GypsyLuLu's

Winter in Old Mission

2009-02-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

My sister was married this summer and we celebrated the new marriage with dancing and eating and happy chaos all about under our huge maple tree. The boys had built a dancefloor and strung lanterns through the lower branches. It was such a whirl of people and color and the culmination of a lot of effort. There. Just a breath in time. Laughing until we cried, wishing it would not end so soon and then it was over. Just like that. The trampled grass was covered by autumn leaves and now snow. I just watched the evening sun wink through the lanterns, still hanging there. A lot has changed since that August day. I went away and sailed for a bit, Autumn came while I was gone and winter was quite deeply installed before I got back. Kids are in school now, wedding cake long forgotten. My sister is thrillingly happy though. She lives in a little house and while her husband is off making war, she works at a cafe and takes care of herself, planning for a baby next fall. Life has it's ups and downs, it's flu-season and days at the beach. It's real. This is real life, in real time elapsing as I sit here typing. The seasons are tangible and change happens all the time.

My life sometimes has this hypnotic sameness that I hum along to until entranced. Sweet, slow mornings, padding around the house, helping out with the kitchen scene. Kids at the table crying over algebra exactly as I cried over algebra a decade ago. Church, errands, compulsively reading hour upon hour. I lull myself into thinking that I'm not really getting older, I'm just pausing; a very long pause.

This afternoon my youngest sister and I floundered through snow so deep that our feet had nothing to stand on. We sank through waist deep snow and then burst out onto the wind-whipped ice of Old Mission Harbor. Fresh shards of thin ice stood upright, sharp points all hari kari. The wind and sun will melt them down into small mountains of gloss. Away toward the thin line of open water stretched the vasts fields of new ice. We slid and tripped and crunched along, adrenaline bursting with the sick crack of the ice. It's not like I'd be dangerous. It was only an air pocket collapsing every now and then. Even so, we'd shriek and move faster across the sketchy parts. I love my life, these moments of incomparable simple beauty. Just when I feel the hum of sameness dominating...everything, then there is a walk like today when the simple everyday seems exquisite and unfathomable.

LuLu; non-catholic saint of the rose-colored glasses

2008-02-28T04:41:00.000-08:00

'Thank goodness love is blind,' my Mom would say while standing over the stove and stirring over some friend's family situation or romantic relationship in her mind. Chuckling, she would refrain from sharing what she meant. I badly wanted to tread the line of gossiping but she would rarely go there. It's taken me a little time to realize how soft to the tongue old proverbs and wives-tales can be. They speak through centuries from women standing over their own stoves, mildly contemplating their own situations.

I want to make a portrait of my family before Anna marries Michael and the family begins to expand. Just the ten of us. Simple. Well, maybe not so simple as I hoped. For starters, I'm not a practiced artist and the project grows before my eyes from a simple piece of canvas to this giant canvas monster with pencil teeth. Scary; not really. Daunting? Yes, it is that. Here's where the 'Love is blind' part comes into play. The harder I try to make the woman that is my mother look like the image that is to me 'Mom' and to herself 'Joyce', the more frustrated I become. I can get the curve of the arm and the eyes, ears, nose down but it just looks like a fairly two dimentional standard person to me. I want to draw my family and have everyone who sees the drawing see it through a sort of rose-colored lense of bias. My translation of reality is skewed by my chosen perception. We'll see how this drawing turns out in the end. I will predict it to be passable, but much cherished because of the same rose-colored glasses my parents wear. Banish the scary pencil-toothed monster, I'm off to puzzle my family onto paper.

A new nest

2008-02-22T13:57:00.000-08:00

The paperwork was completed yesterday, buying us ownership of our new family home. My parents have been nervous and giddily excited; both side effects of going into eye-widening debt temporarily. As to the rest of us, we are just happy-eyed with thoughts of swimming in Lake Michigan, sailing as much as we like, inviting friends and family over. I am most ridiculous, thinking of how my children will sit in the secret reading room beneath the stair or climb into the tower while visiting their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, strangers always welcome. Yeah... right. I don't even have have kids yet.

