Drama

Once while walking down a narrow street in Florence, hemmed in by the ubiquitous 5 and 6 story buildings, I glanced down a dusky cross street and there highlighted by a dim light a beautifully dressed—as they can only be in Florence—young woman stood engrossed in a conversation on her phone.

It was a fleeting moment but in that moment I sensed a complex interaction being played out. I sensed drama. Back then cell phones were still a novelty in Chicago. We had neither the habit nor the connectivity for such a scene. I thought how do the Italians do it; how do they live with such intensity.

Of course, I grew up in an Italian household. My father’s family came from a small town in central Italy called Collodi; a hamlet that climbs up a crevice carved in a steep hill by a fast flowing river. And even though he had a nervous stomach he was calm and gregarious.

My mother’s clan was from another small town, Aragona, which overlooks the Mediterranean from its southern roost in Sicily. She was the antonym of my father. Suspicious, superstitious and quick to anger, she was a loner who dealt with the world on her terms. She brought a dramatic flair to our household. I loved my mother, but I learned early to be wary around her. One false step—and I made many—and there would be hell to pay.

She had what I like to call situational memory. A slight, whether real or perceived, would be remembered for decades. Things gone wrong did not have to be acted on quickly. They could be left to ripen. As a rich red Brunello di Montalcino wine becomes better with age, the wrong became more complex, something to cherish. I cannot tell you how many times I was blindsided by a long forgotten misstep. Once confronted, I would respond with bafflement. This only added fuel to the fire.

How could I have been so callous to forget, or worse yet not even realized the issue existed? For mom there was a balance to the universe. If it tilted one way or the other it was unbearable and needed to be righted. I know now that not every wrong can be addressed. Time and energy run out, people die, circumstances change. I think this is why, like the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s, battles become generational. If grand parents and parents fail to reek vengeance then it falls to the next generation.

This is a long introduction to my way of thinking. After a tumultuous teenager-hood I determined to keep my drama quotient to a minimum. I have had a measure of success in this, though on occasion when in the middle of one of the rowdy Great Lakes I wonder if I need to rethink my approach to recreation.

And now that I think of it, my career in medicine has lead to many dramatic moments. In the last few years I have minimize my exposure to stress by extricating myself from hospital work. The office has just enough pizazz to keep things interesting. But I am afraid that even this is becoming less tolerable.

I often think of the young woman I glanced in the shadows of that ancient city and wonder who she was talking to. I believe if I found out I would be disappointed, so I am glad not to know. It is a novel I will never finish.

For all my calm and collectiveness, deep down I know my mother was onto something. It is the spark of life: indefinable and unknowable. It is the sound of one hand clapping or of a tree falling in an empty wood. It is the ripple in the ancient pond that Basho’s frog made, it is drama!

January 2013

Cheers!

Cheers!

I think it is time to cheer. Time to revel in the season. Time to plan a rebirth. It is just time. The earth has been unraveling while we squabble over what, I am not sure. So, this year let us have a pre New Year’s resolution: let’s stop fighting and get on with the process of living.

To start with let us have a decent diet: fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meat and fish, low fat dairy and whole grains. A little exercise will not hurt either; a good walk three times a week to get our hearts pumping for thirty minutes or so. It will clear the mind. We will sleep better. Food will taste better.

And how about a glass of wine—or sake—with dinner, it stimulates conversation and lowers blood pressure. Another thing I am fond of is a shot of espresso—or matcha— around 2:30 in the afternoon. It is a great motivator.

Since we are on the topic of living, let’s have some fun. Get together with friends and family. Go see some art or create it. Watch a movie. I recently enjoy the new James Bond film. Try something different. We live in a metropolis that is known throughout the world for its culture. Blues, jazz, classical music, opera, architecture, theatre and to sum it up, we are known for our soul.

And what displays our spirit more than the Cubs, Bears, White Sox, Blackhawks and the Bulls. My father lived and die by the Cubs and Bears. Shouts of joy and pain would emanate from the TV room where he sat. I only wish I had his zeal.

Sailing and boating in general has been my outlet since I was eleven. Lake Michigan and the Chicago River take me out of the city while in the center of it. For some it is running, biking, bird watching, fishing, softball and/or golf. The point is, go do something and then tell the world about it.

Maybe you will not have to tell a soul. They will see it in your face and in the spring of your step. So let’s cheer up and take each moment for what it is—irreplaceable!

December 2012

Robiraki

In the change of seasons I am lucky to have chanoyu, the tea ceremony in my life. Chanoyu is remarkable and lovely in the transition from spring-summer to fall-winter. Of course there are the flowers, flowers arranged as they are in the fields. There is the change from making tea at 90 degrees to your guest, to an obtuse angle drawing you closer to them. There is the use of chawan, tea bowls with shear sides that preserve the heat as opposed to the wide-open basins that cool the tea in the summer.

Chanoyu migrates to the heart of the chashitsu (tearoom) in the fall. It is a geometric transition anticipating the change from airy and light to dark and hearty. The driving force in this is robiraki, the opening of the sunken hearth (ro) located in the center of the tearoom. The brazier that is proudly displayed all summer on its cast iron perch now resides and simmers in a subterranean nest. Warmth and steam emanate from it and cling to the walls.

We do tea in a Chicago bungalow’s retrofitted bedroom. There is no way—save for cutting a hole in the floor—to bury the ro, so it inhabits a wooden box called okiro. The okiro literally means “in the place of the ro”. It rises out of the flat landscape of tatami mats like a Native American or Norwegian Viking King’s burial mounds. It draws attention to itself.

This is a compromise of doing tea in the real world. As timeless as tea appears it accommodates itself to changing times. Gengensai Seichū, the eleventh-generation grand tea master of the Urasenke tradition of tea, created a tabletop tea service knows as ryūrei. This was done in response to Westernization of Japan during the Meiji era (1868-1912). In the 1950’s Tantansai, the fourteenth generation tea master, constructed the Yūshin, New Again, tearoom specifically designed for ryūrei using a black lacquered table called misonodana.

I have been twice a guest at Konnichian, the Urasenke estate of tearooms nestled in its garden. It is truly a study in contrasts to come from the somber traditional tearoom Totsutotsusai built by Gengensai in 1839 into Yushin with its golden hue woods and well lite interior. It is only now that I begin to understand the significance of the journey and wish to return one day to better appreciate the glorious details.

But enough of history, I want to share my robiraki experience this year. My first inclination was to walk through the event and describe it in detail. I think not. I think if I can express the feeling in the following three examples my purpose will be better served. Many tea things have poetic names associated with them and one of the joys of tea is to share this provenance with your guest. It is what the talk is made up of in the chashitsu.

When you slide into the tearoom the first place one approaches is the alcove known as the tokonoma. In here reside several objects. One is the flower arrangement (chabana). Another, the one I am interested in now, is the scroll.

This robiraki’s scroll was most auspicious having been written by the 15th generation grand tea master, Sōshitsu Sen XV. It read Sho Kiku Man Nen Yorokobi. It translates into Pine-Crysantimum-10, 000 years-Joy. I wondered what this meant and asked the hostess. My linear western mind could not fathom the imagery. The pine speaks of long life. It is evergreen after all. The chrysanthemum the same and of course 10,000 years need no explanation as does joy. So, forever and forever and forever joy! How splendid a wish to bestow on anyone.

These three poetic symbols add up to eternity. This esthetic sense was lost on me. I could not comprehend the incongruousness of the words until it was explained. This is what comes from living with a language where words are also pictures. How jealous I am.

My next encounter was with the chawan (teabowl). In tea, after drinking, it is polite to admire the bowl. To take the time to stop and gaze at its shape and color; to turn it over in your hands and appreciate the potter’s deft fingers as they worked the bowl into its present form. This bowl, not made by but fired in the famous Raku kiln, is named Hatsu Warai—First Laughter. Completed in December it is meant to commemorate New Years and all the first that it entails.

And third, the diminutive chashaku (tea scoop), a mere wisp of bamboo that is easily overlooked but often holds the most esteemed place of all the utensils. And so it was that day. The chashaku’s poetic name is Kanza—Sitting Quietly. Again it was made by the then Sōshitsu Sen XV.

