on rescuing a ladybug

sculpture by sara nesson

I was resting in my kayak on San Pablo Bay on a recent Monday morning when I saw an orange spot in the water five feet starboard. A ladybug, maybe dead or alive, unable to break the surface tension of the water.

I got her onto my paddle and onto the bow of my boat, but then she disappeared near the seam of the cockpit and I could only hope she was on board and might go on to enjoy a redeemed life.

Then I forgot all about it.

There was a light wind to manage, and the needs of my body and mind. I try to stay upbeat and unworried at the same time I perform only a few minutes of gentle aerobic anything, a medical necessity which is a unique agony at times, especially because I can bench press thirty pounds by now and my muscles positively ache to push and pull that water.

After I got out of the boat, having paddled the roughly two-minute distance back-and-forth across Bullhead Flat, I sat on a rock by a cement picnic table to change my shoes. A sudden flock of Caspian terns swept into the cove, squawking and diving for fish. These are big birds! Four-foot wingspan; white bodies with gray tipped wings; long, bright orange-red beaks; black caps. It was exhilarating—all that strength and frenzy.

When I got home, my husband Les was in the kitchen. I told him about everything.

The sun and wind were spilling out of my mouth.

I sat on the kitchen stool, put my feet up on the big wooden kitchen block in the middle of the room. I tipped my baseball cap onto it.

And there was the ladybug.

She’d been with me, every moment. When I paddled the cove. Saw the terns. Dried my feet. Hoisted the boat onto the car. Sang all the way home, the dozen miles from China Camp to Sleepy Hollow.

It's something I have done this week: rescue a ladybug and, inadvertently, relocated her to my backyard to live among the Santa Barbara daisies and grasses.

Now if only someone could rescue me. There are waters that take hold of me sometimes.

If someone could slide a paddle under me and bring me aboard, give me a safe place to ride, like on the rim of their baseball cap, I'd be grateful.