Mermaid

We left on a Friday,(bad idea #1), because the owner/captain,(bad idea #2), wasn't superstitious,(bad idea #3), into the teeth of a gale,(bad idea #4). Within twenty four hours, we were off course, in the Nantucket Shoals, sailing in confused, steep seas with a blown out, badly furled main, and an uncontrollable headsail, the fairlead for the furler having been twisted outboard 180 degrees. We got knocked down twice, and turtled once. That last one dropped us on our heads, water came pouring in the companionway, (we left a slide out to keep an eye on our immensely seasick, hallucinating captain, who insisted on taking his turn at the wheel), water pouring in through the deadlight which had finally broken, over my head, as we just kept tilting, tilting, tilting. I had one thought: can I hold my breath long enough to swim to the surface? Followed quickly by a second thought: yeah, and then what?

Amazing boat, that Sabre 38, it found it's righting moment and popped back up. Lots of rushing around, two feet of sloshing water in the cabin, hundreds of pounds of water trapped in the main, the boat fighting to maintain, loss of all electronics, thank god for a gel cell battery, we still had engine ignition. Fear, fear, fear, next step, next step! Get engine running, dump water from main, drop headsail, start bailing!!!

Hallucinating captain insisting We Will Continue On To Bermuda, four days away, it took us until well into the evening to convince him that we HAD to turn in for repairs. Finally we changed our southerly heading to westerly, and made for land.

I was on deck with Amazing Owen, 1st mate, curled up in my foul weather gear in a corner of the cockpit, he was at the helm, our conversation having drifted off out of exhaustion, into introspection. Suddenly this slippery, pale woman, naked, dripping long black hair, hoisted herself over the side of the boat, and draped herself over the side of the cabin. She looked at me with a rueful, knowing smile, shaking her head and finger at me. I was gob smacked, speechless, as she slid off the boat and disappeared back into the dark water. Hold on! What? Excuse me!? Come back here!!! Explain yourself!

Nope, it appeared I was the one who needed to explain myself. Silly land creature girl, what was I doing out here trying to get myself drowned? Follow your instincts, my dear, run in the opposite direction, quickly, if your captain gives no credence to superstition, to the unknowable power of this great mother ocean, attempts not the slightest appeasement of dark waters beyond his ken. YOU know better. Indeed.

Boatshow!

Yesterday I went down to the Maine Boatbuilder's Show, held as it is every year, at Portland Yacht Services. I am still, after all the years this show has been around, surprised to see that big, dank, almost scary old engine works filled with such a concentration of Maine maritimeness, (not a word? it is now). What's being built, who's building it, what its being built of, where to keep it, miscellaneous stuff for the boat, (new Bakelite blocks!, shiny bronze fittings!, electronics beyond imagining!), and last, but certainly not least, the stuff of dreams, romantic, oceanic dreams. Look! the VIRGINIA, first boat built in Maine, (well, ok, for the sole purpose of getting the desperate settlers of Popham's first failed colony off this harsh coastline), traditional ropework, (macrame fenders anyone?), beautiful and haunting sepia photography, shiny and expensive beachglass jewelry. Over there! Its Dodge Morgan, our very own Maine version of the first man on the moon, sailed all the way around the world, ALONE, nonstop. Even after all these years it still boggles the imagination. And he can write, with the dry wit of a man who, despite his myriad accomplishments, still doesn't really take himself all that seriously. Cheers to you, you cranky old bastard.

After several years of abstaining from this event, being of a somewhat cranky nature myself, it felt good to immerse myself in this community again. I met Koondog, my old compatriot from Robinhood, and his cheerful wife, Mary, purely by chance as we converged on the entrance, and we kept each other company, gossiping and cutting up as we made our way through the exhibits.