So, these three objects viewed in a Chicago bungalow embody the essence of Japanese culture: the appreciation of nature’s rhythm, the vivid imagery of the hand written scroll, the appreciation of traditional crafts and the importance placed on everyday things . . . sitting quietly poetic.

November 2012

O-Tsukimi

One night while anchored in the Narrows of Baie Finn a waxing gibbous moon displayed itself above a line of silhouetted conifers. The Sinus Iridium in the upper left corner of the Mare Imbrium cracked with detail in Canada’s clean stable air. Montes Jura, the mountain range that defines the sinus, is tall—some 12,000 feet. To see just what I am writing about go to: http://the-moon.wikispaces.com/Sinus+Iridum.

It is remarkable that we have been to the moon. I recall watching the first steps on the moon on my Aunt Sarah’s tiny black and white TV. The square screen bulged out of the large ornate wooden cabinet it occupied. It was 1969 and since then I have never tired of observing the moon, especially the harvest moon

Months get confused when we talk about the harvest moon (tsuki). It is defined as the closest full moon to the autumnal equinox. In the Gregorian calendar it can be in September or October, but in the lunar calendar it occurs on the fifteen day of the eight-month, August the month of leaves. Japan keeps the construct of the lunar year alive.

Chanoyu, the tea ceremony, has a long history of marking the harvest moon with a tsuki no cha, a harvest moon tea. I have been blessed to attend several of these. One in an ornate apartment looking out over Lincoln Park and the lake: another in a miniature Japanese garden recreated in a bungalow’s backyard not 100 feet from the North Branch of the Chicago River. Tsuki no cha is difficult to coordinate. In Chicago doing the tea ceremony outside is always fraught with peril as is trying to synchronize the serving of tea with moonrise.

This year’s tea was impromptu. My wife Charlotte and I were invited to partake the night before. The world famous Magic Hedge at Montrose Harbor was to be the venue. My contribution was to discern the time the moon would rise out of Lake Michigan. I found the answer on the U.S. Naval Observatory’s website: 6:07 PM.

It was decided to meet at the lakefront at 5:30 and we were not alone. Many folks preceded us. They carried satchels containing everything from wine to babies. But I am sure we were the only ones carrying matcha (powered green tea), chawan (tea bowls), chashaku (tea scoop), all in a venerated old wooden chabako (box) that belonged to my second sensei, Minnie Kubose.

The temperature fell as we settled onto the newly constructed terrace next to the lake. There is a splendid view of the central city when looking south. Navy Pier’s Ferris wheel and the Hancock Building define it. The thin haze on the horizon changed from off-white, to grey, to purple with a touch of green as the sun set in the west. 6:07 came and went but the moon failed to appear. Though its presence eluded us we started. Omogashi (tea sweets) was served, and then as one bowl of tea and then another was drunk the moon appeared a hands breath above and to the south of the Wilson Avenue crib. Shrouded behind a thin silk curtain it seemed to hover.

A few sailboats putt-putted by as the wind died with the coming of twilight. Downtown twinkle like so many stars and the now quiet seagulls were reduced to silhouettes. We gazed at the orbs transformation from silky white to silver. Some of us saw the man-in-the-moon and others a hare pounding mochi. What did it matter.

Chado—The Way of Tea by Sasaki Sanmi suggest this poem for the scroll to hang in the chashitsu (tea room) for a moon viewing tea:

Tsuki mizu ni inshi Mizu tsuki o insu/The moon is reflected in the water and the water reflects the moon.

I could not agree more . . .

October 2012

Places

One of the places we explored on Carrie Rose this summer is called McGregor Bay. The area was not much cruised until the Canadian Hydrologic Service published a chart of the region and it still has only a few boats that visit each year. Replete with hidden rocks and narrow channels that branch off the main stem like a well-trained grape vine, it offers challenges and rewards. Below are two of my impressions. The first was written while in Crooked Arch Cove, the second is self-explanatory.

Quiet

N46° 04.03’, W081° 33.69’—For a moment it was quiet, completely quiet. Not even a bird. Not a ripple in the water. Not a rustle in the trees. The quiet was overwhelming. My senses want to fill in the void. But there is nothing to work with. The space between my ears intensifies. I tell myself not to panic. Soon there will be noise, but there isn’t, so I calm down and watch the silence. In the distance an otter is diving and surfacing. His head is the only thing out of the water and I can see his whiskers move as he munchies on whatever otters munch on. I have to backtrack and say that diving is too active of a word for how the otter arches its back and slides into the water. But that is not correct either. It is already in the water and is going from a nose to a face and then a glistening back and then all that is left to disappear is the tail. A large raptor flies over but there is no noise associated with its transit. Nothing breaks the silence until dinner. And now that that is over I hear the clock tick off the seconds of my life and a white-throated sparrow calls, but now he has even stopped—well almost. Carrie Rose silently sways at anchor maybe 20 to 30 degrees. Occasionally Charlotte turns a page and I feel that my mind needs a sound even as it hopes for silence. No Mozart, no Bach and certainly no Bruckner or Mahler. Sibelius may be acceptable; somehow he captures silence in sound. Then I hear a grunt from the shoreline. An odd bird circles above, a bit like the nighthawks I never see anymore in Chicago. A flutter of wings, and then a short glide and intermittent call; a distinctive call but a call I cannot now describe. Twilight comes and still it is quiet. I have a friend that sailed around the world and recently brought his boat to a marina in Brooklyn of all places. I asked him what is it like and he says, “The noise is deafening.” After today I understand.

East in East-West Channel in McGregor Bay, Ontario

A surprise reveals itself on further inspection. Of course it was interesting from the start, but then we ventured with the dinghy—this time without the motor—into the back bay; an ancient Chinese landscape appears. Packs of lilies float: some just opening, some majestically white with yellow stamens, and below in the tannin-tinted water their siblings start to unfurl and head for the surface.

A loon’s plaintive call breaks the silence, but plaintive makes it sound trivial. It is not. The call is from the main channel where our unpopulated boats swing at anchor. Where is he, oh there he is. He’s just come around a large bare round light brown rock, islet really. Another cry and then he submerges and is lost. Later in the day he will surface outside my pilothouse door larger than life for loons are big birds. This one is at least a yard long, black and stealthy, white priestly collar but with the red beady eyes of a vampire.

The wind gusts from the NNE. We are protected here and barely feel it, but the dinghy does. It pushes us down into a small bay, though not before I misjudge the bottom and put another ding into my Chippendale-like dinghy. I resign myself to this for it verges on stupidity to bring a varnished wood boat into a land of rocks.

This is not a Japanese garden. It is definitely Chinese. The rocks jut out over the water and are made up of vertical striations. Moss and lichens populate every groove and in the low spots the remnants of spring’s iris cluster together. These rocks have grottos and caves in miniature. And though it is peaceful here I can feel the violence of their birth. The molten lava may have cooled billions of years ago but I can still feel the heat. I can see it flowing. Hear it hiss as it hits the water.

It feels violent, an odd reaction to have in such a peaceful place. I feel the earth move without it moving. I feel the lava flow without it flowing. In a few places I see glaciers scrap the surface of the volcanic rock smooth. This is a godly place. It is a place to feel the earth’s origins.

September 2012

Passage II

Today we head southeast between Government Island and Coryell Island into an area called Scammons Harbor. There are compelling stories associated with these names but that is for another time, another place. I think a primer on navigation is in order here. It will be short in case your eyes are beginning to glaze over.

The rule on the water is Red-Right-Returning. So when you are entering from the “sea” the red markers are on the right or starboard, and that is the side of the boat you keep them on. The green markers are on the left or port. Port and starboard are easily differentiated if you remember that port has four letters and so does left. Of course this would be way too simple a concept not to mess with, so sometimes there are black markers and sometimes the green is on the starboard. Eternal vigilance, or in a secular turn of phrase, situational awareness are the words to live by when on the water.

We make our way into the channel and pass red buoy “4” on our port and green can “3” on our starboard as we head out to the sea. Once in the lake we round Boot Island and point the bow east. Out in front of us are Surveyors Reef, Tobin Reef, Pomeroy Reef, and furthest south, the daddy of them all, Martin Reef. Martin Reef makes its presence felt with a 65-foot lighthouse. Do not think of these reefs in the contexts of the South Seas. Great Lakes reefs consist of rock not coral.

