hardier souls: tourists on fat-tired
beach cruisers, fishermen casting
for redfish and drum, and a small
group of avocets dining in the shal-
low surf, swishing their bills across
the wave-rippled sand.
Too fragile for the beach, Emily
and I decide to rent kayaks at the park
headquarters and paddle out into
alligator territory. There are three
paddling trails—easy, moderate, and
advanced—the shortest 1.79 miles
and the longest 9.59. A combination
of brackish and freshwater wetlands,
this mysterious ecosystem is food
source, breeding ground, and nursery
for all kinds of creatures. For us it’s
peaceful, solitary bliss (even though
our cellphones still work).
“Marsh is not swamp. Marsh is a
space of light, where grass grows in
water, and water flows into the sky,”
writes Delia Owens, in her new novel,
Where the Crawdads Sing, which I
happen to be reading on this trip. The
gauzy watercolor beauty of the marsh
vegetation comes into sharp relief as
we paddle down slender corridors of
cordgrass, bulrush, cattails, and even
fragrant wild onions, the only sound
the ploosh-drip-ploosh of our paddles,
overhead nothing but cottony clouds
and darting red-winged blackbirds
(“those black birds with red armpits,”
Emily calls them). It’s easy to forget
that we’re not alone at the edge of the
world, that just beyond the reeds that
rise over our heads are the eternal
flames of the refinery flare stacks and
tank farms glowing like fire-kissed
marshmallows in the sinking sun.
And a rising, ravenous ocean just
biding its time.
We don’t fully grasp the size of our
resident alligator until our return to
the dock, when we spot a massive tail
lying on the banks. In the blink of an
eye, all eight or so feet of the rest of it
splashes into the water directly be-
tween us and the dock and resurfaces
to face us. I look it in the eyes, paddle
forward, and watch it slip under the
water, the circular ripples on the sur-
face the only sign it was ever there. TTwinkle
Sparkle
Shiny
Bright
28 TEXAS MONTHLY
PARKS AND RECS