As Though I Had Wings

....I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart

pumping hard.  I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,

as though I had wings.

~ Mary Oliver ~

     We are back in the U.S. for now.  There is another trip planned to Trinidad at the end of July, weather willing, and maybe some short sails to the Bahamas, although nothing like what we've done.  The plan is to save and get the boat ready for a year sailing, or maybe more.  As present tense I have become these days, here in Fort Lauderdale, it is hard to imagine a year spent on the water traveling by whim and wind and water, discovering new places and familiar ones.  I hope I can write myself into that story of a year away from work, a year on the water, maybe more than one year, maybe two. three, four ....


     It is strange to be back, both joyous and full of regret too, bittersweet as life seems to be for me.  I'm glad to be able to talk to my daughter more regularly.  And I like the comfort of familiarity, of the world I know.  I miss though, the water.  I miss too the not knowing where we were headed beyond the next stop.  I miss the rhythms of life offshore that demand much of you at certain times, and so little at others.  And I miss the quiet that settles between you, the deceptive stillness that hides your own inner journeys.  


     This picture was taking our last day offshore, anchored off of Isaac Light in the Bahamas.   Susurru travels 150 miles a day with motor sailing, more than we anticipated.  She is a boat built to move sure and fast through the water.  She loves to sail, loves the dance of wind and water and man's hand and eye lightly guiding her.  She expects you to trust her, and because she is completely honest and deserving of that trust, you do.  There are so metaphors about life and living and love in the acts of sailing, it startles me and frankly, I wonder how I will take to land.


     These final lines of a Mary Oliver poem seem to capture best how I felt on the water and how I hope to find my to feeling no matter where I find myself.  Out on the water between there and here I felt improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing for the first time in my life. May I hold that in my heart and soul, find in myself a way to be that, even on land.  That would be quite a gift for my 54th year.  May it be so.