Our path is between Surveyors Reef and Tobin Reef. Tobin Reef is marked with green can “1”. For anyone who has done wilderness backpacking the buoy system, made up of green cans and red nuns, is similar to the cairns and tree marks you follow in clearings or in the forest. From one the next should be visible. This is not the case for the open lake but in any confining waters this is how it works. They are described on the chart but like any other system changes are made.

Before the Internet revisions were published in Notice To Mariners, in the Great Lake’s Pilot and of course on new charts. It was a cumbersome process to procure the data and transfer it to your charts. And as Murphy’s Law dictates the one buoy pivotal to the cruise is the one that had its number or location changed. With the advent of the web much of this hassle has been circumvented. If I could figure out how to use the computer the information would be updated automatically.

I forgot to tell you that the electronics are on, displaying our location on the small black and white chart plotter’s screen and in full color on the computer. The radar is making its customary whine as it spins above me. It has different settings depending on the distance, the wave conditions and the detail needed. Usually only one radio is on and it is on scan mode. It toggles through pertinent channels and stops when someone speaks on one of them. There are no private calls; we listen to what everyone is chatting about. Sometimes it is pure voyeurism but mostly it is instructive.

The autopilot keeps me on course within reason. I correct for the influence of the wind and waves. I could automate this function but I like keeping us on track. It reminds me of the constant futzing involved with sailing.

As I have been talking we have passed Martin Reef and are now headed towards St. Vital Point. Once around it we are only a few miles from the DeTour Lighthouse that marks the entrance to DeTour Passage. We have come up on a friend in a sailboat that left much earlier in the morning. While our boats are not fast with a cruising speed of around 7 to 8 knots we best most sailboats. We have the luxury of leaving later and arriving earlier, but then we also have to spend the day listening to the drone of the diesel rather than the wind in the sails.

While I have been whiling away the time the waves have built. This is brought to my attention as a particularly large one picks up the aft end of Carrie Rose and sends her surfing along the top of it. It passes under us with a hiss and I decide to pay closer attention. There are whitecaps behind us, so the predicted 15 knots of wind has arrived. The autopilot works well but as we close on the DeTour Passage Lighthouse I decide to take over the helm. I do a better job of anticipating the waves and keep us on a truer course.

One of our mates radios to inform us that a freighter is heading out of the passage into the lake and that there are two more following behind that one. The first is long gone by the time we reach the lighthouse and we do not see the others until we are well into DeTour Passage. DeTour Passage runs north and south, and is a favored course for large, often 1000 foot, freighters and bulk transports. They ferry coal, limestone, taconite and who knows what else up and down St. Mary’s River to the locks at Sault Ste. Marie and into Lake Superior or the reverse into Lake Huron.

If you remember I discussed riding the waves when they are behind us, well now we need to change course from easterly to the north and thus the waves are on our beam. This is uncomfortable and anything we failed to secure earlier in the day lets us know. We round the 74 foot lighthouse and head for red buoy “4” to steer clear of the oncoming ships which materialize before us. They are enormous. The first one, the James R. Barker, is one of the largest on the Great Lakes coming in at 1004 feet long, 105 feet wide and 50 feet deep with the Hon. James L. Oberstar, a diminutive 8oo feet, close behind. To make matters more interesting the DeTour Passage Ferry decides to cross in front of us. As my mother use to say, “Never a dull moment.”

At times like this I follow the rules of the road and stay out of the way. We pass Cab Island and Barbed Point, Frying Pan Island and DeTour Village, Black Rock Point and Pipe Island Shoal. Once through DeTour Passage we veer right to red nun “2” off of Sims Point.

Now we see the beginnings of the thousands of islands that we will encounter this summer spent in the archipelago known as The North Channel. I look out and see rocks and conifers. It is hard to tell where one island ends and the others begin until we are close upon them. Electronics while helpful can overload the senses. I take a deep breath and go back to the paper chart. We pick our way through the islands, checking them off as we pass until we reach the outer harbor of Harbor Island. To reach our anchorage for the night we took a sharp right through Bow and Surveyors Islands, passed above Gull Island and avoided the Harbor Island Reef.

Now a transition takes place. At one moment we are cruising and then suddenly we need to anchor. We try to anticipate this but it always comes as a surprise. Most anchorages are small spaces that may or may not be inhabited by boats that came before us. I slow and peruse the scene. Where to place the anchor presents us with a series of complicated equations. The major one is that the wind’s direction may change, so what could be an easy decision with the wind blowing in one direction gets dicey when you start to think about 360 degrees. We also need keep clear of the other boats and make sure we are in the proper depth of water.

I try not to hurry the process but I also do not want to over think it. I know if I get it wrong I can always lift the anchor and move to a safer location. Charlotte takes the helm once we have decided and I walk to the bow to prepare to drop the anchor. Carrie Rose is stopped and I, of course making sure I am clear of the chain and other rotating machinery, give the anchor some slack and a gentle nudge over the side.

The anchor and chain are oversized on Carrie Rose so I let out 4 feet of chain for every foot of depth. Most of the other boats let out more. The chain is painted red every ten feet for the first thirty feet and then changes to yellow until it reaches seventy feet. The rest of the connection is made up of several hundred feet of triple twisted nylon line or rode as it is known in the business. I use predetermined hand signals to have Charlotte reverse the boat to make sure the anchor is firmly set and will not break loose should the wind increase.

The passage is complete when the engine is turned off. Thanks for joining us. I left out few things, like the strong west wind and the confused seas that greeted us at Black Rock Point. No sense in getting queasy only a few miles from our destination. I log the time, distance and engine hours. Turn the electronics off and switch the boat’s batteries to the house setting. This is to prevent discharging the starter battery overnight and not being able to start the boat on another glorious cruise!

Passage

For the reader who has never piloted a small vessel from one point to another I thought you might want to spend the day with Charlotte and I as we make a passage from Governor Bay, MI to Harbor Island, MI on northern Lake Huron. Come along with us on Carrie Rose, our 32-foot Nordic Tug and two other tugs. I will say nothing of the years it took to obtain and prepare the boat (and crew) for this trip but only of the process itself. My first thought was to simply sketch the transit, but I am convinced that the fun is in the details, so here goes.

The process starts the day before the voyage. Once we are tucked away for the night—anchor set or tied to a dock—we begin to consider options for the next day’s cruise. Many factors influence this: weather, distance, safety, stores, fuel, our fellow boaters and location, location, location. Charts (paper and electronic), cruising guides, past log notes, recollections and scuttlebutt (a sailor’s word for gossip) are reviewed.

The first consideration is should we even go. If we are in a beautiful spot, why leave. If the weather is iffy, why leave. If we are tired, why leave. The prejudice is to keep moving. It is hard to ignore and on the Great Lakes it is often justified. We motored day after day, twenty-two in all, on our way to Lake Huron from Chicago. At first because the weather cooperated and then because we needed to stay ahead of ill weather that was to bring high winds and waves. In more hospitable climes we might have lingered a little longer in each port but this was not to be. When there is a window of opportunity dive, or rather drive, through it.

Government Bay, MI is a lovely anchorage in the Les Cheneaux Islands or as they are locally known, the Snows. Carrie Rose was anchored in the northwest corner of the bay to cushion herself from blustery NNW winds. Her big Bruce anchor was securely set into mud eighteen feet below the keel and with 70 feet of chain attached to the bow she wasn’t going anywhere.

Since the weather was fair we decided to head east towards De Tour Passage in the morning. The wind was forecast to be light and build to 10 to 15 knots from the west as the day progressed. This meant we would be traveling in a following sea. With the wind behind us we glide. It is definitely preferable to pounding into heavy seas as we did last year. So as far as the weather was concerned it was a go.

The first destination considered was a small cove in Whitney Bay on Drummond Island, MI. To get there we have to avoid several reefs, points of land and one very large lighthouse. As we were not traveling alone the consensus was to skip Whitney Bay in favor of Harbor Island, MI. This lengthened the trip by about 8 miles (for the purpose of our discussion distances stated are nautical miles). To reach Harbor Island we need to round the before mentioned lighthouse and travel north through De Tour Passage. But I get ahead of myself.

