Sarah Whittam wipes down the wood panelling and ceilings, intent on YPR; our local public radio station. Sarah is our youngest crewmember at twenty-two and has the sharpest humor and cleverness. She and Alison have been working on wire seizings all week and would come tumbling into the galley with cold fingers and a hilarity that grew to be their trademark survival skill. There are definitely some seeming endless tasks that seem to break down the joy of working. When I worked on Liberty Clipper this winter, I would fall into bed at night, full of frustration at what seemed like the futility of my hard work. Sanding and painting the hull only to have the epoxy paint not set. Good grief! Once I got tired enough, I began to think about nothing but the task at hand and in a sense, I shrunk to an element in which I could be happy in the smallness of my work. I felt so satisfied with the gloss of well done varnish, the lead of a line or the wicked tight seizing I had just made. Truly though, in retrospect, the satisfaction of small things done well is a wholesome pleasure and such craftsmanship is appreciated the world over. Why else would we adore the Shakers, who virtually built sustainable communities out of cupboards? Or the delight of perfect short poems?
Ben just came down for some tea. He has been scraping varnish off of something aft; scraping varnish with a razor blade. I smiled piously and said: “Well, there is satisfaction with small things done well.” He just looked at me and said; “It's not a small thing, and I'm doing it with a RAZOR BLADE!” Okay then, perhaps the zen satisfaction can only be truly appreciated AFTER the fact.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Words, words, words
All about me people are writing, reading, speaking quietly to each other. The distinctive voice of our bo's'n cuts through two rooms of this rambling coffee joint with some funny tidbit from the news. I laugh to myself and delight in the language that flows all around; a vehicle to carry a little bit of my life back home for others to read.
Joan and I had a nice walk from the boat to get here. I felt very much like nesting on the boat tonight. It is so welcoming and cozy. Seriously though, my life is already steeply slanting toward being sedentary and coming to the coffee shop was a great excuse for a walk and a chance to visit with Joan. She has been the cook on the Clearwater in the past, sailing up and down the Hudson River. She has a rare soft grace and the kindest smile; two distinctive things for a tough, scrappy deckhand on Pride II. We've all been working so insistently that it seems we have slipped into a comfortable peace with each other, without having to dig out the glamour of our individual stories. Little by little the stories will spill forth until all the histories and all the paths that have led us to this boat will meld into a better understanding of who we all are. For now, it's the snippets of time like tonight, when we can visit in the nervous, chattering, falling temperatures of early evening. Joan wants to live out on the West Coast someday and was telling me that sadly, it means she wouldn't be able to have a sugar-bush. I told her the little I know about tapping birch trees for that sweet first sap of Spring. Somehow, that information acted like a piece of scotch tape to patch her someday dreams together for the time being. Who knows? Maybe I'll visit her someday and we'll stir Birch Syrup into tea while swapping harrowing tales of our days as schooner babes on the Pride of Baltimore II.
Joan and I had a nice walk from the boat to get here. I felt very much like nesting on the boat tonight. It is so welcoming and cozy. Seriously though, my life is already steeply slanting toward being sedentary and coming to the coffee shop was a great excuse for a walk and a chance to visit with Joan. She has been the cook on the Clearwater in the past, sailing up and down the Hudson River. She has a rare soft grace and the kindest smile; two distinctive things for a tough, scrappy deckhand on Pride II. We've all been working so insistently that it seems we have slipped into a comfortable peace with each other, without having to dig out the glamour of our individual stories. Little by little the stories will spill forth until all the histories and all the paths that have led us to this boat will meld into a better understanding of who we all are. For now, it's the snippets of time like tonight, when we can visit in the nervous, chattering, falling temperatures of early evening. Joan wants to live out on the West Coast someday and was telling me that sadly, it means she wouldn't be able to have a sugar-bush. I told her the little I know about tapping birch trees for that sweet first sap of Spring. Somehow, that information acted like a piece of scotch tape to patch her someday dreams together for the time being. Who knows? Maybe I'll visit her someday and we'll stir Birch Syrup into tea while swapping harrowing tales of our days as schooner babes on the Pride of Baltimore II.
They went to sea in a sieve
10 March, 2007
It was a week ago that I left Key West. I wrapped my eyeglasses in a giant tropical leaf and only just now did they fall out of my laptop case. So, I tucked them over my ears and sat down to write a little bit.
