Thursday, October 31, 2013
Chaos
There is a moment in my life every day
when the conflict of a world I do not understand melts away.
I walk down the weathered planks of the docks
past boats larger and smaller than mine,
boats loved, and boats lost and forgotten,
they are still and sleeping
amid the lights reflecting on the river.
Ave waits for me at the end of the row,
strong and silent between the current and the dock,
tugging at her reins one night,
napping in a moonbeam the next,
no need to prove herself to me,
strong and silent like a grandparent’s love.
We don’t use words often while at rest, Ave and I.
I check her lines, smiling—
how well she has kept herself while I was gone!
A hand on the boom gallows and I pull myself aboard,
a click of the combination lock and the hatch swings open.
I climb below into a place of perspective, of logic,
of purpose and engagement and discomfort and joy
that is so easy for me to understand,
a stage where I need play no role at all.
Her walls, so narrow to most, hug me close with the warmth
of wood that has seen worlds I cannot even imagine.
Her floors creak underfoot and cry squeaks of delight to my ears,
happy that I am home to be alive on them.
Her motion in the water rocks me to sleep at night
and gently jostles me awake in the morning.
I know it will not always be like this,
will not always be like these nights so special,
but for now I pump water by hand
from the pump I rebuilt myself,
put the kettle on the stove for tea
and light her oil lamp
which sings soft songs of light against the walls.
At utter peace I sit, watching, listening,
the steam from my tea plays games in the air,
the steam from my tea plays games in the air,
and no longer do I remember why it was
that the outside world was in chaos
or why I felt burdened to notice.
or why I felt burdened to notice.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Rainy Day
The sound of the rain was all around me: on the windows left and right, on the hatches overhead, plinking into puddles outside in the cockpit. I had just plugged in a small electric fan and clipped it onto the edge of the desk in the tiny office opposite the kitchen, its whisper of air aimed high in an attempt to move the warm air from my heater into other corners of the cold, damp boat.
The heater itself was a tad different than one might use on land: it was a terra-cotta flower pot turned upside down on top of the stove, absorbing and radiating the heat from the largest of the three propane burners. The wooden grab rail above the galley stove held not desperate hands but two soggy leather gloves, remnants from a long slog home from work on the motorcycle in a rain that--while not epically intense--deserved merit for its persistence. Water dripped purposefully from the fingertips of the gloves and hit the stovetop with a satisfying sizzle, each, like tics from a stopwatch, audible evidence that progress was upon us.
The good news about experiencing the first substantial rain storm aboard the boat is that one no longer has to wonder if and where the boat leaks. It does--right there. And there. And over there, too, I think, or is that just water from a different leak that ran along the top of the headliner? That will have to be a task for a different day. Today, there is beauty in each and every one of these pesky little leaks, as there is beauty in the flower pot cabin heater and the two weeks it took me to figure out how to fit onto my bed and the towel I had to wrap around the radar bracket to stop giving myself near-concussions. The beauty is that I am engaged, and not in the "we've registered at Williams Sonoma!" kind of way.
The imperfection that surrounds me brings hope that I may participate in my life, my day, my right-now, on a level deeper than cursing the traffic and poking at the thermostat until my home is perfectly 72° and devoid of measurable humidity. Decreasing the levels at which we attempt to deny our climate and the world around us offers a unique chance to know every minute that we are alive, and letting go of that pursuit of comfort enables us to enjoy the world in which we find ourselves, fraught with imperfection and pain.
So, my boat leaks. My motorcycle needs tires. My job occasionally makes me want to put my head through a wall. And I am alive, so very, very alive.
The heater itself was a tad different than one might use on land: it was a terra-cotta flower pot turned upside down on top of the stove, absorbing and radiating the heat from the largest of the three propane burners. The wooden grab rail above the galley stove held not desperate hands but two soggy leather gloves, remnants from a long slog home from work on the motorcycle in a rain that--while not epically intense--deserved merit for its persistence. Water dripped purposefully from the fingertips of the gloves and hit the stovetop with a satisfying sizzle, each, like tics from a stopwatch, audible evidence that progress was upon us.