I have a night-before-cruising-ritual. I study the charts, and on the chart plotter and/or the MacBook Air’s navigational program create a route for the next day’s journey. It is how I familiarize myself with the path ahead. The route, while not automatic, keeps me engaged and though not cast in stone often takes me precisely where I am going. To do this I need to create waypoints. Waypoints are specific locations defined by their latitude and longitude. I follow them across the seascape. They are identified on the charts and represent turns, hazards, navigational aids, harbors, etc., etc. I have navigated this way since GPS became available. It has its good and bad points but overall I doubt many cruisers would go back to the not so distant pre-GPS times, so let’s keep those satellites flying!

In the morning I wake a little edgy. It is hard to enjoy breakfast. I have some tea or coffee, the usual toast with peanut butter and jelly but I am more focused on the day ahead. The first task, that is after I rid the boat of the overnight spider carnage, is to go into the engine room. This is a familiar space. It is not big but it is efficiently laid out. I look in the bilge to make sure no new fluids have appeared overnight. I scan the engine’s coolant level; check the oil and the fuel filter. Then I chill out and just look at the valves, hoses, pumps, and all the components that make us a viable boat. Once I am satisfied that the engine room is in order I move to the pilothouse.

Departure is usually 8 or 9 AM. Today we have 28 nautical miles to travel, so 9 o’clock is a reasonable time to leave. The boat is made ready. This means securing every object that might fly through the air or slide across the floor. Even on calm days experience has taught us that we never know what awaits us on the water. The fewer surprises the better.

Now in the pilothouse I take the covers off the instruments. The Furuno radar and the EchoPilot forward-sounding depth sounder occupy the space to my upper left. Directly in front of the wheel are the engine instruments, another depth sounder, the rudder angle indicator and various switches for windshield wipers, heat, anchor and running lights, and the bilge pump. To the right is the single handle topped with a maroon knob that controls the throttle along with forward and reverse. The next level forward has a portable VHF radio, two ancient Garmin GPS’s, a fan, and a small chawan (tea bowl) in which I store pens, pencils, a knife and the family band radio along with whatever insects that have manage to crawl in and die.

In front of this is an empty space where the computer resides and beyond that the regal Ritchie compass reigns over all the electronics. Directly above and a little to the right are two VHF radios and a defunct Loran-C. Despite the above there is still space for charts to the right and the left. There is more below. The bow thruster control, the generator’s gauges and start switch, DC and AC electrical panels, and an inverter to keep the computer charged. It is a lot of equipment to deal with and we have a simple boat compared to most.

But this must be getting boring. Let’s see if we can get Carrie Rose moving. To leave the anchor has to be raised. I go to the back of the boat and fetch the hose that attaches to the wash down pump. I use this to wash the mud and debris that collects on the chain and the anchor. They live down the little hole into the bowels of the boat. It is best to clean them to keep the boat from reeking. As 9 o’clock approaches I remember that I am not travelling alone and the other two boats are following a similar process. It is time to start the engine and energize the bow thruster. The gauges are scanned for any abnormalities and once the oil pressure alarm turns off we are ready to go.

Maybe I should stop here and explain what a bow thruster is. Whoever the person was to think it a good idea to drill a hole sideways through the front of the boat is on par with the person who realized that airports could be made into shopping malls. A bow thruster does just what it says; thrust the bow to the port or starboard. For a barely maneuverable boat like mine it was a revelation. It is used at idle to control the boat while docking or turning in tight channels. It also helps when in reverse. Without it the boat goes where it wants but with it I can put it where I want it, within reason that is. I do not want to sound too cocky should the marine deities or gremlins hear me and choose to put me in my place.

So, now it is finally time to raise the anchor. It should be firmly dug into the bottom after spending the night holding us in place. It should not want to come out. I take the supplemental line off. This line stretches and acts as a shock absorber to take the strain off the chain’s attachment to the bow. Then I make sure I am clear of the chain and the windlass, and start to shorten the chain. It is done in spurts. A little chain and the boat moves forward, a little more and a little more until the anchor is out of the water and stored on deck. Now the boat is free of its earthly attachment. I tidy up and we are on our way.

To be continued next month . . .

Conveyance

We are in Wisconsin now. We got here in our Nordic Tug. It is our conveyance of choice, except that is when we are on terra firma. Then it is a Subaru Outback. The Subaru has a certain cache about it, but it is a boring station wagon. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining especially when I am trying to get in or out of my garage in a blizzard. Then I think this is the best damn boring station wagon ever made.

What I am noticing here is the multiplicity of Harley Davidsons. Of course I know they are made in Milwaukee. I am not that dumb. But still there are a lot of them and everyone that I see is different. They are all customized to some extent. They are a labor of love, and I am sure that the gruff guys and gals that drive them dream of the low lumbering sound in the middle of the winter.

A friend just bought a hot rod VW. It is 4-wheel drive and for such a small car has a tremendous amount of horsepower. Of course this is not enough horsepower so it will be modified to have even more tremendous horsepower. It seems he thinks it is his last chance to have a muscle car and he is probably correct about this.

I have been thinking in a similar vein. After lusting over a suitable RV, that is if one can lust over an RV, and realizing that a VW camper van was not going to work, I changed tack completely. My new scheme consists of a used Corvette (I have wanted one since I toured the Corvette assembly plant in Tennessee) to travel from national park to national park. I figure I will lease it for the summer from CarMax and trade it in for something more practical in the fall. And for some strange reason my wife thinks this is not a bad idea. We will see . . .

This summer, as the last, we are spending three months on Carrie Rose. The only definitive date is to be in St. Ignace, MI by June 20. I think we can do this, weather permitting, but last year to get there a day late we had to motor through the Straits of Mackinac in the fog. My hope is not to repeat this again as I would like to grow old and cantankerous, and every hour spent in dense fog shortens a life equivalently.

Other conveyances I have dreamed of are vintage BMW motorcycles (I have an un-ridden one), a Mazda Miata, a two-seater Mercedes of a certain vintage, a BD-5 (look it up), a Thomas Morris Annie (another one to look up), a Nordhavn 46 (okay, I will quit telling you) and the new, not yet released, Honda Jet. This last one has made me rethink my life. If I had known it would exist I would have tried hard to make a fortune that I could then squander on a machine like this.

For the time being I am not doing too bad. For me it has always been essential to dream, actually daydream. All those idle thoughts that coalesce without knowing it, and then one day the stuff you thought you were wasting your time dreaming about comes true. It is amazing when it does. It is as if you need to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

I suppose this is what the conveyance is about. Not so much rubber on the road, water under the keel or wind over the wings. It is the realization of a dream.

June 2012

Inevitable

In my line of work I confront the inevitable daily. On more challenging days every 15 minutes can bring another life altering revelation. Enough water has passed under my bridge that prognosticating is less subjective then it use to be. Numbers tell the story of kidney, liver and pancreatic function, of blood sugar and fat and thyroids. The ultimate measure is blood pressure, only five (hopefully not six) digits and a /.

Across from me the numbers sit. I am amazed how many people will pay the co-pay for a sniffle but are unwilling to make the same commitment for diabetes, hypertension, elevated cholesterol and the various diseases that stem from them.
Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, each encounter is custom made. Even if you do not realize it you are being a fitted for haute couture or tailored for a suit from Saville Row. The doctor is someone who has devoted their life to their craft and so many hours that most are enigmas even to their families. It is not often you bump into such expertise and think so little of it.

With my time in practice now measured in decades I spend the visit watching for subtle signs of disease. Of course much of what I do has nothing to do with a patient’s well being but instead with placating legal, governmental and insurance bureaucracies. But today I am thinking about the patient—with their numbers—sitting across from me.

I watch and listen. I lay on hands and stethoscope. I gaze into various orifices, and look at slides of secretions and peruse the numbers on the screen in front of me. If we had a past visit I hope the specialist’s recommendation made it into the electronic medical record, as well as any tests results. And then I sit back (not too far as I am only on a stool) and in the few seconds allotted to me, put the above into context, offer a plan and wait for feedback.

