Nights at the Aquarium

Growing up, going to the zoo was a pretty regular event for me - my parents had a membership and probably took me about once every other month.  That was before I started volunteering, of course, at which point I spent so much time at the zoo that I could fairly have been said to be primarily living there, with my trips home being mostly an excuse to get fresh socks.

Compared to the zoo, our nearest aquarium was something I only visited very infrequently - I can only think of going maybe half a dozen times before I left for college, and that includes school fieldtrips.  I have no idea why.  Maybe because it was just a little further, or because it was more expensive, or that parking was a nightmare (and an expensive one, too).  Maybe I didn't like the crowds.  Maybe it's just because I wasn't as into fish as I was birds, mammals, and reptiles - at any rate, I don't remember bugging my parents to take me anywhere nearly as often as I did the zoo.

The memories of the aquarium that I do have are special because, almost without exception, they took place at night.  Usually in late fall or winter.

The aquarium was a bustling attraction for tourists and locals alike, but they did have a special price for Friday nights that not many people took advantage of.  That was when we would visit.  I have a very clear memory of coming home from school one November Friday night and bursting with excitement, waiting for my parents to get home from work.  When they did, my brother and I were trooped into the car and we headed downtown.  I remember how excited I felt walking down the city street that night and seeing the illuminated outline of the aquarium's glass and steel edifice, gleaming above the darkened waterfront.

The aquarium, like almost all aquariums, was indoors, so once we were inside you would think that the difference would have been negligible.  It wasn't.  I remember how empty and echoing it was - I could look down the hallways in one direction, then the other, and see no one outside of my family.  I could look at things for as long as I wanted to, or double back to check things out a second or third time.  Without the worry of being lost in a crowd, my parents let me run ahead, and explore on my own.  

Sometimes, when I saw a particularly large and interesting animal, like a shark or a moray eel or a turtle, I felt like the animal was looking back and seeing me, an individual, and not just another shape in the crowd.  I wondered what they were thinking as they looked back.

By the time I went away to college, I had visited a decent number of other zoos.  That aquarium was the only major one I had been to.  In a sense, it became my archetype.  I've been to others since, some bigger, some smaller, some older, some brand new.  Some, if I have to admit objectively, I liked better, based on the collection and the exhibits.  Based on travel schedules, I don't always get to pick when I go, and there have been times I've practically body-surfed through busy aquariums on crowded summer days.

No matter where I go, though, I always hold those first nocturnal visits to my local aquarium as my favorites, where the dark, quiet hallways held only my family, the fish, and me.