The good news about experiencing the first substantial rain storm aboard the boat is that one no longer has to wonder if and where the boat leaks. It does--right there. And there. And over there, too, I think, or is that just water from a different leak that ran along the top of the headliner? That will have to be a task for a different day. Today, there is beauty in each and every one of these pesky little leaks, as there is beauty in the flower pot cabin heater and the two weeks it took me to figure out how to fit onto my bed and the towel I had to wrap around the radar bracket to stop giving myself near-concussions. The beauty is that I am engaged, and not in the "we've registered at Williams Sonoma!" kind of way.
The imperfection that surrounds me brings hope that I may participate in my life, my day, my right-now, on a level deeper than cursing the traffic and poking at the thermostat until my home is perfectly 72° and devoid of measurable humidity. Decreasing the levels at which we attempt to deny our climate and the world around us offers a unique chance to know every minute that we are alive, and letting go of that pursuit of comfort enables us to enjoy the world in which we find ourselves, fraught with imperfection and pain.
So, my boat leaks. My motorcycle needs tires. My job occasionally makes me want to put my head through a wall. And I am alive, so very, very alive.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
How's That Move Coming Along?
Jason Robards, in the movie Parenthood, may have best summed up how my move is coming along: "It's like your Aunt Edna's ass -- it goes on for ever and it's just as frightening."
Always eloquent, Jason Robards. He was speaking to raising children, but I'd like to borrow his line for my packing-up-and-selling-off exercise that I call "moving."
I get this question a lot, and I don't mind it at all, The only annoying part is probably my answering of it, because I feel obligated to explain why it is so fun and yet so exhausting all at the same time and, because it Just Won't End.
As this isn't just a regular move but is in fact a process of going nearly-stuffless, things are far different than during any of my previous million-odd moves. It has been fun to give things to my kids and to offer things to friends, like a funeral without the corpse or the crying (please tell me you'll cry when it's my turn). But that brings with it the inevitable 15 minutes of searching for keys or wallet before work -- they were on the desk, back when I had one. Then they lived on the dresser for a week or two but now it, too, is gone. So I moved the "office" contents to the top of the sub-woofer but, alas, sub-woofer is no more (you're welcome, Brandon). This is the new "desk" and it is very exciting for me to have it -- it was gained during the loss of the electronics that it once proudly held.
Luxury! And now I have a place to eat, depending on how many things I have piled on it. Sometimes it looks like its sibling --
-- and it is no easy feat getting my lone-remaining plate onto that madness. The plates might be a bit, um, large.
I've moved a lot, both as a kid and as an adult. Books: find boxes, pack books, move. Not this time. Everything has to go through triage -- What books do I actually, really, truly need to store away for an eventual return to land life? What books am I still looking forward to reading and need to have available to me (what, a personal library is a bad thing?)? What books should I offer to the kids? To coworkers? Which ones go onto the sidewalk with a big "FREE!" sign taped to the box?
I was rifling through some office supplies and I came across paperclips. Yes, paperclips. I had a half-dozen boxes of jumbo paperclips (anyone who has ever been self-employed will understand the hoarding of office supplies). Well, I sure don't need to move 6 boxes of paperclips onto a boat. I refuse to throw them away. I'll donate them to work! But, as I think about it, I sure don't want to pack a stapler, so maybe some paperclips would be a good idea. Maybe I'll need them to unclog something or craft a MacGyveresque fish hook. So I'll keep a few. But not in the box, no. In a baggie.
Stupid? Brilliant? I have no idea. I've never lived on a boat before. But I bagged them up and put them into the "office."
Ohhh the office is looking iffy. Why is there a cigar case in it? Thread and needles, though, that makes sense. Sort of. If I can find a needle threader which I seem to have lost. I loved threading needles for my mom when I was a kid, but even with glasses on it seems like a rough task anymore and I have not the faintest clue where the threader might be.