In the past few years this process has been derailed. Now in many encounters the process is reversed. Patients have been empowered by Google. The plan comes first and the person waiting (or not) is the patient not me. I respond in various ways to this depending on first impressions, as I have not been able to follow my usual protocol.

If the patient is hale and hardy but convinced they have an exotic wasting disease I have been known to chuckle. It is not intentional. It just has to do with the shear improbability of the situation. I know I should not discount their concerns but I also know there is no reality to this encounter. Often their concerns lead to demands for specific tests. Many of which I have never heard of or have no idea of how to order.

Medicine is a scientific art. Ask any real scientist and they will tell you that most physicians practice a black art. I agree with them. Several things that set aside a MD/DO from a Ph.D. are the need to make time constrained decisions and the fact that biology is fickle, no double blind controlled studies here. This is best represented, in its most extreme form, by a Code. It is the situation that most unnerved me as an intern. And I am not just talking about the heart related codes. There are also Code Whites for violent behavior and Code Reds for fire. Each presents a different challenge.

This brings to mind the several months I worked as an intern at a particularly dysfunction, now defunct hospital. I would manage to drag myself to the call room for an hour’s fitful sleep after a night laboring on the floors. Without taking off my scrubs I’d fling myself onto the grubby bed inhabited by the ghosts of interns past. With eyes forced shut I tried to ignore the ever-present list of tasks that resided in my pocket. For a few minutes before the sun crept up onto the surface of Lake Michigan I hoped to sleep.

Each night that I was on call, just as I dosed off a heavily accented voice would announce a Code Red. The implausible certainty of this was maddening. To complicate matters further sirens could be heard far off in the distance. Why am I telling you this, because I had to make a decision: ignore what was in all likelihood a false alarm and catch twenty minutes of shut eye, or burn up in my sleazy little bed.

Ask your self, what would you do. Remember, put it the context of not having slept for several months, of being sticky and dirty from the 36 hours of work, of having gunky stuff in the corner of each eye and greasy hair. Context is every thing. What did I do—I got up, usually in time for the code to be called off. By then sleep was impossible. Like a zombie I wandered back into the hospital, pulled the list out of my pocket and pickup where I left off.

Another time at a more collegial institution I tucked myself in for what would be on most nights a more reasonable sleep. There were nights here where I even dreamed, that is when my fellow cellmate wasn’t fending off the occasional mouse. But one night, with the beginnings of REM fluttering in my eyes, a Code White was called on the psychiatric unit. This along with rehab and the telemetry units were my responsibility.

No hesitation this time, I got up and made my way to the sequestered corner of the hospital that housed the psych unit. Its design was fatally flawed. The nursing station was located in the rear and even though I pounded on the door no one responded. Worried now but with intimate knowledge of the layout I entered through a common door from the pediatric unit (another fatal design flaw).

Once there I joined forces with the security guard, and several large male and one petit female nurse. As most interns figure out, you have the ultimate responsibility with the least experience. The fact of being thrust into this position builds character and depending how you handled yourself, respect.

The Code White was due to a large ferocious male patient. He had threatened the staff and with some effort had been corralled into a small room. Now he was threatening to break out and create more havoc. Eyes turned towards me. I was so tired that any lack of confidence faded away and I made a quick decision. A syringe was loaded up with Haldol, given to the petit and agile nurse, and the rest of us stormed the patient and subdue him. He rapidly calmed down and I was left to salvage what I could of the few remaining hours before life returned to the hospital.

My training was full of decisions. It was inevitable. I draw upon them now as I sit across from my patient. I wait for a response to my entreaties. I know that inescapable results will follow. My mind’s eye sees the future playing out. If I get the wrong answer my heart pangs. I have not gotten through to them. I failed and I express it, often in the stark language of disease.

I think of the procedures, of wasted time and treasure, of shortened lives. I am not always right, but more often right then wrong. I have experience on my side. But life goes on, and I have had to become somewhat immune to pain and suffering. It is inevitable after all. Gautama Buddha taught us this thousands of years ago.

May 2012

Blank

I cannot explain it but when Charlotte and I turned Carrie Rose, our 32-foot Nordic Tug, south from Canada last summer my mind went blank. I usually wait for a word to materialize before I begin to write. A story is typically attached and one finger at a time 700 to 1000 words appear. It is an automatic process remarkable for its consistency over the last half decade, but as I said the “Word” eluded me.

The Word has become a companion. It keeps me occupied. I sit and write and let my mind wander without restraint, neurons fire and the results pixelate onto the screen. It is expansive rather than absorptive.

A cup of espresso or a bowl of matcha in the early afternoon will often stimulate word smithing. The caffeine replaces afternoon languor with a creative edginess. It makes dinner seem far off and fills an otherwise empty space. I can relate to this aspect of my Italian ancestor’s life style. Around the beginning of August caffeine stopped inspiring. I have had to struggle to get even this far, but I am confidence that the Word lurks close by and will intercede if I persist.

Carrie Rose’s pilothouse is a quiet place where inspiration can be found, but that is when I am swinging on our mooring in Chicago’s Montrose Harbor. It was not a writer’s sanctuary on our extended cruise last summer. Cruisers are a gregarious lot. There are many distractions. Granted there are some loners who anchor out and live spartan lives, but even they will talk your ear off when on land.

The other quandary is Carrie Rose herself. She is irresistibly cute and conjures up all types of romantic visions. Passers-by are compelled to share these with me. At first it was a novelty. I was proud to have a conveyance that stirred so many souls. Now, after eight years of ownership it has become a bit taxing. I am polite as I divulge specifications and handling characteristics. I am careful about being too opinionated, not wanting to ruin any dreams because what is cruising about if not dreams.

And dream I do, of far off ports, bigger boats and new equipment, both the mundane and the exotic. I dream as I lie awake looking out the forward hatch at the stars. I dream while asleep, though not as peacefully. For unknown reasons my boat dreams are complicated. It may be the stress of being afloat. There are many responsibilities. Or it may be my place to work on issues I do not realize I have while on land.

My ill ease with blankness surprises me. After years spent reading and thinking about emptiness I now realize it is a foreign concept. I fancy myself an enlightened individual, but alas I am a fraud. A fraud that feels awkward without a mind full of thoughts. So I am back where I started from: a longhaired teenager groping for meaning and looking for direction. I thought I had found it in the Word but I see now this was a mistake. Dependence has lead to grief.

Of course what will it matter if I never write another word? The vast majority of humanity never wrote another word once out of high school, if they ever got that far. My father was one. He was denied an education due to what we would now call socio-economic factors, and then was called the depression, WWII, poverty and discrimination. It was a constant source of embarrassment for him even if he rarely voiced his true feelings. When he did I would try to comfort him. It did not work, so maybe I am trying to even the score with the universe.

Since my almost illiterate upbringing I dreamed of writing. I practiced in various ways, so when the time came I would be prepared. After the age of 16 I never let a word pass I did not know the meaning of. I kept a journal, which started with a type of poetry and later evolved into prose. I wrote haphazardly about travels, relationships, frustrations and milestones.

I tried to study grammar and finally gave up the didactic approach, and just read to see what more accomplished writers were doing with commas, semicolons and colons. Funny, nobody did the same thing. Once I realized this I was liberated.

Now it is time to get back to the real world or my perception of it, blank as it may be. I am grateful that anyone cares about my dissection of experience. The Word is my contribution to civil discourse and I hope it will continue to visit me for many decades. I will not bother to understand why it abandoned me last summer. Maybe it was the great expanse of clear fresh water we traversed that wiped my slate clean, now isn’t that is a pleasant thought.

April 2012

Leaves

Green leaves, purple crocuses and red-orange robins are surely a confirmation of spring with a capital “S”. All seen, prematurely I think for this early in March, as I got out of the house and went for a walk to inspect the neighborhood. Almost a reason for a dog, but no, I will pass on that.

To make it through my 58th February is a great achievement. I cannot say that it was without foreboding. This streak of pessimism is what sets us Midwesterners apart from coastal inhabitants. My sentence this year was cut 10 days short by a trip to Costa Rica. Ninety-degree heat to languish in, wild painted birds to spy on, twisting turning roads to negotiate and hot springs to soak in; not a bad stretch in paradise.