We will live just up from Old Mission Harbor, on the beautiful Old Mission Peninsula in the schoolhouse they built after holding school on a schooner for years. We will be giving up our barns and forest but the longview of my family growing old in this house is satisfying. There are huge windows and a promise of prevailing breezes in the summer from the harbor. There is space for twenty people. Great big maples surround the house. A patch of lavender stretches along the front. I'm very excited.

Plans for the Future

2008-02-19T06:21:00.000-08:00

The snow swirled above and beyond the windshield of Oliver, our Volvo. With my eyes straining to follow the tracks and stay between the right snowdrifts, I drove home from a long night at work. The interior of my head has seemed like a cosmic blizzard blowing around. The plans of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail mix and mess with financial wrangling, our family moving, my sister getting married, and a gazillion seemingly pressing small concerns until just like my driving experience, the road is lost to view.

I am hungry for that day in late April when we slap our feet on that US-Mexican border and start walking north. The raw honesty of the outdoors has always seemed free from the trappings of the thousand false fronts we've made our world out of. Deserts, mountains, privation, exaltation, grizzlies, weariness, satisfaction, deep snow covered passes, days and moons and seasons; for all these things my heart jumps up in me and says 'Winter has been long enough! Give me my shoes and let me walk north with the seasons.'

April 16th Jacob (my 17 year old brother) and I will fly to San Diego and hopefully see the Pacific Ocean before beginning an epic northbound hike along the Pacific Crest Trail. I will hike until early July, when I return to Michigan for the glad preparations of my sister Touk's wedding. Jacob (or 'Jarrow') will continue on alone to complete the 2,800 mile trail.

"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view." ~Edward Abbey

a little tired

2007-10-24T16:04:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

Chesterton, Maryland

We are freshly docked after hauling back anchor and motoring up the Chester River all morning. Up on deck, the crew is preparing to put our smallboat Chausser in the water. Rain has been spitting down on them all day but somehow, the idea of independently messing around in a boat is appealing right now. I run up and help tail a gantl'n. We all work well together because that is how things have always been. The very design and fabric of our crew depends on our working as a unit. If it wasn't for this unity being ingrained in us I think this afternoon would be rather hellish. Short tempers, short fuses, short on love... No one is stretching far beyond the gripe of our miserable moment here. Everyone is wet and has been standing around doing menial little jobs in the rain. We all need kisses and the day to be done. For me, the day is always a little longer. Chin up. The sooner I make dinner, the sooner it will be off my mind and I can slip into thick soft sleep.

A small walk through the rain to Andy's, the local pub. I cozy into an old cracking vinyl couch and sip my hot cider while loading my scribbles for you to read. Whoever you are, there is good conversation here and a listening ear. I'm feeling lonesome for laughter and talk and will soon meander back to my drippy boat. Huzzah for life.

These joys of mine

2007-10-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Anchored outside of Annapolis, our morning has been rather full of slow yawns and shy stretching. After a rather crazy season of madcap sailing and whirlwind port stops, all of a sudden we have a loose schedule that allows for some meandering. Late breakfast today with no desperate need to haul anchor and get out of here; instead, the crew is chatting away about the cold we all have, about cheap rolling tobacco and the military boats that are skirting about us. Yesterday Meg came down the companionway, laughter all twinkling around her, shouting out how hilarious the boys were being. With piecrust on my hands, I stumbled up and there, down in the headrig were the laughingest group of sailors that I've seen in a long time. Kemper, Charlie, Freeman, Rhys; all were down there with their feet in the water, splashing and laughing like kids. I ran and got my camera, wanting to capture their happiness, to bottle it up in a photograph so I can uncork it later in life and breathe in the moment again. It seems like it's been a long time since we played on the boat and the childlike wonder and timelessness of the moment... all that I love were there in that moment. In retrospect, I should have jumped in there too, but for my pink skirt and the apple pie waiting for a topcrust, I probably would have. You know, I'm learning that there is joy and abandon not just in running around like a kid (or a hobo, a hiker, a ski-bum... an free spirited artist...) Part of the joy is in being who you are with all of the responsibilities intact; being who you are, thankful and in the moment, whether you are a goofy boy climbing trees or a woman with laundry to fold. Once again these thoughts of being, of is-ness. By the way, the apple pie was tremendous.

