Lessons

Sometimes our friend Dancer and his wife Iran invite us to join around the fire in the evening on their pod. Dancer grew up anchor-out and I love to hear his stories about being raised in the bay off the grid. Sometimes he brings out the conch shell. This is how the anchor out moms called their kids home for dinner. Blowing a note on a conch is more difficult than it looks. Dancer of course is a master, the way he is with oars when he paddles us out to the middle of the bay in a skiff to visit his father's anchor out, a floating tiny cabin called the Tortuga. It's magical and mysterious out there under the stars late at night. Back around the fire, I take another shot at the conch and finally blow a single, satisfying, deep~bellow of a note. And I realize I am home.