Somehow winter vacations feel fake, like cheating fate. Try as I may I can’t help but look over my shoulder. It is as if the black-cloaked symbol of Death in Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal follows me around. I know I know it is an overreaction. This is a fault I have been working on since teenager-hood. I blame it on the disappearance of my Etruscan lineage or maybe it is my Sicilian side’s fault, probably both.

There is so much to tell while on vacation that I find it hard to just send a postcard. Sights and sounds, taste and smells, language and art are the things that make a trip worthwhile, and I want to expound on them. I have not even mentioned the inhabitants. They are the most intriguing part of the experience. Farmers and ship captains in Norway, cellist and luthiers in Italy, tea masters and potters in Japan, historians and artist in NYC, I have met them all. It is fun to lie in bed during the twilight between wake and sleep, and wonder what they are up to in their different time zones.

But back at home green leaves signal it is time to get in the garden, all 400 square feet of it. It needs raking, weed-and-feeding, soil turning and winter damage repairing. This year the garage should get new trim and a coat of paint. And the house deserves to have its cracks filled. Its been ignored for years. The cost will be astronomical but then we have to live somewhere.

It is also time to reacquaint ourselves with neighbors who disappear every year from November to March. New projects are proposed and maybe, if lucky, completed. Each year I hope for more trees and less concrete, and seem to get more of the latter. Parking pads migrate from the alley to the back steps, stone and brick decks are set into the grass, new garages appear, there seems to be no end to the construction even in the small spaces we visually share.

Green leaves also signal for the windows to be opened. I hear the house say—ahhh! Early warm spells arrive with strong gusty winds from the Gulf. This sets the local collection of chimes chiming. I am not sure why mine, the progenitor, has silently lived in the basement for the last few years. I guess it decided the neighborhood was noisy enough. I think I will pull it out of storage and add its sonorous tones to the choir.

The green, purple and reds bring vibrancy to Chicago. It endears the city to me and I am not sure if I could claim this if I spent the winters in a higher climate zone. Does this mean that I need to suffer to reap the rewards of springtime . . . I think not. That would be too soap operatic. Better to get out in the backyard and move dirt, paint trim and fill cracks, so there will be time to visit when summer comes with a capital “S”!

March 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

Three

I am not sure about good luck but bad luck comes in threes. At least if I am having a run of bad luck I hope it will end at three. After three disasters I suppose our ancient forebears would start to think about sacrificing a virgin—male or female depending on their proclivities—to appease whatever gods they were worshiping at the time.

Right at the outset I have to say I am not a great believer in luck. Luck and superstition are two sides of the same coin, and the thought of giving up my free will to the willy-nilly nature of a universe I cannot control gives me no comfort. My approach is to be aware of my environment and ready to accept what comes my way. What is the saying, luck favors a prepared mind.

But I admit I have been the recipient of dumb luck even as I deny belief in it. I suppose fate, karma or kismet might be alternative terms, but these have other implications associated with them. No, luck is just luck. No substitution needed.

Why does bad luck come in threes? Three is just a prime number divisible by one and itself. It could be that three has a personality like in 6-6-6 for the devil or 9-1-1 for an emergency. I was raised with the Holy Trinity: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost. The Hindu religion has the Trimurti: Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva, and their wives the Tridevi: Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati.

A minor chord has three notes: a root, a minor third and a perfect fifth. The Japanese haiku favors three lines to describe the universe. And of course there are the supposed trivial numbers we live with so intimately that we forget their existence: area codes, the three numbers of our high school locker’s combination lock, and our social security and phone numbers that split into three segments.

There must be something that makes us pick three. Maybe our collective psyche has decided that groupings of three are just more interesting and thus easier to remember.

There are many Rules of Three from mathematics, to medicine, literature, statistics, etc., etc. And now that I think of it, good luck weighs in here too: the third time’s a charm. But this assumes you have failed twice before, so it is not altogether an uplifting story.

Last summer while cruising on the Great Lakes two of our fellow travelers and us had a series of mishaps. You guessed it, three. Due to the other side of the coin—superstition—I have been cautioned against uttering the precise details in print. I will respect this wish. After the third mishap we three invoked the rule of three and it held true until we all arrived safely home.

Where do I go from here? Is this story about the number three or about luck, maybe neither. It is a point to jump off into a stream of consciousness. After all our life is made up of action and consequences. If they are grouped in three, so be it. If they are not, so what. Superstition, astrology, horoscopes and soon video poker should not bind our lives. They limit the self.

As a young man I consulted the I Ching’s tripartite view of the world thinking it a benign tool. My mistake was treating it as a philosophical toy. Study that could have gone into something productive went into an endeavor that hindered my growth for many years. It was as if I had time traveled and altered history, my history. Was its prediction inevitable, I doubt it. Could I have ignored it, certainly. Could I forget it, never!

It is the coin’s double sided nature again. Now I know to stay rooted in the irrefutable laws of the physical world and leave parapsychology to the psychic. Bad luck and good will come no matter, in ones or twos or threes. We live in an ever-expanding universe, take advantage of it. Stand in the clear frigid night and sense the movement of the cosmos. Revel in its vastness and beauty. Use the time to describe the world, in three lines:

Freezing nights upon us —
Hiroshije’s prints
Expand on reality.

January 2012

Horizon

In my Chicago neighborhood a horizon is hard to come by. I venture to the shore of Lake Michigan or travel vertically to the upper floors of skyscrapers to when I need to see one. This is the legacy of our glacial past, which left us with barely a hill to stand upon. Far from being discouraged by this, I have searched out unique horizons for most of my life. Most are memorable for their association with the sun, but not all.

In the east, Florida’s sun coalesces from a deformed reddish glow that comes from deep below the Atlantic’s horizon only to set a white-hot orb amidst the cheers of the revelers at the tip of North America. And in the West off the California coast, the naked sun unceremoniously plunges into the cold Pacific. In the middle of Lake Michigan it rises and sets with no hint of the influence of land. And as a young man I watched the golden globe rise and set over a horizon of the picturesque islands of the Aegean and the Adriatic, not to mention the vast Mediterranean Sea.

Then, as impossible is seems, there is the lack of sunrise and sunset. In the seas above the Arctic Circle the sun heads straight for the horizon and inexplicably starts back up while still high in the sky permeating everything in a golden fluorescence. In the same region’s deep valleys the sun secrets itself behind mountain silhouettes only to hint at its magnificence. This premature horizon makes winter seem endless.

In Osaka I stood opened jawed before the window of a high rise hotel and I watched the staccato skyline taper off into the distance demarcated by the sickly glow of mercury vapor. Then after a sleepless night I watched it inundated with the ghostly mingling of dew and smog.

On a recent afternoon with the sun high in the sky I sat waiting for the traffic light on Balbo Street to change. I looked east across Lake Shore Drive and focused from the street, to the deserted harbor, and finally, settled on Four Mile Crib sitting three miles east of Monroe Harbor.

At first the horizon appeared flat but this was an illusion. The water close to shore was sheltered from the Northwest wind and barely showed a ripple. Further out though, the horizon was roiling. The closer I focused the more detail I discerned at the interface between the water and the sky. Waves were galloping south in riotous fashion with white caps decorating the peaks and a deep cerulean blue concealing the troughs.

The detail was millimeters thick. I felt as if I was looking at it with the oil lens of a microscope. Then a horn blared and the moment was lost. I raced across the intersection and turn north towards home. I was glad not to be on the lake that day.

This summer I had a similar experience. A stiff east wind had been blowing along Lake Huron’s length for several days, so when I left my snug anchorage that morning I resigned myself to a lumpy ride west toward Mackinac Island. This time instead of sitting at a traffic light I was steaming south through DeTour Passage between Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Drummond Island with Lake Huron before me.

Again I focused on the horizon. That is after dodging the two crisscrossing ferries and then steering clear of a several-football-field long lake freighter. It had descended from St. Mary’s River and was also bearing for the freedom of the open lake.

On its southern end the DeTour Reef Lighthouse demarcates DeTour Passage from the lake. It is an imposing structure that sits in solitude surrounded by water and submerged rocks. A somber sight on any day, it was especially so this cool gray day with low clouds scudding overhead. The horizon beyond it was as alive as the one I watched off Balbo Street, but this time I was heading straight for it at 7 knots.