I ate Cheerios as a kid, too, but now I eat them out of this nasty-looking little pot.
Well sometimes I eat them out of that little soup mug but it's so vertical that the Cheerios float up and out and I can't get to the milk and THAT my friends is a problem.
And it is my lone-remaining mug, so it is often in the dishwasher which, thankfully, sits right where it always has.
Always eloquent, Jason Robards. He was speaking to raising children, but I'd like to borrow his line for my packing-up-and-selling-off exercise that I call "moving."
I get this question a lot, and I don't mind it at all, The only annoying part is probably my answering of it, because I feel obligated to explain why it is so fun and yet so exhausting all at the same time and, because it Just Won't End.
As this isn't just a regular move but is in fact a process of going nearly-stuffless, things are far different than during any of my previous million-odd moves. It has been fun to give things to my kids and to offer things to friends, like a funeral without the corpse or the crying (please tell me you'll cry when it's my turn). But that brings with it the inevitable 15 minutes of searching for keys or wallet before work -- they were on the desk, back when I had one. Then they lived on the dresser for a week or two but now it, too, is gone. So I moved the "office" contents to the top of the sub-woofer but, alas, sub-woofer is no more (you're welcome, Brandon). This is the new "desk" and it is very exciting for me to have it -- it was gained during the loss of the electronics that it once proudly held.
Luxury! And now I have a place to eat, depending on how many things I have piled on it. Sometimes it looks like its sibling --
-- and it is no easy feat getting my lone-remaining plate onto that madness. The plates might be a bit, um, large.
I was rifling through some office supplies and I came across paperclips. Yes, paperclips. I had a half-dozen boxes of jumbo paperclips (anyone who has ever been self-employed will understand the hoarding of office supplies). Well, I sure don't need to move 6 boxes of paperclips onto a boat. I refuse to throw them away. I'll donate them to work! But, as I think about it, I sure don't want to pack a stapler, so maybe some paperclips would be a good idea. Maybe I'll need them to unclog something or craft a MacGyveresque fish hook. So I'll keep a few. But not in the box, no. In a baggie.
Stupid? Brilliant? I have no idea. I've never lived on a boat before. But I bagged them up and put them into the "office."
Ohhh the office is looking iffy. Why is there a cigar case in it? Thread and needles, though, that makes sense. Sort of. If I can find a needle threader which I seem to have lost. I loved threading needles for my mom when I was a kid, but even with glasses on it seems like a rough task anymore and I have not the faintest clue where the threader might be.
I ate Cheerios as a kid, too, but now I eat them out of this nasty-looking little pot.
Well sometimes I eat them out of that little soup mug but it's so vertical that the Cheerios float up and out and I can't get to the milk and THAT my friends is a problem.
And it is my lone-remaining mug, so it is often in the dishwasher which, thankfully, sits right where it always has.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Sleep is fleeting, at best.
Sleep comes as an extra-delicious moment for me now, as it brings with it an opportunity for me to be aboard Ave del Mar, if only in my mind. No more dozing off listening to an etymology podcast or a Cap's game, as I instead drift away cleaning, repairing, living aboard, and sailing my soon-to-be next home.
The problem is that this virtual reality show in my head often drives me back to consciousness, rolling over in bed to make a list, add to a list, search for a price on something I had never before thought I would need, or (as often happens) to stare at photos, full screen. I know every detail of that boat and those photos, although I've only ever been aboard two times.
When this seagoing lady becomes mine I will have a short window of opportunity to clean, fix, install, and repair what will be needed for me to get her from her current home in Reedville, Virginia, to her next home just west of Annapolis, Maryland. I am aware of how daunting this undertaking will be in the same way that I knew that having newborn children would be challenging, and I have the same confidence that it will all be alright in the end. So I play out scenarios in my sleepy mind's eye, I lay Ave in triage as it were, and work through what I know has to happen.
