Saturday, February 18, 2012

Water


When was it decided I prefer to travel by water rather than by land? Unofficially it began at eleven but the seed was planted much earlier. Planted in utero by a cheerful, curious and fearless father whose positive nature overwhelmed a reticent, practical mother.

The first boat I boarded was a small well-loved sailboat floating in Chicago’s northern most harbor. I had been asked to crew by my friend Larry’s father. I think I was Larry’s surrogate. He had no interest in spending any more time with his father then he had to. I found myself amongst thirty-something wild men and one demure female—the consort of the captain. As you would expect from a crowd of sailors this was my first exposure to bawdy humor and language. Though the details are murky, my fellow crewmembers did not hold their saltiness in check due to my presence.

Quite a bit of beer was drunk during and after the Wednesday night races. This fueled the complete reliving of every tack and jibe in vivid detail. The same level of detail was exercised towards the captain and the captain’s mate. Mind you none of this was subterfuge. It was out in the open to enjoy, and I blushed as I tried to comprehend the exact nature of the comments. The birds and the bees never materialized in an organized fashion for me. So I puzzled and dreamed and longed for when I would be part of the cognoscenti. I think the crew shared in my dreams for I never saw another woman grace our little goddess of a sailboat, Tien Hou.

Tien Hou, the protector of sailors and fisherman, and my protector from the frigid waters of an unforgiving Great Lake. Tien Hou’s thin glass shell nuzzled me as I lay between her two halves: wet, nauseous, scared and tired. After my initial race she heeled and took me the twenty miles back to her harbor where I quickly evacuated and swore never to come back. Within a few days I returned chastised and ready to race again.

Nothing and everything has changed in the 50 years since then: now a captain and not crew; now a propeller and not a sail. Now I lie in my floating home and wonder what would it be like if I had never taken that first sail? I would be frustrated and unfulfilled. I am sure of it.

I continue to get wet, scared and occasionally wonder if it isn’t time to call it quits. I know it will be over one of these days and so I work on my legacy of hard fought dreams. As my mother journeyed into her nineties we had many discussions that concerned her childhood. Memories suppressed by the demands of daily living that now, without the faculties to deal with the present world, wandered out from the recesses of her mind. They surfaced and countless hours were spent discussing the facts of the first few decades of her life.

My plan is to spend the end of my life, if not physically on the water then spiritually in a watery world of my own making. I can sense it now as I sit at my kitchen table with the first winter storms converging from the north and southwest. With the boat gently rocking and yawing beneath me I look out the pilothouse window and see the chiseled skyline of Chicago shimmering in the heat of a summer night. I hear the whoosh of the Rhode 19’s catching gusts of wind as they round the point of the harbor.

I feel the sway and buck of a seiche’s contrary wind and current as low and high-pressure systems battle it out on the lake. The harbor fills and empties three, four, five feet, repeatedly stirring up the beer can strewn mud from the bottom and depositing it on the surface of what is usually clear steely water.

There are wild nights. Nights where 50 mph squalls pull the mooring lines taut, and except for the worst of them, make a cozy boat cozier. I watch nature play out its fury and in the process fill the dingy with water. I don yellow foul weather gear, and with Charlotte close at hand least I miss step, bail water out of the little boat so it does not disappear beneath the waves.

Days of heat and days of cold; days of glorious cruising and days of frustrating repairs; days and nights full of wonder because what is holding me up is hard and soft, comforting and deadly, eternal and ever changing. It moves without moving. It falls and rises with the wind, the moon and the rain. It is translucent and opaque.

It recreates itself in an instant, and I too morph as I float, levitated on its positive and negative charges. Hydrogen and oxygen bound together in a mutual relationship that parts for the bow and fills in aft without a trace. Affecting without being affected. Changing without being changed. Water!

February, 2012