I decided it was time to make my way home after I lost the Koondogs and realized how footsore and hungry I was , only to be distracted and distracted again. It took me almost an hour, within sight of the main entrance, to make my way there. My trip to the boatshow had taken on the epic qualities of an expedition. A quest even, or perhaps hunger was just making me daft, yet questlike it remains for me. The things I learned, heard, talked about, saw, are helping me redefine my love of the ocean and things nautical, my perspective of myself within this context. I'm getting too old, (go ahead, snort), to continue subjecting myself to the vagaries and physical punishments of boatyard work, and NOW is the time to steer myself a new course. A quaintly nautical metaphor, but more than apt. How to make writing, which has suddenly overtaken me with a desperate need, a part of my living, making a living. This is what I seek, my expedition, my quest.

Skiin' Ian

This is my brother. Boy, can he ski!









This is how his skiing was described in an overheard conversation between two ski patrollers: "Like a rabbit over a broken field..."
"That's just not right..."
This is my brother and me, opposite sides of the same coin. Love that kid! 

Firemen, Fairy Godmothers and other Protectors

What is the appeal of firemen? There are the obvious ones: great , big dramatic moustaches, (on the men, at least); saving our lives; saving our beloved pets' lives; those super cool ladder trucks, (not just small boys are impressed by large machinery); uniforms which are casual, rugged, yet still uniforms; the studied nonchalance of professional heroes.
These things, though, in and of themselves, don't speak to the true essence of these men and women. The essence of home, house, hearth. The protection of these things, not only in their heroic guises, but also in their day to day job description. More often than not, I see firemen at the grocery store, in uniform, sometimes even in their big, black firefighting pants and boots, shopping for food, chatting like a bunch of old biddies. I see them sweeping and cleaning in the fire station, knowing there are probably one or two of them upstairs, cooking away, keeping the fire where it should be. It comforts me to know that superheroes can also be mommies.

Fairy Godmothers, on the other hand, attend. They attend births, christenings, weddings, the events that mark our lives, and in the attending bestow gifts which are meant to protect. They don't hang around for the day to day occurrences, the projectile spitting up, the temper tantrums, the washing, the going for a walk. Theirs is a magical protection, a singular charm, a perfect word, that will help the attended upon make the right choice between harm and safety. The protection of fairy godmothers is often not a comfortable one, because things can go awry, or the FG herself becomes unbalanced, and then we are left to hope the proverbial double edged sword doesn't slice us in the passing.

Somewhere in between the two are the Aunties. Those who would run into a burning house to save the beloved, offer a protective spell, make a cake, calmly accept a smiling offer of spitup, or accidentally teach a young child how to use the f-bomb in a sentence. Fierce protectors of the child, the family of the child, and the independence of the child, we should all have at least one Auntie. 

Wintering Over at the South Pole

This just looks cold, and it should at 11,000 feet, but it's only a mountain peak in Breckenridge, CO. Good skiing, though. (That's me, looking alpiny.)




THIS is cold. Minus 65F and dropping, as winter descends
on the South Pole. That's my friend Jeff, on the left, and one of his overwintering comrades freezing their patooties off.

Jeff has a blog, ANTARCTICA!, also on Blogger, that everyone should check out. It's not often that we know people who do this sort of thing. It brings to mind scenes from horrific movies like John Carpenter's The Thing, or on occasion when I'm feeling morbidly gruesome, Donner Pass. In all reality it's probably similar to any other high end adventure, mostly tedium punctuated with moments of terror or awesome beauty, often at the same time.

I am so proud of Jeff. I first got to know him years ago when he was still working at Robinhood Marine Center, as a Senior Dock Attendant. He was freshly graduated from college, and flailing mildly, as we often do after finishing eons of school. Even then he was making So. Pole noises. Mmmh, hmm, we would say, cool idea. Then he got a stint interning as a weather observer on Mt. Washington, which turned into a job. He got used to extreme weather, and winter isolation, and even at one point heroic action in the face of terrifying emergency, when he discovered a fire in the utility room. They put the flames out, but had to be evacuated. Quite the story, it made the regional evening news. Jeff's resume, nicely filled, finally qualified him for a position at the South Pole.

