wherever I find myself. Maya Angelou
Now that I've been in Florida for a year, I'm beginning to think of this as home. The boating life is, by it's nature, a vagabond life. That doesn't mean that people don't find the dock and stay there. In this marina there is a couple that has been here twelve years, the boat never once leaving the dock in all that time. She's ship shape, built to cross the seas and more than capable of it, and yet, she's landlocked and will be for years more I suspect. Other boats come and go. There are a few year-round live-aboards here, but mostly it's boats, here for a while and then gone, which is the nature of boats.
Susurru is my home now, truly, not just in name as she was in the beginning. I have even begun calling her that - home. I talk to her before I go to work and when I come home, when winds and water make her dance or shiver, when she's feeling frisky, or nervous, or sad. Houses speak in their way, I suppose, but they play it close to the vest. You don't always know with houses; they can keep secrets. Boats are more loquacious. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. You know what they're feeling. There's a quote about souls and songs in the wood of boats. I think that's true of boats like this one, boats who are more handmade.
The marina is becoming home too, though frankly that has been a harder sell. Calling Florida home has been an even harder sell. I'm reluctant to let go of California. I don't want to get use to this warmth and humidity, this flora and fauna. And yet, the truth of it is I might be here for a while and I can either stay a stranger or begin to learn about this place, the good and the bad, the beauty and the horror. And I only know one way to learn a place, to make it home, and that's walking it, learning it step by step, block by block, watching it through the seasons, discovering the plants, which is what I'm doing. I'm trying to figure out this place I may call home, someday, maybe.
Susurru is my home now, truly, not just in name as she was in the beginning. I have even begun calling her that - home. I talk to her before I go to work and when I come home, when winds and water make her dance or shiver, when she's feeling frisky, or nervous, or sad. Houses speak in their way, I suppose, but they play it close to the vest. You don't always know with houses; they can keep secrets. Boats are more loquacious. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. You know what they're feeling. There's a quote about souls and songs in the wood of boats. I think that's true of boats like this one, boats who are more handmade.
The marina is becoming home too, though frankly that has been a harder sell. Calling Florida home has been an even harder sell. I'm reluctant to let go of California. I don't want to get use to this warmth and humidity, this flora and fauna. And yet, the truth of it is I might be here for a while and I can either stay a stranger or begin to learn about this place, the good and the bad, the beauty and the horror. And I only know one way to learn a place, to make it home, and that's walking it, learning it step by step, block by block, watching it through the seasons, discovering the plants, which is what I'm doing. I'm trying to figure out this place I may call home, someday, maybe.
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