Maneuvering in large seas can be nerve racking. I wonder how the boat and crew will take the assault. Neither, especially the former, has let me down and this time was no different. We were lifted onto the swells and glided off their backsides into the troughs. It is difficult to describe being a part of all this moving water. That is for another time.

Once amongst the waves the horizon disappears. Your worldview shrinks to what can be seen and felt within a few boat lengths. The next horizon I remember was in Little Traverse Bay where it was tinted by a perfect amber sunset that melted into the lake and into my memory.

Maybe it is because I have lived my life deprived of horizons that I hold fiercely onto the memory of each. Maybe it is how the sun and the earth play this game of sunrises and sunsets, vying to see who will be the most spectacular. But probably it is the realization that each one is unique: one time, one meeting (ichigo, ichie). Never to be repeated again.

Time has a way of focusing the mind especially at this time of year. I remind myself not to become complacent. Not to hunker down in my neighborhood of bungalows and wait for Spring but to venture out and seek the next horizon.

December, 2011

Nature

Late one stormy night while driving the back roads of Chicago I spied Mr. Fox and Mr. Rabbit in close proximity. The former was on the move with his long bushy tail trailing straight out behind him, except that is when he stopped to mark every other tree. The latter, with ears erect and tracking, looked alert despite being as still as Michelangelo’s David.

To the north lie the crumbling wall of an ancient cemetery, and to the south a tall uninviting, but unobtrusive green corrugated metal fence of a large industrial concern. My wife’s relatives repose just over the north wall and it is also the location of my first summer job where I most likely cut the grass around their graves. Thus it, the cemetery, is a familiar place. Not in the least creepy or at least not until I saw Mr. Fox and began to think of his nighttime exploits.

He looked dusky, as all city dwelling animals tend to look. Go to the suburbs and the squirrel’s fur radiates multiple hues, but here in my bungalow’s backyard they come in any color as long as it is dull grey. And that goes for the sparrows and possums. I am not sure about the skunks. I only smell them as they pass under my backyard windows. Of all the animals that inhabit my little corner of Chicago the raccoons seem the exception. They always look fit and well groomed, even as I try to extricate them from the attic.

But that is beside the point, let me not get distracted. The sight of the rabbit’s close call further confirmed my thoughts, thoughts of the seriousness of the natural world. I see a dog wag its tail and smile, a cat purrs in my lap and I anthropomorphize them. But I think if set free without a loving human to feed them, they would quickly turn on me to satisfy their hunger.

The natural world is an unforgiving place. We have done a marvelous job of isolating ourselves from it, but occasionally I seek it out. I have traveled to unruly lands: Israel moments before the Yom Kippur War, Northern Ireland in the first year of the Troubles and Greece during the junta. Closer to home I have hiked in the wilderness home of the grizzly and summited a few 12,000 foot peaks and even closer, I have spent many days on the blue waters of the Great Lakes.

Of all the time spent on the Great Lakes, many more hours have been consumed contemplating the weather. I know that if I make a mistake I am in for an unpleasant experience, if not a dangerous one. I hope for an uneventful passage. More than hope, I plan for it, and contrary to popular opinion I often remember an uneventful voyage and forget a bad one.

The natural world is not divorced from the middle of the city. How many life and death struggles take place each evening. Late one afternoon as I walked to the now destroyed Michael Reese Hospital parking structure I heard the shrill cries of a mother squirrel and her baby. The dense hedges that surrounded the parking garage supported a remarkable diversity of creatures and it was there that I witnessed the drama.

I went searching for the commotion and saw a large crow, several times the size of the mother squirrel, raiding the nest with a yelping baby squirrel between its beak. I startled the crow causing it to drop the baby. Mother squirrel quickly grabbed her baby by the fur and fled back to the nest. The crow did not hesitate to bound up and kidnap the baby once again. The mother’s unrestrained aggression towards the crow was futile, it barely noticed her.

I decided that as unseemly as this spectacle was, I best not get involved. Turning away I dare not look back. This was nature playing out its destiny. It was on a smaller scale than on the plains of Africa or the northern reaches of the Americas where lions and wolves cull the herds of antelope and caribou, but it was just as sobering.

This event came back to me as I watched the fox and the rabbit’s paths cross. For all our preconceived notions while sitting in the comfortable cocoon of modernity, the natural world is unrelenting. I have no illusions that the lake is concerned with my well being. If I get roughed up on the way to the next port I am grateful to reach safe harbor. Just as I am sure that Mr. Rabbit was, in some rabbit way, happy to have escaped the notice of Mr. Fox . . . for this time at least.

Waves

Surfing down a wave in a 17,000 pound 32 foot piece of pointed plastic can be simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. The noise resembles a washing machine’s spin cycle. As I am lucky enough to have a functioning autopilot I stay ready to slide off my comfortable seat and disengage it to save our little ship. If I did not have one then I would have already anticipated what the following wave was going to do and started to correct for it.

Each boat responds in a unique way and each wave presents a different challenge. Waves come in waves. On the Great Lakes, my hub of experience, they come in series of sixes or sevens. Each series is characterized by increasingly larger waves. Occasionally one is demarcated by a large wave out of proportion to the others. Waves in the Great Lakes have a short period (the time between crest) of about 6 to 8 seconds, so it can be several minutes between series. And within that cycle there are even longer cycles, which generate larger waves. These big ones sneak up on you.

The Perfect Storm made us familiar with rogue waves. Of course I am not talking about anything on that scale. The waves on our fresh water lakes are known more for their steep close packed nature than their towering size. Our waves beat you to pulp with their quick repeatability, rather than engulf you whole like those of the oceans. That said, remember the Edmund Fitzgerald and beware.

If driving into them, we pound; if traveling across, we swing like an upside-down metronome. If they are behind, well, then we slow as we get sucked back into the troughs, and speed up as we are lifted and flung forward by the front of the approaching wave. Speed can increase from 5 to 12 knots in an instant. Some following waves quietly gurgle as they pass. Others pick up the stern to a point where gravity takes over and starts the boat careening into the wave that has just passed.

It is then that the boat does something usually the purview of young bleached blond men and women on exotic islands, surf. The boat feels lively and light as it skips along on the foaming water of the breeching wave. When the speed of the wave matches that of the boat, the rudder loses it grip and the boat starts to turn right across the offending wave. This (broaching is the technical term) cannot be allowed to happen.

If sideways to a sizable wave it can overwhelm and flipped the boat over on its side or worse. I turn the wheel as far to the left as possible, far enough to feel the rudder bite into the water and the bow begins to swing to the left. Of course I do not want to go too far that way either, so a bit before the neutral point I bring the wheel back to center.

All this takes several very long seconds and thankfully large waves, in most cases, herald the beginning of a new series with smaller waves in the forefront. I take a breath and recover my heading. Once in a stable rhythm the autopilot is reengaged. I sit back to wait for the next one to appear. It may or may not, so I keep alert.

I have been at the helm of many boats from square sided tubs to sleek double enders. From heavy cruising boats to ultra light racers. All behave differently. My present boat does not sail but powers through the water pushed in front of a large four bladed propeller with over two hundred pounds of torque behind it. It seldom exhibits any strain despite the conditions it finds itself in.

She — the boat — has a fine entry that flattens out to a shallow V and ends in a broad, billboard like stern. The tons of water that make up a following wave love to push it around, but thanks to a large rudder and a long deep keel it is not often bested.

The operative word here is often. Off of Michigan’s Little Sable Point this year an odd combination of wind, waves and terrain, both above and below the water, twist us in such a fashion to dislodge furniture, nick-knacks and anything else not Velcro-ed down, including us. It occurred with such a noise that I considered, if only for a second, the sanity of being out on the water.

In another boat, like our former Swedish sailboat Lenore, the wave would have simply parted at the stern and passed by with a whoosh. Lenore loved — more than me — strong winds and big seas. She had a hidden stern as fine and pointed as her bow. A boring boat in anything less than 15 knots of wind she became more comfortable as conditions worsened. Once her sail was shortened she would steer herself, managing tacks and gybes with ease.

