After trying about six different sleeping positions, I got up and grabbed a blanket to sit with on the couch. I was learning how to crochet, which kept my hands busy and my mind thinking about stitches and counting and making sure I didn’t leave a hole. I was testing out different techniques on squares, and eventually I’d put them all together as a blanket. At least, that was the plan. I was only on the second square, and my squares didn’t exactly look like the pictures, but at least I was doing something. I’d burned through so many hobbies in the last two years, including puzzles, wire jewelry, baking bread, and raising succulents, to keep myself sane. Barely.
I curled up on the couch for a few hours of rest before my alarm went off. It was still dark when I got up and got dressed. I kept my regular wardrobe separate from my work wardrobe. I had to. You could never get the stink of bait out of jeans, let me tell you. I actually kept my work clothes on the porch so they didn’t funk up the house. I tossed my extra jacket, boots, and oil pants in a bag on the back of my bike, packed up some protein bars and a sandwich, coffee, and water for the day, sucked down a protein shake, and I was ready for work. My bag was already packed with the other essentials: sunblock, a hat, gloves, a portable charger for my phone, and a few tampons. Just in case.
I spared one glance for the house next door, but the lights were all off, since most normal people weren’t awake at this hour. At first, it had been horrible, waking before the sun. Now I relished this quiet. I often spent entire days where I only had to communicate in a few words or grunts. That probably wasn’t healthy, but it was working for me right now.
I headed down to the wharf to grab my dinghy and row out toward my boat. I wasn’t alone, and shared a few nods and waves and grunts with my fellow cohorts. There weren’t a whole lot of women on the water, but the guys had never really said much to me. I was sure they had talked behind my back, but no one said anything to my face. Not that I would have put up with any bullshit from them. I’d been telling men off my entire life and needed more practice.
My shoulders popped and cracked as I rowed out to my boat, named the June Marie. I’d bought it from a man who had named it for his wife and daughter, as many did, and I hadn’t been able to come up with a better name, so I kept it. Maybe one of these days I’d change it to something like the Salty Bitch, but then that would mean I was staying here and the boat was mine and this was my life now. I didn’t want this to be my life. I used to picture my life in so many different ways, and now it was a blank. I was stuck, but I couldn’t find the way forward. I wanted to dream again. I just didn’t know how. Back in the day, I’d planned on getting my MBA and then opening a coffee shop or a greenhouse or a bar. I didn’t know what my business would be. I just knew that I wanted to work for myself, and that seemed like the way to do it. I’d been young and naïve then.
The June Marie roared to life and I steered it out of the harbor. The first few days like this on the water had been spent acclimating to the waves and the up-and-down motion of the boat, but somehow, my body had stopped fighting it and I wasn’t puking over the side while trying not to hit a buoy or a seal.
I always played music on the boat, so I turned on my favorite playlist. Lizzo blasted from the small speakers I’d rigged up in the cabin. It was cold as fuck today, so I wrapped myself up and sucked down half of my thermos of coffee as the sun rose. The forecast was for temps in the eighties later, a rarity for Maine. Right now the air was downright frosty. That wasn’t something I had bargained on when I started. I’d learned a lot since then. A bunch of the guys I’d hung out with in high school had worked for their dads, and I’d helped out once or twice, so I wasn’t completely new to fishing. I’d still had to fumble my way through at first.
I reached my first buoy, which was painted white with a black stripe around the middle. I hadn’t been very creative there, I had to admit. I set about the nasty job of throwing bait into bags to re-bait the trap, and then the business of hauling the trap up from the ocean floor. If I wasn’t such a small operation (only fifty traps), I might have had help in the form of a sternman, but then I would have had to talk to someone, and that would have been the worst. I’d rather curse and struggle and take longer doing things on my own than hire someone else. Plus, I’d have to pay them and I was barely making it work as it was. At least I didn’t have to pay a mortgage.
I lost myself in the rhythm of my work: bait, haul trap, pull out lobsters, measure, rubber band, re-bait, toss back in ocean.
By the time most people were getting up for work, I was almost halfway through my traps for the day. I had
