The koi at the Fairmont Miramar
And they’re all at least two feet long.
I’m across the road from the hotel the producers have put me in. This hotel, where I’ve stopped for a nightcap, is the Fairmont Miramar. It’s very plush. But the best thing about it is the outside bar.
Water thunders softly into the surrounding pools in various minor cataracts. There’s some underwater lighting, but not so much that it ruins the mystery of night. Loitering under the surface of the pool are koi. And what koi! Some of them are nearly pure white, with only a golden “crown”. Others are more typical, more patchy, in calico of soot, silver, orange and gold. They laze, drifting, diving, rising. They’re like whales…leisurely, easygoing. A sign says PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE FISH. No kidding! They look like they’d disdain being fed anything smaller than Captain Nemo.
I was sitting under that right-hand umbrella
The last time I saw koi this big was at the front of an old cottage (old by US standards: in Ireland it would hardly register on the age scale) over in Culver City, by the Sony lot. Those koi navigated up and down in a huge waist-high pea-green pond, half-seen, silent, secret. Here the water is much cleaner; doubtless the customers want to see the fish. They’re worth seeing. Here the waterfalls run, and a breeze goes by that smells of clean warm water, and (on the edge of things) the salt smell of the sea.
I wish Peter was here.
Later. Later he will be.
