Cheap Little Fish

Last night Roy didn't have to attend Rec and so we loaded up and headed for the fish store. About a year ago we got a fish tank. Actually, Jace bought it with his Christmas money that he'd received from his grandpa and Grandma Jo. We've had a long history with fish tanks and I will spare the details...but I love them. I find them peaceful; stress-reducing.

When Ciara was several months old, I remember holding her up in front of the fish tank we had in our home there in California and she watched it intently. She pursed her little lips together as if to say Ohhhhh! and her eyes followed the fish. It was adorable.

But anyway, we only had four fish in our tank and it was getting overgrown with algae, so we decided to get an algae eater and a few more fish: guppies. I happen to love guppies as they have pretty tails and pretty colors and best of all, they're cheap! So off we went to the fish store to purchase our prizes.

The girl who helped us was flat-out amazing. She was so cute and knew her stuff and answered our millions of questions. She was so attentive to Jace, letting him pick out whichever fish he wanted in a tank of seemingly hundreds of fish and then she'd take her net and off she'd go, whirling around the water, intently focused on getting just the right one.

I love nice people.

So we bought our four fish (three guppies and an algae-eater), some fish tank supplies, and headed home. When you buy fish, you have to let them float in the water in the bags you brought them home in for several minutes. I'm not sure why, but they always tell you to do that...and so, being the responsible fish owner that I am, I did. And that's where things became rather fascinating to me. The fish that have been in this fish tank, called it home for several months, were curious. They came up to it, checked out the bag, swam around, touched their little faces to it--researched what in the world had just invaded their home.

When we first bought these four fish, they told us they like to swim together so you have to buy more than one. But these guys have never schooled really. They just do their own thing. But as soon as I took the four new fish out of the bags, they all schooled. The guppies stayed together; the other fish got into their little huddle and swam together; and then everybody checked each other out. Are you a friend or foe?

I just found that fascinating. I mean--seriously. They're cheap little fish. They die at a moment's notice. And yet...they have these little personalities. They're curious and understand their environment. They recognize foreign objects. They wonder.

And they're just cheap fish.

Animals are amazing. We become so involved in our own lives that we forget the beauty of nature. There's so much we don't know, don't understand, about the natural world. And yet, when we just take some time to stop and behold it, even something as simple as a fish tank, well...

It's a beautiful thing.