Towards Cambridge

2007-10-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

Thursday, October 17th 2007
Pride of Baltimore II
Baltimore, Maryland

Today we leave for Cambridge. We're not filled with the fluttery , wild imaginations of upcoming adventures for Cambridge is not a very long voyage, not particularly exotic. What is solid and good is to be sailing again. Sure, we brag up how great it will be to get into a town, to meet new people, to drink beers and sleep a whole night through. All that is great but it's not what we're here for. Miserable, tired and stretched to our capacities, we are yet brilliantly alive when sailing as we do. Maybe the crew of a boat serve merely as human cogs in the mechanisms of transportation, but there is satisfaction in being mind-numbingly immersed in the act of 'being' a cog. I think this is what is entrancing about watching people walk along the brickways here in Baltimore: I see only a cameo of their lives but in that moment do they so fill themselves exactly as they are with no added pretentionss or ego. If you try to go beyond that first brief impression of a person, they are found to be complicated and full of air pockets, which is to say that they are not full at all, but blown up with ego. I am the worst of all sometimes but when we sail, it blows all that away and I become simple and purely a sailor sailing, a cook cooking, a worshiper in the act of worship. All this babble is just trying to embroider and thicken a small, slippery thought that is hard to hold onto, namely the mindful and wholehearted immersion in the act of being. So, we will set out in a bit and leave Baltimore, bound for the Eastern Shore. We will grumble and gripe and feel tired and overworked but singing through our veins will be the simple joy of being as we do what we are here to do.

Dolphins and Llamas

2007-08-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 23rd of August, 2007
Location: Sailing south from Boothbay Harbor, Maine to Boston, Massachusetts

(Perhaps I'll pretend that there is not a yawing gap in this journal.)

A large dolphin breaks the still water off of our starboard quarter. She is as gray as todays sky, cold and wet. Again she jumps. Shelly and Meredith in their llama hats with llama ears dangling crowd over to watch the dolphin make her course. My llama hat has lost an ear, making me an odd looking character. I pull my remaining llama ear to pieces and rebraid it into two skinny ears so I don't feel like a living victim of llama leprosy. Brendan is at the helm with his hat rigged fore and aft, looking more like a bedraggled unicorn than a llama. Ryans hat is especially large like a turban, dignified except for the ears sticking out from the sides. We are all glad to be out to sea again, if only for a day. Eight days we spent in Boothbay shipyard. Eight days of open houses and daysails, followed by nights of laughter and storytelling at the bar where I'd bring my ice cream cone from across the way. The town was great, no arguments about that, but the truth remains that both our vessel and the brave crew that sail her are far more at home away from the temptations of town. That and we just love the ocean.

Rubber Elbows and Shaky Knees

2007-05-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

28 April, 2007

I had a lovely birthday, happy to be underway but five minutes into the next day we set sail and quieted our engines. My arms trembled and the elbows rubbered out as we poured all energy into raising the main. My body is very tired and yet awakened to life. As cook, I'm not obligated to help with deck stuff. If I wanted, I could be a galley hermit, turning out food at 0730, 0800, 1130, 1200, 1600,1930, 2000 and midnight and grabbing all interim time to nest in my bunk. To step up on deck though and see the moonlight playing the shadows of the brails on the fores'l or feel the stretching of the boat as she makes love to the water... ah, how could I just turn over and go to bed?

I shakily settle down onto the bench here in the main salon. My head was just nearly bashed in by the block on the starboard runner. The line had parted and snapped under the strain of our aggressive sailing. I turned ans saw it swinging toward me, fell to my knees with my hands over my head and heard it whoosh past me. By this time I was flat on my belly and had full realization that my life would no doubt be richer without an extra hole in my head. If I had not dropped down right then, my head would most certainly have been stove in. When all was finally secure, both Ryan and Joe ripped open some cigarettes and took long drags. How I wished I smoked, if only to give calming finality to a harrowing moment. Well, life goes on and there is dinner to prepare.

... Perhaps it was my near brush with the runner block that caused me to look up and really think about this boat. Pride of Baltimore II is the first wooden vessel I've ever spent much time on and so I'm still awash with how much she stretches and moves. The boat is not rigid; she is built to move in the weathetr. I only begin to understand these things.

