Atmospheres: My Parents' Goldfish Pond
This is a new newsletter called "Atmospheres:" in which I review my favorite places only on the criteria of having a good atmosphere.
My Parents' Goldfish Pond
Under goodhearted gales she lifts her hat, gracing us a glimpse.
Nestled between a moss-ridden Williamsburg-style brick wall and my mother’s cucumber garden, among mosquito bites and bee stings, and bordered in that same brick that stands the castle, a quaint square goldfish pond modestly absorbs the sun.
The smallest two goldfish nibble on the tarp lining the inside of the pond. A black sheet of plastic holds all that they know. Their troposphere. They scatter and sink beneath a lily pad. The rest of the pack spastically swarms a surplus of shmushed shrimp specs sloughed softly on the speckled surface. The tarp-eaters catch up and try to get in on the buffet. They’re like runts pushing and clawing at their mother’s teet.
They’re fed every other day, sometimes every other other day. Usually every other day. They’re tossed a handful of TETRA Pond Spring & Fall Diet Transitional Fish Food from a 3.08-lb bag. A curious german shepherd watches and whines, wanting to wet-lick a waterlogged wallop of fish food for himself.
“No, not for you,” I remind him.
Sometimes they’re hidden from me. They’re woven among pickerel stalks and twig debris, sheltered by algaeified lily pads. Their homes are as green as they are cramped.
Sometimes they gang up in the back corner of the pond. A clearing in their murky forest. The ‘clean corner.’ They seem to be in a more comfortable mood when they’re in the clean corner. Less nervous and more spry.
Of course, the clean corner is also the furthest corner from where I like to watch, so they could be even more scared than normal, running, or rather, swimming as far away from me as they can. Their neighborhood under attack by some giant. I keep watching.
I tiptoe along the brick border to the pond’s rear. The fish scatter back to their fortress; leading the way was the smallest of the tarp-eaters, a pinkish-colored runt named Princess.
Princess is the easiest to spot because of how strikingly different she looks from the rest.I walk back around the pond and stand back and wait, expecting them to return. They don’t. I leave and come back a few minutes later with a handful of fish food and could see one fish. One of the gold goldfish. It was nibbling on the lining. A tarp-eater. When it's cloudier and later in the day, they like to come out and hunt, but in the hot sun they like to sink into the shade.
At one time, there was a black goldfish, and I called him Phineas. I haven’t seen him since last summer. I don’t know any of these fish’s genders, but Princess seems like a girl fish, and Phineas seemed like a boy fish. I don’t name them anymore. Nowadays, with the exception of Princess, I only call them “fish” or “fishy” if I’m in a conversation with the german shepherd.
I think two things must’ve happened to Phineas:
He either changed colors overtime and turned into a gold goldfish, or he was killed and eaten. If he was killed and eaten, he was either cannibalized by the other goldfish, or eaten by a larger animal.The german shepherd has never seemed to show much interest in the goldfish and has only once stepped into the pond. He was quite embarrassed that day and doesn’t stand too close to the edge anymore.
There is a soaring hawk. I think it's a red-shouldered hawk. It can be occasionally seen circling the yard and is a likely candidate, but it's usually shooed away by the blue jays and house wrens protecting their babies. The hawk doesn’t hunt here often.
Then there are the crows. There’s a murder of 3-4 crows that hang out in the backyard. It's possible that Phineas died and floated to the surface, from which a crow could’ve easily snagged him. I occasionally leave the murder gifts in exchange for spiritual guidance.
My favorite pond visitors are the dragonflies. They love to hang out at the pond. I’ve noticed that they often dip the end of their tails onto the flooded surface of the lily pads.
Wasps occasionally come to collect pollen from the purple flowers, but lately they have been more focused on constructing a nest.
Chunky horseflies attend to their own business around the pond. The business of ramming into my face and shoulders. I jump when their loud buzzing hits my ear.
On particularly fortunate mornings when I’m careful and quiet enough, I can hear a ‘clicking’ or ‘popping’ sound. A fish can be seen popping its head up between the petals of a lily pad, and each time it falls back down, it ‘pops.’ I think it is the sound of the fish’s mouth smacking the water and creating a sort of vacuum.
On particularly unfortunate mornings, there are no goldfish swimming about. I could stand around for a few minutes expecting one to shoot out from beneath the lilies, but it won’t happen. I edge across the brick border, nearly tripping myself into the pond, and squat by the clean corner to see if I could get a better angle beneath the lilies. Still nothing. Particularly unfortunate. It's only when I go inside for a few minutes and come back out that the fish return. It was as though they confused me for some type of predator instead of their dad, OR they were just sleeping, and when I came back out, it might’ve woken them up, OR there was a recent predator alarm sounded, sending them to the lilies before the german shepherd and I could come watch the party.
The fish love the rain. They come out more when it rains, and they attack each raindrop rippling above the reef. They suck on the ripples like they’re food, sinking after each peck. Perhaps they are getting a drink of the rainwater. Perhaps they like the flavor.
My parents moved to this house while I was in college. House prices were low in the winter of 2020, and they wanted to find somewhere new. I visited infrequently during this time, maybe once every couple of months, watching as the new backyard transformed.
The goldfish pond was built by whoever lived in the house before, and originally, with my support, there was consideration towards removing the pond in place of another garden. That never happened, and instead four white Adirondack chairs were set up next to the pond, the fish were dropped in, and one by one each invitee arrived to the party. Today, it's my absolute favorite place to be on a cool summer night, drinking an ice-cold beer with my folks.
Bonus dragonfly pictures:
