TRAVELOGUE: Fish Stories (Camping--Day Four)

Kitchens should always have windows. I remember a few apartments I lived in where that was not the case and they were not fun to cook in. I think I spent less time in them because they were windowless. Skylights help but there's no substitute for cooking or washing dishes while looking out at your yard or the place next door or the view.
This morning as I made breakfast on the propane grill I watched boats tooling across the lake. I really enjoyed making that meal.
Just now the kids are off on their bikes looking for a good fishing hole with their dad. It is very warm already and the lake currents sparkle like a thousand camera flashes at a night-time rock concert. The boats cut through the bright flashes drawing chalk-white lines behind them.
If you've ever looked behind you as your boat is underway you know that the wake is three-pronged: There's the path you carve with a left-flowing and a right-flowing divergence on either side. No wonder Neptune's trident is the shape that it is, same with the old-style anchor for that matter.
It has been my experience--and I've read it in other's opinion as well--that writers, perhaps all artists, live by the Rule of Threes: Three examples in a list, three word repetitions for an echoing effect, three finesses of a single metaphor. When I would try to coax myself to sleep as a child I would say a homemade jingle in my head three times; it was my own little mantra. Sometimes I would make a hand motion three times. Many songs end by repeating a strain until three is achieved. There are at times three crashing drumbeats to signal a finale. There's just something soothing and right about Three: "Three Coins in a Fountain", "Three of a Kind", the "Third Time's the Charm".
So with my trident of a pen/keyboard, I launch out drawing my storyline and let the elements of my tale wander off to the left and right to fill in the details. Eventually, when I'm through, all the paths should reconverge to complete the journey. Then I find myself back at the dock, waiting for the next word-fishing trip to materialize.