The birthday-girl Afloat

2007-05-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

27 April, 2007

We are in Virginia, water in every direction and rain saturating our decks and swelling them to plumped up perfection, I've just come down from the helm where Ben gently apologized that there was not better weather for my birthday and that we have to run with the engines instead of purely sailing. 'Silly! I'm just happy to be on a boat!' We then did a merry little dance in the rain and he gave me a tremendous hug from behind in the general spirit of enjoying whatever life dishes out. By no means are we a frou-frou crew but rugged as we all are, there is no fear of affirming touch. Joan is a massage therapist, Sarah is very free with hugs... in fact, everyone is. Ryan picked me up, giving me a very acrobatic foredeck hug. I was both delighted and peeved that I'd be the cause of some awful future backstrain, for as much as they love me, I am no flower. Rewind all that blather though! I was chit-chatting back at the helm with Shllama when a great blue heron heavily flew from the clogging mist. Its wings were enormous and he overtook us to land on our bowsprit. How envious I was to see him stretch his neck all unruffled and settle into that forwardmost place, the bow not evn cutting the water yet, the wind as yet untasted. Our friend the blue heron stayed with us for quite some time and I would venture to say that he blessed our ship by alighting on our bow... yawn... enough of that. By the way, sailing on a wooden vessel is tremendous. She is solid and strong and yet I hear her stretching and settling into her couse. As the boys brought the anchor aboard this morning, she winced and trembled like a child when there is a sliver to be pulled. I've loved my time on Inland Seas and Liberty Clipper, both of them steel vessels, but even so, I start to understand another dimension of value- no, not value... there is a sense of spirit in wood. It came from the earth, gre over time and was chosen, timbered, milled, shaped and formed into this book I sail in... ...Huzzah for us... Jacksonville-bound.

Bursts of Tears and other bits of nonsense

2007-04-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

18 April, 2007

With great frustration, I am thwarted again. Wi-fi is hard to find and expensive in Baltimore. I finally bit the bullet and paid $7 for a day of wi-fi only to be disconnected and left thoroughly dismayed. Instead of some work I really need to do, I get the opportunity to write for a short spell.

I had a successful provisioning trip today, aloft on the squeaky green bicycle that someone gave us. I borrow Mike's bike chain which is a heavy and industrial length of chain that hangs around my waist. My backpack from the Appalachian Trail and the bright red market basket that my mother gave me for my birthday dangling from the handlebars. I strategically loaded the eggplant and banana on top of the basket so that everyone who passed would smile and think to themselves; 'What a cunning little basket of fruit that delectable young lady is carrying. It's too bad that she has that twenty lb. steel chain at swinging distance and a saucy look in her eye or I would propose marriage here and now!' (I know that's what they were thinking. There was a perfect feng shui to the arrangement of banana and tomato and eggplant.)

One day soon this computer will feel wi-fi coursing through her like a freight train and she will be fulfilled in her purpose, which is to load these silly journals for my family to see. Also, as an addendum; I poked fun at Ryan this morning and mentioned that I have put down the brief details of the swimming captain and the jumpy dockline in words. He looked rather stricken and horrified, so I'll ask that if you know him to please use your best judgment in harassing him. He bought Captain Bradley a very dear and rare bottle of something that heats the center of a man. I don't know much about such things except that upon seeing Ryan's gift of penance, our other captain, Captain Miles told Ryan that if that bottle of fiery magic was par for the course, he could push him overboard any day of the week.

