Brilliant sunlight transforms into brilliant darkness. Looking south from Montrose harbor the blackness over the lake acts as a backdrop for the pure pigments of fireworks, which appear just to the left of a skyline dominated by the spires of three great spikes driven into the sky.
Outside my pilothouse window on this clear August night, the downtown buildings glimmer like stars and not with the steady light of planets. That is except for a horizontal strip of light on one black angular building. Tonight its light is white, but depending on the holiday, the charity or the triumph of our city’s sports teams the light becomes combinations of pink, orange, green, red, white or blue—all the colors of the rainbow.
Luminescent sodium vapors hit the water directly before me in cogent beams that fan out to meet my gaze. They are then dispersed by wavelets of a southerly breeze. The light is at rest, but somehow it floats northward in glimmering arcs of salmon colored light.
Along with light there is also noise. Boats interact with the water and wind: slap-slap, plop-plop, clang-clang and thump-thump. An ice cream vendor’s repetitive jingle, and the truncated voices of other boaters are carried across the water on warm humid air and add to the atmosphere. There is the steady drone, like white noise, of tires and displaced air from the cars on LSD with an occasional wail of two-wheeled mayhem.
Spiders come out at twilight to prepare their webs for a night of gruesome feasting. I take in the flag and secure the yacht club’s burgee. If the wind picks up in the night this insignificant piece of cloth will rattle the boat and wake an already wakeful skipper. This is not battening down the hatches. It is August and still calm, so I can afford to be a little laidback; soon enough the nor’easters will begin and require another level of preparedness.
But let us not go there yet. Let us bask in the banality of summer. It has taken three months to get to this point and soon summer will mature into fall.
The moon has risen as I write this. Initially I see it interspersed amongst the sailboat’s masts at the east end of the harbor. Its pale reflection plays on the water and as the waning gibbous climbs above the horizon it changes from orange to yellow and finally, into white.
I often study the moon’s surface. Sometimes with eyes alone, and other times with the help of binoculars and telescopes. I am familiar with the shadows cast by its mountains and craters. The moon is a study in grey except when it is full, and then it is the reflected glory of the sun.
As my little wind-blown ship wanders on it’s mooring, the now risen moon once again beams its light straight into the boat and into my soul. I turn off the overhead light and bathe in the moon’s splendor. It is a privilege to be in the middle of a great city and be directly connected to nature. The waters of Lake Michigan allow for this. Without it I would be marooned.
This has happened to me in the past. I spent years inland in study with no recourse to water. I would dream while reading of sea voyages great and small. Trying in vain to reconcile my conflicting goals, wishes and desires. I envied those I read about. They did what they wanted despite, or maybe because of, the consequences.
Now at this stage of my life I am determined to stay tied to the watery world. Here in the harbor with land’s worries just a short row away, I decide they can wait till tomorrow. Tonight I bask in the lake’s breeze and if it holds steady, I will spend the night without dreams, all the while being in one.
Volume 5823 (4), 9/17/2010
