Fillet

The world is so loudly rich here in the spring. Red wing blackbirds, bullfrogs, spring peepers, robins, sparrows, doves. The owl and the thunder at night. Sandhill cranes croak-chirruping and picking their way through the marshes. 

My son wants to go fishing. At first, I am hesitant. I grew up fishing, hunting, and trapping, but I was never really the one holding the responsibility of taking life with my hands. And I was never the one skinning, cleaning, cutting, disposing.  But my father has passed and there is no one else here to perform the necessary tasks. I love my son and the Earth and the spring and life and death and learning. So we dig worms in the garden and gather night crawlers from the wet morning road and we go fishing.

It is almost comical how easy it is to catch them. One even bites a hook that simply smells like worm. We release two large mouth bass and bring home five blue gills.

The first time I try to fillet, it’s awful. I’m hungry and grumpy and the fish are so slimy. I cut organs and get small chunks of flesh. It is not pleasant. I cook it anyway and make tacos. They are delicious.

The next day, we have learned. I cut the barbs down and we practice setting the hook so we can return the ones that are small. We work to tire the fish out so there’s less fight when I cut the gills and bleed the fish so there is less blood in the meat. We have been mindful to thank the fish and to thank the pond, but it is different for me this time to speak to each one individually as I release the life blood. I admire the delicate shape of the scales, the vibrant impossibility of the gills, the iridescent rainbow of their color. Once, I mishandle the fish and a dorsal spine pokes me, drawing a tiny pinprick of blood. It seems right. 

At home, I am slower, more careful with the cleaning. I sharpen the fillet knife first and learn the different parts of the blade and where to use them. I come away with whole fillets, and respect for those for whom this is an art: to not waste. How precious. 

Both days, once I have collected the meat, I bury the fish in the garden. With my father gone and my mother navigating MS and preparing to move to me in Colorado, the garden is overgrown. Comfrey and violets and thistles and grass where we used to grow such bounty that it fed us all winter. I almost cry at how rich the soil is, how dark and perfectly textured and fragrant. Nothing like my rocky backyard in Colorado. 

My son suggests we bring fish tacos to the neighbor whose pond we have been fishing in. I make them for breakfast the next day and leave him pajamas, eating and playing chess with my mom. I realize this is the first time I have ever, on my own, taken a living creature and with it, fed my body and the body of my child. It feels holy. 

On the way down the valleys, along the creek, I see a red fox, a bald eagle, and swans. There are four red slider turtles on a log that sticks out of the water on the side of the road. 

The maples have just barely started to leaf out in the hills, swatches of fuzzy green against the dark wood of the later oaks and Elms.