The Blustery Day

2007-04-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

Monday, 16 April, 2007

Gusting over 60 here in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, the crew of Pride II merely looked each other with mutual sympathy and shouldered into a day of working aloft. Both the fore and main masts were oiled down, crewmembers slowly lowered down from the topmost, the wind blowing all words away. I rode my bike over to the Pride of Baltimore I memorial and huddled behind the granite to do some menu planning while waiting for Charlie and Sarah. We slowly hoisted Sarah to the very top of that sad mast set in granite, wind blowing tears from our eyes and Sarah just setting her chin against the bitterness of it all.
Leaving there, I cycled to the grocery store and bought way too much food, loading my hiking backpack with well over 50 lbs. of potatoes, carrots, apples, oranges, banana, onions, milk and cheese. Bags hung from both handlebars and weighing as much as a european car, I tried to push off on the bike. I was not born for the circus. While still in the parking lot I turned ever so slightly in front of a car and the bike squirted out from under me like a watermelon seed. There I was with groceries all around me and the car sitting there and my bike all tangled in my legs. My pants had lost the knee and my knee had lost some blood. A kind man in a 'Secular Humanist' and 'Challenge Belief' bumper sticker bedecked car offered to take my groceries. Deposited at the waterfront, I called Ryan who brought the small boat (that we affectionately call 'Fat Rita') over to rescue me. Whitecaps across the harbor and remember the winds, no wonder Ryan seemed rather sullen and quiet. I was in a foul mood myself and we shivered and loaded Fat Rita up. Back to the boat. Lunch made. A breath taken and a settled mind. I then heard what had happened while I was away, which answered why Ryan was sulking, Mike was talking slurred and the Captain was wearing someone else's clothes. Mike our 2nd mate stabbed himself in the face while hanging out on the bowsprit. He didn't want to go to the Emergency Room because they would make him shave his mustache off to deal with it, instead, the boys super-glued it together. This was shortly after the catastrophe of the swimming captain. Remember the wind blowing like stink. The crew were doubling and snugging up the docklines and Captain Bradley was standing on one of the lines to stretch it out. For brevity of the story, all of a sudden there was no captain. The line that
Ryan had just made off had jumped off the cavel cleat and dropped from beneath Captain Bradley, dumping him in the cold waters of the Inner Harbor. I wasn't there to watch the hubbub but I saw the shame on the Ryan's face. Actually, not until I made bratwurst the next day did his countenance start to lift. Captain Bradley swam around to the front of the pier and hoisted himself out. He has been nothing but gracious to us all. I can only imagine what would have happened if we dropped Captain Miles overboard. We would have seen the shilleleigh for sure. I'm not sure how to wrap this all up. Perhaps just to say that the wind blew less today and the crew will sleep well tonight. Hopefully that is all behind us and we will have less of the swimming captain action and more of the smooth sailing action Pride is so known for. As for me, I have a few days before I need to go on my next provisioning adventure that will no doubt still involve a bike, a boat and a story to tell. Be well everyone.

The Return of the Gift Fish

2007-04-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

March 24, 2007

Creaky yawns and stumbling back to bed, the crew is not really waking up this morning. We all have earned a day off and will probably spend a significant percentage of it resting, Tomorrow the fore topmast goes up and that will be a delightfully complicated foray. We put the main topmast up this week and even the cook got to help at the crankalls. With the signature rake of Pride II's masts, I was curious how we would go about setting our tops. Except for a few carefully tended taglines, the process is the same that we used on Inland Seas where I got to be the one up on the crosstrees, waiting for Jan to tell me what to do. This time, Fiorentino and Charlie were up there, sweating bullets as Captain Bradley looked on with the seeming omniscient eye of captains. Everything seems bigger here on Pride II. It's not only the scale of physical things but the mindfulness and energy that go into every little detail. I just continue to putz about in the galley and visit with the weary boaties as they come down for tea. Sarah and her siezings, Shelly and the blasted main clew outhaul, Ryan and the precise weird cuts for this coffin-like shower that's going in to the fo'c's'l. I do believe that though tedious at times, it is the smallwork that sets a boat apart to be admired. Why else would we blush to see electrical tape on bitter ends and rusty mousings? (But I think I'm talking too much about boats, boats, boats...) As I was just finishing up from brushing my teeth, a man came to the boat asking for LuLu. What a flutter! I didn't realize how I like visitors so much. I dashed up the companionway and there was a man with two huge bags of frozen fish, all caught here in the Chesapeake Bay. I love gifts of food for our crew, even though they are not starving by any stretch of the imagination. Mmmn; fish. My stomach growls in anticipation.

Satisfaction in small things

2007-03-18T16:33:00.000-07:00

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.

Words, words, words

2007-03-11T16:59:00.000-07:00

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.

They went to sea in a sieve

2007-03-11T16:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Pride of Baltimore II

2007-03-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

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.