On a typical night I may picture myself cleaning her out--a necessary first step--and then proceeding to the next-highest priority: engine maintenance. Although the engine is newish (600 hours) and did in fact start (with a little coaxing) during the survey, it has nonetheless been sitting unused for three or four years and is showing the effects of the neglect. Being adrift on the Chesapeake without power sounds less than ideal to me, so I intend to do a maximum amount of engine maintenance before dropping her brick-red hull into the water. "Hoses!" I think. "Hoses, belts, fuel filters." Great. Search the web, look for parts. They sell kits! Ahh, but what kit does one need? There's this one:
$253 bucks -- not bad. I expected worse. Oh, but wait--there's also this one:
for $1,158. The difference? I think it's glow-plugs. Do I need glow-plugs? I don't even know. But I do know that the engine looks like this:
so it for sure will need some attention. Oh, and it's rusty. I should probably deal with that, to be sure there are no ill effects that, again, would leave us adrift and in danger on our first passage, that short jaunt up the bay. Rust. What to do?!? Search the forums.
That should help. I need rust inhibitor! Search rust inhibitor. Add rust inhibitor to the checklist. Is it expensive? Will it be $7/gallon or is it something like $239/gallon? Success:
And it's not too expensive! I'll deal with wire brushes and applicator brushes later. The to-do list is already scary:
as is the tools list:
some of which I already have, but I need to be sure. It's not like there's a Home Depot or a West Marine 5 minutes down the road from the boat, and I won't have days to waste driving all over Virginia's northern neck in search of parts and tools, even though I already know I will end up doing exactly that.
And that's just the pre-launch list that I haven't even really brainstormed yet. It is more of a stream-of-consciousness list. I have five of these, ranging from pre-launch, through what I call Priority II, III, and IV, to long-term project. I know these fuel filters are nasty:
Add to list. Looks easy enough. Search for a deal. Add to boat bookmarks.
I don't even know what some of these bookmarks are, but I can assure you that at some point, pre- mid- or post-sleep they all seemed very, gravely, hugely important. How do I know they are important? Because I read. All I do is read. I read Nigel Calder:
(that one's on my nightstand. I can tell you everything you never knew about batteries and battery banks). There's also an engine owner's manual on my couch:
D'OH! Add hole punch and 3-ring binder to a list, some list...
there must be an appropriate list for a binder. Do I need to make a new list?
And there are sailing magazines everywhere you look:
like on my breakfast table (they are tabbed and dog-eared and highlighted and coffee stained),
and there is the casual reading on the end table in my living room:
and the book that the soon-to-be-former owners of Ave del Mar wrote during their first circumnavigation, lying on my ottoman in the living room. By the way they are such awesome people, too, and I love talking to them on the phone. Reading the book lets me get to know them 30 years hence.
The list could (does) go on forever. It remains an exciting and challenging way to drift off to or return from sleep. So much learning awaits, and so many distant shores.
But despite Nigel Calder, the Pardeys, and Peter Compton--author of the Marine Diesels book (and it is amazing)--not a single resource has better instructed me on what to do with THIS issue in the v-berth better than my friend Matt, who suggested,
"This has been weighing heavily on my mind. I can not sleep at night know[ing] this creature is out there ... somewhere ... lurking. After careful consideration I have decided that the best course of action is to shred it, then burn it, then mix the ashes in a batch of concrete. Pour the concrete in to a five gallon pickle bucket, then glue the lid on. Take the bucket to the deepest reaches of the ocean, and drop overboard. And please, PLEASE, photograph the entire procedure so I can once again sleep at night."
The problem is that this virtual reality show in my head often drives me back to consciousness, rolling over in bed to make a list, add to a list, search for a price on something I had never before thought I would need, or (as often happens) to stare at photos, full screen. I know every detail of that boat and those photos, although I've only ever been aboard two times.
When this seagoing lady becomes mine I will have a short window of opportunity to clean, fix, install, and repair what will be needed for me to get her from her current home in Reedville, Virginia, to her next home just west of Annapolis, Maryland. I am aware of how daunting this undertaking will be in the same way that I knew that having newborn children would be challenging, and I have the same confidence that it will all be alright in the end. So I play out scenarios in my sleepy mind's eye, I lay Ave in triage as it were, and work through what I know has to happen.
