“Lil’ Pelican,” brown pelicans, and Crazie Lee

Took Kaiden my son to the beach down in Galveston cause you know we fools for the beach. With him holding onto his sea-brilliant colored boogie board that has euphoric paintings of an underwater Eden painted on it, we swam (I pulled) out into deep water further than he’d ever gone before. Overhead, and sometimes in the sea near us, we saw more endangered brown pelicans than we’ve ever seen. With the waves popping up and down momentarily blocking his face from my view, I began to feel like we were pelicans ourselves, the water’s ancient muddy bottom some 20-30 invisible feet below us (drowned tallgrass prairie from the seas rising hundreds of feet after the last climate change).

Kaiden lying horizontal on his board, us bobbing, me treading, both swimming….. His new nickname is Lil Pelican.

On shore he thinks he’s “Crazie Lee,” (the name he’s given himself)– Bruce Lee’s grandson. I’ve taught him how to fight (and when not to fight) and some principles of Jeet Kune Do. Don’t know what I’ve created because he fractured my nose a month or so ago when we were play-sparring and I was just cuffing him, not paying much attention and he clocked me good, not even realizing himself how fast and strong he was getting. Teaches me right, I know.