Stars

2007-02-09T06:27:00.000-08:00

Morning comes. I slept above the galley house last night and watched the sunlight bring day to our island of bones. Already the sun is too strong for my eyes. My red sunglasses have been pretty crucial to my functioning down here. Considering that I've not worn sunglasses for years, it's funny to be rather desperately dependant on them.
The sky is my constant companion. Sun and clouds by day and stars and moon by night. All praises for another day, our gift of another moment to embelish. Weary workers stretch and groan at the start of another day. Old people think of dying and their lukewarm coffee at the nursing home. Young people think of the small orb of themselves. Live unto the Lord. Praises for aching muscles, cool weather, each life giving breath of fresh air. Get me out on the water and let me sail. Huzzah for living.

Wreckers Race and Key West Wrecking

2007-02-03T05:39:00.000-08:00

Good Morning!

Today will find us in the first Wrecker's Race of the season. everyone is beautiful and ready for the action. Appledore's snapped shroud is sorta fixed and our centerboard is finally back in working order. Schooner Liberty has her topmost back up and we've all been praying for the specific sort of weather that would favor our own vessels. Appledore can skim along in lighter winds than we can. Her lines are sweet and foot for foot she is a better designed and balanced vessel. But stand back if you see us coming in a spitting wind and heavy seas. Whereas Appledore pitches up and down, Liberty Clipper drafts fourteen feet with her centerboard down and can drive along like a tank through weather. Imagine her bow just pushing that water aside, like a angry woman in a crowd just melting a path before her. The crew laugh with open mouths and are glad for something besides the captain demanding excellance in thier skills and presence of mind. The wind screams past the ears and if you were to lick your lips, you would find them crusted with salt. In a strong wind and rough water, there is no contention that we are the the cake, the icing and the party.

So, what is this Wrecker's Race? Some quick history is that Key West used to be the richest city per capita in the entire United States (1860's) Much of this existence came from the practice of 'wrecking'. It was the trade of both the poor and desperate and the wealthy and clever. Sometimes 'wrecking' was as innocent as saving people from a shipwreck and appropriating a few barrels of salt pork. Other times, marker bouys would be moved, misleading mariners onto the shoals, busting up thier boats or just getting them stuck. After that, you can legally pillage the ship under the (still alive and active) Pirate Act, which is a sorta finders-keepers type of law. 'Wrecking' kept the people of Key West alive and made the fortunes and comfort of many. Years ago my brothers and I listened to a book called 'The Wreckers' set in some part of Great Britian. The same thing was happening on the rocky coasts where villiagers would run above the cliffs with lights, making the ships think they were following the lights of another vessel. Red and green lights would briefly appear, just enough for the ship to be deluded enough in the storm to impale themselves on the rocks. One interesting note was that the villagers couldn't survive in that place without the goods gained from 'wrecking'. But enough about 'wrecking'; down here it's just a variation on going out for Saturday morning garage sales.

The Wreckers Race though, is in honor of the old races between local wreckers proving who could get to the shipwreck first. Unfortunately, this looks like a light and pretty day, catering to light and pretty vessels. Hold your breath and hope good wind for us.

Work as Art

2007-02-01T19:02:00.000-08:00

As often happens, I feel swamped with all the things I want to be doing but can't seem to squeeze into the margins of my day. Writing, stretching, exercise, reading, meditating, cooking, eating... oh yeah, and music. You would think that these are all crucial elements to our days, but frustratingly they are falling out of the buggy. Eating breakfast for instance: We all know that breakfast is important but so is writing. Since I want to attain the habit of keeping a blog, I am sacrificing breakfast for the greater good. What's scary is that I'm just a single kid with few responsibilities, my Mom has juggled and balanced life as a mother, midwife, teacher and spouse for the past 25 years. [sigh]

I've been thinking a lot about work lately, especially as it gobbles the lion's share of my time and youth. Why is it discouraging to do mundane work? How am to get the most out of it? Who am I? (just kidding!) This quote I'm tagging on the end of my entry might seem a little lah-lah land but it's a puzzle piece to think about. Perhaps I'll put it all together in my mind for the next entry.