On a typical night I may picture myself cleaning her out--a necessary first step--and then proceeding to the next-highest priority: engine maintenance. Although the engine is newish (600 hours) and did in fact start (with a little coaxing) during the survey, it has nonetheless been sitting unused for three or four years and is showing the effects of the neglect. Being adrift on the Chesapeake without power sounds less than ideal to me, so I intend to do a maximum amount of engine maintenance before dropping her brick-red hull into the water. "Hoses!" I think. "Hoses, belts, fuel filters." Great. Search the web, look for parts. They sell kits! Ahh, but what kit does one need? There's this one:
$253 bucks -- not bad. I expected worse. Oh, but wait--there's also this one:
for $1,158. The difference? I think it's glow-plugs. Do I need glow-plugs? I don't even know. But I do know that the engine looks like this:
so it for sure will need some attention. Oh, and it's rusty. I should probably deal with that, to be sure there are no ill effects that, again, would leave us adrift and in danger on our first passage, that short jaunt up the bay. Rust. What to do?!? Search the forums.
That should help. I need rust inhibitor! Search rust inhibitor. Add rust inhibitor to the checklist. Is it expensive? Will it be $7/gallon or is it something like $239/gallon? Success:
And it's not too expensive! I'll deal with wire brushes and applicator brushes later. The to-do list is already scary:
as is the tools list:
some of which I already have, but I need to be sure. It's not like there's a Home Depot or a West Marine 5 minutes down the road from the boat, and I won't have days to waste driving all over Virginia's northern neck in search of parts and tools, even though I already know I will end up doing exactly that.
And that's just the pre-launch list that I haven't even really brainstormed yet. It is more of a stream-of-consciousness list. I have five of these, ranging from pre-launch, through what I call Priority II, III, and IV, to long-term project. I know these fuel filters are nasty:
Add to list. Looks easy enough. Search for a deal. Add to boat bookmarks.
I don't even know what some of these bookmarks are, but I can assure you that at some point, pre- mid- or post-sleep they all seemed very, gravely, hugely important. How do I know they are important? Because I read. All I do is read. I read Nigel Calder:
(that one's on my nightstand. I can tell you everything you never knew about batteries and battery banks). There's also an engine owner's manual on my couch:
D'OH! Add hole punch and 3-ring binder to a list, some list...
there must be an appropriate list for a binder. Do I need to make a new list?
And there are sailing magazines everywhere you look:
like on my breakfast table (they are tabbed and dog-eared and highlighted and coffee stained),
and there is the casual reading on the end table in my living room:
and the book that the soon-to-be-former owners of Ave del Mar wrote during their first circumnavigation, lying on my ottoman in the living room. By the way they are such awesome people, too, and I love talking to them on the phone. Reading the book lets me get to know them 30 years hence.
The list could (does) go on forever. It remains an exciting and challenging way to drift off to or return from sleep. So much learning awaits, and so many distant shores.
But despite Nigel Calder, the Pardeys, and Peter Compton--author of the Marine Diesels book (and it is amazing)--not a single resource has better instructed me on what to do with THIS issue in the v-berth better than my friend Matt, who suggested,
"This has been weighing heavily on my mind. I can not sleep at night know[ing] this creature is out there ... somewhere ... lurking. After careful consideration I have decided that the best course of action is to shred it, then burn it, then mix the ashes in a batch of concrete. Pour the concrete in to a five gallon pickle bucket, then glue the lid on. Take the bucket to the deepest reaches of the ocean, and drop overboard. And please, PLEASE, photograph the entire procedure so I can once again sleep at night."
Search:
pickle bucket
shredder
and, ugh!
what kind of glue will I need?
pickle bucket
shredder
and, ugh!
what kind of glue will I need?
We'll see if someone on Cruisers Forum can tell me. I bet they can.
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