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.