“The thing about self-sufficiency and simplicity, is that both these ideas are only possible when we begin to appreciate the sacred quality and fulfilling quality of work. A human body is naturally in need of work, so if we stop doing productive work, creative work, then we begin to do unnecessary and unproductive and uncreative work. So working on the garden and making things by hand and seeing it as sacred work is vital- not as work just to earn money or just to keep your body and soul together, but work that is an expression of beauty, an expression of service, an expression of gift.” -from an interview with Satish Kumar

I believe in Tooth Fairies, I do, I do

2007-01-31T06:36:00.000-08:00

I want my Mommy! I think my wisdom tooth is acting up. Who better to say soothing words and make the boogie-man go away than a mother? This concession of swollen cuspids is one that I can't complain too much about. Goodness sakes! I'm a tough seafarer after all, and must be careful to maintain the image. By the way, as a redeeming footnote; please utilize clove oil for oral aches and pains. I have this archane trivia in my head ( a couple inches beyond the tooth) but no clove oil until tomorrow morning. Poor baby. If I do die from this malady (highly unlikely) please extract the tooth post mortem and scrimshaw it with a warning to those overfond of Key Lime Pie. Then, throw it in the ocean as a tribute to my demise. Bleeaughhh!!!

2007-01-23T19:55:00.000-08:00

23 January, 2007
Key West
A cool breeze is sweeping the weariness from the corners of my tired ol' ragdoll self. Tomorrow will be my day off and I feel all blunder-fingered at the prospect of a whole lazy day to squander. Today was near perfect. We worked hard but laughed and were easy-going about it. Good sailing. Cool fish. I jumped from the very furthest point of our egotistical bowsprit into the salty water, spitting and spluttering it out and laughing my way back to the Jacobs Ladder. We saw a tiny Portugese Man-of-War but continued to swim. The ocean amazes me. When swimming, I try to pretend that I'm in the Great Lakes with their sweet-tempered fish. That I'm swimming withing a half-mile of sharks, enormous fish and other scary things is too much to think about if I intend to continue to scream and jump with childlike abandon.

I asked Captain Rob if I could have the time to go to church on Sundays. He had not one trite remark or sharp opinion. Instead, he gave me more time than I had even hoped for. Part of me is a little pessimistic, as if things are too good for me. Surely something will bust to pieces and I'll end up worse off than before. I'll not be able to find a church with sincere people in it or will earn the resentment of my crewmates who are shy with asking for more than an occasional dry crust of bread. Good grief LuLu! This God of mine withholds no good thing from his children. Why do I get this Eeyore mentality of joyless dread? Take joy, dear one.

2007-01-23T19:54:00.000-08:00

Regarding the princess in the tower and the Maxi Taxi

I work on a 125 ft. traditional old-school schooner. My hands are rough with the work and my arms are growing thick and strong from hauling lines and clambering over everything. My nose is brown from the sun, and I, err, glisten in the heat. Walk down the docks here in the historic seaport of Key West and you might see me sanding down the forever punky foredeck, wiping the sweat from my cheeks and scowling at the sunshine. I'm just another girl, not Cinderella, not Sita. Virtuous and sweet – maybe. Human – most definitely!

So there I am on the foredeck and I look up to see one of the Maxi Taxis taxi up and open its door to belch out passengers. I was glued to the sight, to the utterly improbable chance that I'd see one of my loved ones jump out. It's a new version of the spinster-bound maiden sitting on her father's porch and waiting for some poor guy to come over after church. Of course, he will catch her eye across the piles of fried chicken and in a gastronomic state of supreme satisfaction with life, his mind will twinkle and sparkle with the realization that this homely girl is indeed the goddess of happiness. He will marry her and they will become fat and happy together, forever after and a day.

One stranger after another tripped out of the Maxi Taxi. It was not my day to be discovered. This sounds weird, I know. But as I bent again to puck up my sandpaper, I realized that in my subconscious mind, I'm the princess in the tower; waiting to be rescued. The thing is, I love my life. I don't want to be rescued from this life. Maybe on this point all previous concessions bust to pieces.

This work is so beautiful, so full and rich and so draining. The chemicals and the repetitive work leach away my vitality but enough of that! I want to share it with someone. To lean over and know that when one or the other goes senile, the other can sit and stroke their hand and recount all the lovely adventures of life had together. Yeah, I know that this whole entry falls in the category of romantic drivel but lump it! Tomorrow we'll be back to crab-cake recipes and other safe subjects. Anyhow, since when did Prince Charming trade in his steed for a Maxi Taxi?