They went to sea in a sieve, they did; In a sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say; On a winter's morn, on a stormy day; In a sieve they went to sea. ~Edward Lear
Pride of Baltimore II is the first wooden vessel I've ever sailed on, full of beauty and quirks. Our bo's'n; Mike Fiorentino just finished the third wet-down of the decks. The decks are wood and have dried and shrunk over the winter season. As with any wooden vessel, water actually holds the boat together by keeping the planks fat and happily tight fitting. The first and second times we wet down the decks, the water poured into my little world below decks. The girls ran around with tuna cans and anything else they could find to catch the water. I grabbed a cleaning bucket from the counter, forgetting that it was half full of soapy water. Laughter, scurrying and water everywhere. Today, it seems that the wood is beginning to swell. My galley didn't leak at all. Huzzah for us!
Everyone is involved in their own busy tasks, getting the boat ready for another smashing season. Ryan and Sarah are bustling around in sleeveless shirts as if we're in sunny Maui instead of a fickle Baltimore spring. Goodness sakes! I'm still shivering in my johnnies, having thoroughly misplaced my tough northern resilience to cold. Of course, that doesn't explain Ryan, who was in Key West too. I'm suspicious that he's running on pure masichismo though. I'm cold enough to find some excuse to start working again and finish with this cold fingered typing business. Farewell, my loves.
It was a week ago that I left Key West. I wrapped my eyeglasses in a giant tropical leaf and only just now did they fall out of my laptop case. So, I tucked them over my ears and sat down to write a little bit.
They went to sea in a sieve, they did; In a sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say; On a winter's morn, on a stormy day; In a sieve they went to sea. ~Edward Lear
Pride of Baltimore II is the first wooden vessel I've ever sailed on, full of beauty and quirks. Our bo's'n; Mike Fiorentino just finished the third wet-down of the decks. The decks are wood and have dried and shrunk over the winter season. As with any wooden vessel, water actually holds the boat together by keeping the planks fat and happily tight fitting. The first and second times we wet down the decks, the water poured into my little world below decks. The girls ran around with tuna cans and anything else they could find to catch the water. I grabbed a cleaning bucket from the counter, forgetting that it was half full of soapy water. Laughter, scurrying and water everywhere. Today, it seems that the wood is beginning to swell. My galley didn't leak at all. Huzzah for us!
Everyone is involved in their own busy tasks, getting the boat ready for another smashing season. Ryan and Sarah are bustling around in sleeveless shirts as if we're in sunny Maui instead of a fickle Baltimore spring. Goodness sakes! I'm still shivering in my johnnies, having thoroughly misplaced my tough northern resilience to cold. Of course, that doesn't explain Ryan, who was in Key West too. I'm suspicious that he's running on pure masichismo though. I'm cold enough to find some excuse to start working again and finish with this cold fingered typing business. Farewell, my loves.
Friday, March 9, 2007
Pride of Baltimore II
Almost a month has passed since my last entry. A moon has grown fat and drawn pale and small again. I have sanded, varnished, polished and sailed every day, loving the Liberty Clipper and respecting my work as a deckhand. Since writing, I have chosen to leave her for the north and a season as ship's cook with Pride of Baltimore II. It was a weird decision to make and I feel that even though it was the better choice, I lost a little bit of my dignity. There was a flush of shame and embarrassment in my cheeks during my last days in Key West. Even with my captain's encouragement and counsel, I knew not only was I leaving but I was leaving the Clipper in a short and awkward position; not really enough deckhands and needing to find a cook for their transit northwards. It was only once starting on my adventure towards Baltimore that I began to shine with the newness of what lay ahead.
I read this:
“Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with feelings of curiousity and excitement, a little nagging dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is an experience of essential loneliness; for nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and bond, and we cease to be alone.” ~Wendell Berry
There is a delight I have found in settling into my place here on the Pride. It is familiar to me, as if I had a history with the boat. Already I breathe long and peacefully, inhaling the smell of the boat as if I had caught scent of my Grandmother's perfume. It is home and these people I work with will become my family. Already I've made my berth a nest of sweaters and foul-weather gear, perched up there I play the same old trinity of loveliness on the dulcimer. The galley is still in semi shambles and I've discovered a massive stock of packaged foods leftover from the provisioning in France. I string together the words and try to guess at the contents. It's all a game and I'm the merry player.
I read this:
“Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with feelings of curiousity and excitement, a little nagging dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is an experience of essential loneliness; for nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and bond, and we cease to be alone.” ~Wendell Berry
There is a delight I have found in settling into my place here on the Pride. It is familiar to me, as if I had a history with the boat. Already I breathe long and peacefully, inhaling the smell of the boat as if I had caught scent of my Grandmother's perfume. It is home and these people I work with will become my family. Already I've made my berth a nest of sweaters and foul-weather gear, perched up there I play the same old trinity of loveliness on the dulcimer. The galley is still in semi shambles and I've discovered a massive stock of packaged foods leftover from the provisioning in France. I string together the words and try to guess at the contents. It's all a game and I'm the merry player.
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