Lovely she was, but slow and cramped and so Carrie Rose, the 17,000 pound piece of pointed plastic, replaced her in 2003. We traded ocean-crossing ability for the RV comforts of a coastal cruiser. A good choice overall, but a choice that has me wishing for her when the waves get their dander up and start to carry us downwind on another adventure.

October 2011

Rocks

Rocks are not a big part of my life in Chicago. There is the occasional one I dig out of the garden and sometimes I find myself admiring the fossils that reside in the stone that make up the buildings downtown. But that is about it. I found John McPhee’s Basin and Range interesting but geology was my least favorite science in college. I admit to a fascination with Japanese rock gardens and the Japanese veneration of particular rocks. Last year I sat at the edge of the Ryoan-ji dry rock garden in Kyoto and quietly soaked in the ambiance.

But in the Northern reaches of Michigan and into Canada the rocks demand attention. The farther north Charlotte and I traveled from Chicago the more subservient the environment became to its rocks: telephone poles are supported by piles of rocks at their base because there is no soil to bury them, foundations that only go down inches rather than feet, and minimal top soil—most of it having been pushed to central Illinois by the glaciers that scraped this area down to bedrock.

Rocks define the North Channel of Ontario where Carrie Rose, our 32’ Nordic Tug, carried us this spring and summer. Our attention was directed to avoiding the multitude of barely submerged rocks that inhabit these waters. To keep from hitting them we used our eyes, two sets of charts, several local cruising guides, an outdated Garmin chart plotter, an even older back-up GPS and a newly purchased navigation program for my MacBook with another GPS plugged into its USB port. Believe me we needed them all.

After much travail I was able to load the computer with the current Canadian and U.S. charts. They display rocks that mariners have been charting since Admiral Bayfield made his way here in the early 1800s. But there is no guarantee that the charted rocks will be where they are supposed to be and that uncharted ones will miraculously surface. Every cruising guide on every page cautions this inevitability.

As I write this Carrie Rose is having a well-deserved rest in Petoskey, MI. This is the land of the famed Petoskey stone. These dusty grey stones have a lace like filigree pattern and are the coral remnants of an ancient sea. During past visits we bought a small bud vase and a Pandora charm made out of them. This year we decide to find our own and so, the bikes were taken off the boat, cleaned of spider webs and ridden down a path west of the harbor. At the first beach that appeared slightly remote we walk down the stairway to the beach. Once there, with heads bowed, we start searching. Within 30 seconds I find one, and then another and another. Granted these were not prime examples but after a little cleaning, sure enough they were Petoskey stones. I now understand, as one local told me, that the entire landscape from here to Mackinac Island is composed of them, just waiting to be found by naïve southerners like us. When we get back to the boat Charlotte sits sanding our treasure to bring out their hidden details. With this level of intensity she should have them gleaming by next year. A worthy pursuit considering she has just retired.

We left Chicago in early June to get to the North Channel of Lake Huron and cruise amongst its ancient rocks. The rock culture is intense there. Mountains of gleaming white quartz defy description. Your eyes want to attribute the whiteness to something else besides the rock itself, but you can touch it and feel the sun’s heat that radiates from its mirror like surface.

The celebrated islands in the North Channel are the Benjamin’s. They are a small group of islands in the shape of a C that are composed of pink quartz. It is not easy to get to them, nor is it easy to stay. Their poor anchorage is exposed to winds from many directions and its bottom, which has been scoured by thousands of anchors has questionable holding. To further complicate matters, most days it is filled with cruising boat vying for the few safe places to anchor.

To climb its treeless dome of exposed quartz is to commune with rocks as old as any found on the planet. For a Christian nation it smacks of animism. This is behavior I expect from the Japanese with their reverence of Shinto’s kami-sama, spirits associated with the natural world. Most of the national parks in Japan have Shinto shrines to provide for the spiritual needs of their visitors. But here amongst the fifty and sixty year old middle class of North America it seems sacrilegious.

Of course as luck would have it Carrie Rose broke down just as we entered the Benjamin’s. We were towed east to Little Current, the largest town on Manitoulin Island, for repairs. We linger there for two weeks waiting for engine parts and never setting foot on the coveted terrain we had been removed from. Instead we spent our time with the town’s friendly and caring people, and with the transient community that cruise this rock-ridden archipelago each summer. A couple we barely knew offered us the key to their behemoth Ford and encouraged us to take in some of the sites while they were away cruising. We accepted and went north into the odd landscape of the Le Cloche Mountains. Once the size of the Rockies these hills of white quartz are billions of years old and they look it.

I wish I could give you an accurate description. The land is an odd mixture of trees, water and convoluted, rounded stones folded upon themselves. The shear rock faces radiates heat, and foliage hangs on for its life, as do the cottages that are tucked into every crevasse. The energy the earth poured into this landscape for billions of years is tangible. I am unaccustomed to such intensity and it makes me nervous.

I sense the billion-year history of these rocks and think of my few meager decades. I leave the North Channel sobered. It put my allotment of consciousness in context. The time here on earth before I become an elemental particle again is the universe’s gift and I better not waste it!

September 2011

Coasting

I thought we had enough time, is a common refrain on Lake Michigan. At present I am sitting through the third thunderstorm of the last three days. I thought I had enough time to get to our destination by today but I did not. Prudence dictates I remain in the harbor and it gives me some unexpected time to look around and absorb the scene. In the last few days I have seen a cast of characters pass through the different harbors I have been sequestered in.

The best were two elderly gentlemen in a small open sailboat of British design who are sailing, weather be damned, south along the east coast. After seeing what they have been through I feel like a wimp for staying put through these few “inconsequential” major storms.

Then there was the couple that spent the last eight summers cruising the Great Lakes in their large traditional (read slow) ketch. They go where they want, when they want with no strings attached.

A fellow Nordic Tug owner whom I have met at rendezvous’ appeared late yesterday in the heart of the worst of the worse weather. I “caught” him as he turned into his slip with the wind blowing his little ship a beam. Once tied up he described fighting progressively higher winds and seas as he approached the harbor only to turn back three miles to rescue a disabled sailboat.

This reverie could go on but I will stop. The storm clouds have move on to reek havoc over the horizon and blue sky has returned, as have the tourist that fled at the first sign of rain. There is a bit of going native about cruising even if every harbor town is full of ice cream and t-shirt shops. I have hardly seen a soul on this trip up the eastern shore, that is excluding the fishermen three miles out from every harbor mouth,

I have had the lake to myself. This was most evident while passing through the Manitou Passage. A lonely stretch of water bounded by South and North Manitou Islands to the west, and Sleeping Bear and Pyramid Points to the east. It is primordial compared to other areas of the lake I have experienced. The forces and the time involved in shaping this terrain, both above and below the surface of the lake, occupy my thoughts as I negotiate through the various nuns and cans, and lighthouses that mark the passage.

I get the same feeling when I focus my telescope back in time from the moon, to the planets, to the Milky Way, and to our local group of galaxies and beyond. My mind relaxes, shedding filters that are normally in place and roams. It is a common thread for most voyagers. It is why you can meet people as you wander and instantly fall in sync with them.

At least for me there is superstition involved in this. When I was growing up my Sicilian mother (bless her soul) enforced many different entreaties. The oddest being that opening an umbrella inside the house meant a family member would die. I am sure I killed off a few of my dear aunts due to my inattention. My traveling companion Charlotte is a good antidote to this line of thinking. She always speaks the obvious in any situation. I seldom do, fearing I will tempt faith. I am not convinced this is a good practice but I have silenced my objection to it.

One thing that differentiates coasting from other types of boating is housekeeping. Besides charting and never ending maintenance someone has to shop and cook, wash the dishes and make the bed, and do the laundry. Granted the grass doesn’t need to be cut or the garden weeded but the above more than makes up for the lack of those chores. This is why charter captains and their pampered guest exist.

Maybe one day I will succumb to be pampered but not today. Today I will swing in each beam sea, drive into whitecaps and squalls, ghost through early summer fog and wait out weather in a safe harbor.

Coasting involves pairing down to the essentials, no end of endless horizons and fellow travelers that are not so much about the trip as they are about the spirit of the trip. So when I really think about it I do have enough time, because how much time does it take to absorb the spirit of a place.

August 2011