He went down last October, at the beginning of their summer, all day, no night, the busy time in Antarctica, filled with the comings and goings of scientists, political VIPs, C130s, and trips to MacMurdo. All that has ended, the last C130 has flown out, and the sun is setting, and setting, and setting some more, until it finally sets for the Long Night.

Try to imagine the mental and emotional preparations you'd have to make for an experience like that. We humans are not, as a rule, nocturnal creatures. Darkness, because we lose so much of our sense of sight, fills with so many other things. The inner life of our souls ratchets up a notch and asks us to pay more attention to it. I wonder, does it become a semi-dreamlike state? Imagine also what it must be like to make those forays into the bitter cold night when the Aurora Australis is flaring. Dreamlike, indeed. Is the best preparation perhaps just to remain open to what the experience brings, sorting things after its all said and done?

I think of Jeff almost daily. He is a good and true person, with a beautiful ,sunny smile that draws people to its light. What a great thing to have in a long night.

 

You Can Run But You Can't Hide...

Recently I have been re-befriending an ex. Silly idea some may think, some have even said, but nooo, hardheaded me had to give it a go. An occasional check-in here and there wouldn't hurt, I thought.

Then, of course, things start getting intense. Snippy comments about how I might just walk out the door and not show up again for another two years. Sheesh! And the dog, the wonderful amazing Fred, now oh so greatly aged, (the horror of discovering what five years can do to an active, healthy large dog), and DYING.

Riddled with cancer dying, having "episodes" and being whisked to the emergency vet for expensive life saving treatment dying, bleeding out of his mouth and nose on occasion dying.

At this point it was becoming a morbid death watch. I would call every other day to see "how things were" (read: Is the dog dead yet?)
Finally after an excruciating episode while we were watching the closing ceremonies of the Turino Winter Olympics, Fred bleeding, the ex on the floor with him, sobbing, me kneeling next to them both, petting them both, crying, I had to make the suggestion- isn't it time? No, came the reply, I'll know when, he isn't in pain. AAARGH! The dog was in shock, plus bleeding internally, I repeat, AAARGH!

Too much for this kupkake to handle, I was beyond grief and into horror, with a stomach that didn't want to have much to do with food, much less any more emotion. So I disappeared, just like the man predicted. The next day I ignored the daily death watch debriefing, and hid behind a book on the couch, screening phone calls. None came from there, thank god, instead I got this phone call.

"K, it's Tanya from downstairs. I was just in the basement and there's a dead cat on the floor. It looks like Peace Kitty. Can you come down?"

Peace Kitty, her roomate's young, beautiful cat with the bad heart. Oh noooo...

Yep, it was Peace Kitty, deader than the proverbial door nail, by about, oh, just enough time to have started cooling. My poor broken heart, poor Tanya, as fragile as a bird's wing, poor Leslie, the roomate, still at work.

What to do? My rudimentary animal emergency training went into effect, get an old towel. Wild animal trapped in the house? dead animal in the basement? injured animal on the road? these can all be dealt with by the judicious application of an old towel. So we dealt.

So far so bad.

That night, just as I was finally falling asleep, I heard someone come into the apartment. What ?! I could hear this someone breathing and rustling about, so I turned on the light and crept around the corner into the front hallway. There was an old, drunk man standing at the bottom of my front stairs, blinking and reeking in the light.

The best response I could come up with was, "ahh, wrong apartment dude."

Brilliant! A drunk trespasser and I say wrong apartment?

His reply? "The door was ajar." Oh, so that makes it ok to just walk into some random apartment at 2 o'clock in the morning? FYI, the door WAS locked, I just forgot to give it that extra yoink earlier. He walked out, I ran down the stairs and threw the deadbolt. I heard him say, almost mournfully, as he tried the second floor door, " oh, it's locked...".

Whatever!!! I called the cops, but by the time they came he must have staggered off.

The lesson, the moral, as it were? You can run but you can't hide. If you're meant to have a sweet animal die, one will. If your're not meant to avoid dealing with difficult men, you won't. There is no hiding from life if you are trying to live it with any decency. Urgh!