White Squall

2007-01-09T18:13:00.000-08:00

“Sorry is not gonna cut it.”

I was able to watch White Squall this afternoon. Now, I've heard about this movie; I remember people asking me if I've seen the film. “Uh, yeah. I think so. Wasn't that some Warren Miller freeskiing wannabe movie?” No wonder they looked funny and changed the conversation topic. Awkward. I do much better talking sourdough bread than the crazy movie world with their J-Lo and Jackie Chan, Errol Flynn and Miss Zeta Jones. But before I rabbit trail off into a ramble on flemish desem and storebought flour, let's get back to the movie.

White Squall follows a class of sail trainees, boys from all over the place that together must become a crew onboard the brigantine 'Albatross'. It is the schoolship of schoolships. No apparent benthos buckets or fishtanks in the galley. Chest bursting fresh air, raw saltwater (I could almost taste it on my lips) and bluewater sailing under the free sky and those tanbark sails I'll always love. The guys all seem to be between 15-17 years of age. I thought of my five brothers and imagined them as the ones on this ship. It is an exacting enviroment and not as forgiving as the wilderness. Still, those boys became men. They had to face their fears, control their passions, sweat blood and draw together as a community.
I liked the movie from the beginning. The boy walks up to the ship and in those first emotions and tumbling words, he asks what happened to the Albatross. Her pretty whites are all streaked rusty. He's a kid; he doesn't know about darling Mary Kate and the constant maintenance that every ship demands. When the boys jumped from the yards, I was right there with them. I understood when the captain told the kid to “hate your way up another rung.” I've never had hate like that, or fear either. It's like the Nike jingle: Just Do It. Whatever it is within you that drives you, use that energy: love, hate, pride, compassion... fill in the blank up another rung! I'm getting a little philosophical for a moment but I just want to pose this question: Is love as compelling as hate? I've got a really good, sweet heart but I can't imagine scraping up enough love myself to 'go another rung.' Unless love is greater than self, it won't trump anything and even then it is a weak, small sort of love. I have been taught that the love of God is so great that it is beyond conceptualization. Jesus Christ came and lived as one of us, he embodied love for us. We all know the story. Christ is God Incarnate. He gave touch and feel tangibility not only to God but to love as well. 'All you need is love?' Well that's the sort of love that does the job. Okay, so maybe talking God and all that is awkward when you are wanting to hear about sailing, mountain climbing and movies. It's an integral part of my life's adventure but it doesn't tie up all my questions nice and pretty. Love seems to look stronger on paper and in my cozy circles of friends than it does in the 'real world.' Why does Hate and War seem to be the trump card in this life?

Anyways, wrapping up the movie review; It's not a pretty movie. Beautiful, yes. Watching those boys sail that tremendous ship set all my heart to the sea. I am so glad to be going back to varnish, Mary Kate and happy sailing in Key West but I really miss the bluewater and that life. By the end of the film I was all aglow and a little streaky with tears. Love is not to blame for the freaky storm that bowled them over but it was there painfully at the end. [sigh] You'll like this movie if you love the sea and especially the traditional tall ships that sail across her. Tell me what you think.

Be Well,
LuLu

White Squall, 1996
PG-13 for the usual sailor stuff; boys talking about sex, drinking and some strong language. All appropriate for the story.

Scrambled Mess of 'firsts'

2007-01-09T18:07:00.000-08:00

Sweet, lovely afternoon with the buzzing of lawnmowers outside. Laziness can weave a romance all of her own. The niceness of laziness quickly gets boring and then sour. So, I'm kidding myself into considering writing as my new industry for the moment.

This is a scrambled mess of firsts. My first entry in my first bloggish thing ever, still with little view of what the theme or tilt of it will be in the next months. Is it to be a journal of tedious facts of my personal life? Dental appointments and all that blather? I hope not. Neither do I want it to be solely about spirituality, literature, or blissful, blazing tallships sailing. I represent my generation (I know; scary, isn't it?) My generation of brilliant skills and scattered dreams but little cohesive vision and focused energy. Because of that, my blog will be a little scrambled until I get that needed focus. Join me on the adventure of life and check in for fresh updates on this blog. In case of me seeming to fall off the edge of the world, please send me an email at lauracavender@juno.com and pester me into writing some more.