Matthew Finnesgard

Children's Literature: Personal Narrative Rough Draft

May 10th, 2008

My Life as a Fish

"Daddy," my daughter said, "tell me about what you were like when you were my age." I looked at her pondering the question for a moment. What was my life like when I was her age? It was so long ago . . .

"Honey," I answered, "when I was your age, I was a fish."

"What?! No, you weren't! You were a little boy." She retorted.

"Oh yeah, who says? Were you there?" I replied back.

"Well, no, I wasn't there, but I know that no person has ever been a fish."

"Who told you that?" I inquired.

"Everyone knows that," she said indigently.

"Well, you asked me the question, and that is my answer. When I was your age, I was a fish. I breathed water just like a fish. I lived in water just like a fish. I was a fish."

"No, you weren't," she said drawing out each word to emphasis her point. She was growing more and more incensed at my insistance that I was a fish when I was her age.

"Who is telling the story here me or you?" I asked in a mocking tone.

"You are," she sighed.

"Tell me, would it be more interesting if I told you my life was like Johnny's just down the road, or that I was a fish?" She had no reply to this, so I went on with my story.

"When I was your age, I was a fish. You see, I lived in California. Santee to be exact. It is a suburb of San Diego."

"That is where grandpa lives right?" She interrupted.

"Yes, but if you keep asking questions like that I will never get to my story, so keep your yapper shut and let me go on. Where was I . . . oh yeah, I was living in California when I was your age. The thing I remember the most from that time in my life was the weather. Weird, huh? It was always nice, always sunny. It never rained. Not that it matter what the temperature was like outside because I was a fish. I lived in the water."

"How can you live in the water if you live in San Diego?" She asked crassly.

"Shamoo lives in San Diego, and he is a whale. Now be quiet or I am done telling the story," I said with a smirk on my face. She is such a wisenhimmer. She must get that from her mom, and that is exactly why I love her so much.

"Okay, okay. I will stop interrupting," she conceded.

"Just so we are straight, when I was your age I was a . . ." I asked with an inflection.

"You were a fish," she answer.

"Yes, when I was your age I was a fish," I said back. Proud at the fact that I have beaten my daughter at the test of wills, which does not happen very often as demostrated by the bulge in her toy chest.

"You see, sugar, when I was your age I lived with your grandma Mary and grandpa Mark (who were married at this time long before your grandma Cathy was around, but I digess), and your aunts Maegan and Melanie, and your uncle Mitchell. We lived on top of a hill--now a hill in California is quite a bit different from a hill here in Minnesota. Here we call any slight change in elevation a hill. What we lived on was more of a mountian to a Minnesotan than a hill. It was about a mile or so from the school I went to each day. It was called Sycamore Canyon. There were no hallways and the cafetria was outside . . . something you don't see in Minnesota very often. School, however, was not my forte. To be honest with you, I faked being sick as much as possible to get out of going, and don't you dare try to copy me. I know all the tricks in the book. My love was the water." I told her all this knowing she had heard it all before. I could see that she was starting to get sleepy, but I wanted to string it out as long as I could before she fell asleep to her own dreams of a child. Being a parent, you only get to see your child for a few precious hours during the day, and the most precious hours to me are the quite ones we share together before she goes to sleep.

"Dad," she said through a yawn, "why did you tell me that you were a fish?"

"I am getting to that part. I am just providing a backdrop to the story," I said in reply.

"Well, get to the story already," she urged.

"I loved to swim when I was your age. Love isn't a stong enough word for what I felt for the water. I longed for the water day and night. We had a pool in the backyard. A nice little pool we would invite all the neighborhood kids over to swim in during the hot summer days. But, I wasn't just in love with my pool. You see, we had the ocean just minutes from our house. Have you ever been to the ocean?" I asked my daughter knowing the answer.

"We went to Hawii on vacation last winter, dad, or did you already forget the sunburn on your back?" she said with a wry smile on her face, and a hardy slap to my back.

"How could I forget? I had you pulling skin-jerky off my back for weeks!" I said back.

"Yeah, that was gross."

"Do you remember how enchanting the waves were? Do you remember the sound of the ocean? The calling of the deep?" I asked her.

"Kinda," she replied.

"Well, wait here. I will be right back," I said as I ran off to my bedroom to grab the conch shell we had found while scuba-diving on that trip. "Here, put this up against your ear," I instructed her.

"I can't hear anything," she said looking at me with empty eyes, as if to tell me to grow up and mature, but I am too old for kid-advice like that.

"Let me open your window. That way the ocean can send it's message to you on the voice of the wind." I opened up the window, and a cool breath flowed in from out of the west. "Now, put the shell up to your ear. Listen carefully because the message can be as soft as a whisper," and as my daughter put the shell up to her ear the wind blew. Not the usually wind, but a wind from a long distance away. It didn't carry the scent of grass like normal, but it carried the scent of salt . . . it was the scent of the ocean.

"Dad, I can hear it," she said with her eyes lighting up, "I can hear the voice of the ocean."

"Good, now keep on listening to it," I told her, "When I last listened to the ocean it had called to me. It called me to it's shores. I walked into the waves. I remember the water being cold that evening, exceptionally cold, as if it came from the deepest part of the ocean. It had come up to greet me. I soon found myself wading farther and farther from the shore. My head was submerged, but I wasn't holding my breath. I was breathing underwater. I could also see . . . seeing like I had never seen before. My vision had changed. All around me I could see the glow from warmth of the animals in the water near me. I also noticed that I was no longer standing on the ground, but rather I was floating . . . floating steadily, like a fish in an aquarime. When I moved I slipped easily through the water. I kept going deeper and deeper. I was passing all sorts of ocean creatures. There was a school of fish here, and a shark over there. A seal played tag with me, but I was soon going too deep for him to keep up. That was when I sensed it. It was a presence--a huge, mighty presence. I reached out and touched it. My palm pressed against the smooth back of the creature as it passed by. I felt a fin and grabbed onto it, and with that it pulled. The force of the tug was like nothing I have ever experienced before. Deeper and deeper we went. Past all life, past all light, but off in the distance there was a faint glow . . . something growing slowly. The closer we got the larger it grew, and the larger it grew the faster it expanded. It was a city, an underwater kingdom with gates and towers made of coral. And when we got to the clam-shell gates there was a great rumble as the they opened . . ."

It was at this point when I noticed there was a sleeping , lump of beauty in my arms. She had doozed off, and there went my precious evening with my princess, my daughter. Taking the shell from her hand, I placed it on the night-stand next to her bed. I laid her down to sleep, wrapping her snuggly into her sheets. With a kiss to the forehead, and a whispered, "I love you," in her ears and she was off to sleep dreaming of seals and whales and kingdoms under the sea.