I am... a sailor (part 1)

Dave's idea of pleasure was being on a boat. It did not matter where he was or who he was with; sailing was where he felt most at home. I don't remember sailing much as a small child. When we finally arrived in Montreal, I must have been 7-8 years old, Dave connected up with an old friend, Frank.

Frank had a sailboat but didn't have anyone to sail with. Dave didn't have a boat, but he had all the time (so it with Frank seemed) to sail.  Eventually, Dave brought us kids along as crew. We could always be counted on to act as a willing crew during regattas. There was the Monday regatta series, the Wednesday series, and the weekend regattas. Every yacht club, from the St. Lawrence Yacht Club on the northwest side of Montreal down to the Hudson Yacht Club, would host at least one regatta during the summer season.

Frank and Dave would find adult volunteers to help crew, but the children were also expected to fill in. If you want to learn how to sail, be a crew member on a boat during a regatta. Sailing is generally a leisure sport, with an occasional storm. 
Most sailors are known for being relaxed beings. They keep their cool in all situations and are super cool because of this. Taking part in a regatta is serious business. There's no room for sloppiness. Looking at the crew during a race is a study of focused mind, intentional minimal movement, and awareness of what might come next.

 
Between the regattas, we had times when we went somewhere as a family, as a pleasure sail. We knew St. Louis and the Richelieu River like the back of our hands. We sailed often in Lake Champlain, the Thousand Islands, and Lake Ontario. Somewhere down the line, we went to Grenda and sailed the Grenadines. We went to Florida once (or twice?) and rented a houseboat in the Everglades. 

After D, Dave, and Pat moved to Grenada, sailing became a part of every visit I had. Once I moved to Germany, I spent nearly all my vacation time sailing with them in Europe (Greece, Turkey, France, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Denmark), the Grenadines, Venezuela, and the East and West coasts of Canada.

I took a year's sabbatical and sailed with Dave and various changing crews from Scotland down to Gran Canary and then over to Grenada. Sometime later, we sailed from Grenada to Newfoundland with D., Jen, and Dave. I think I got onboard in Bermuda on this trip.

So, that's it, as far as how much sailing played a big part in my life, from childhood until he died. In the next post, I will write about what Dave and sailing taught me about life.

A living worth scraping

“If I can only scrape a living, at least it will be a living worth scraping.” Mickey Smith

A while ago, I posted this video of Mickey Smith called, Dark Side of the Lens. The photography, music, and text are all done by this extraordinary man, who obviously/obsessively loves the wilds of nature.


Dark Side of the Lens from Astray Films on Vimeo

Today I stumbled upon his talk at Do Lectures. The Dark Side of the Lens is also presented during his talk. It is interesting to hear him tell of his childhood on the Cornish coast. Hearing how these experiences and the inquiring of his sister made him do the film, somehow makes the film even more brilliant than before.



He mentions at one point in his presentation how he lived one year by the flip of the coin. It was a strange year with a lot of adventures.

Even though I don't think I would ever be crazy/reckless/spontaneous enough to live like this, it really would be fun to do so on the occasion. What do you think, would you give it ago?

I am putting it on my to-do list of this year.

Do Lectures is a fine site to while away your time on. If you do so and find a presentation that is especially inspiring, please tell me.

Clash of Companions

We have a wonderful bakery right near where we live. It opens around six am. On Saturdays, like today, the early customers are an odd lot of still-awake-disco-goers, on-the-way-to-work-the-morning-shift-workers, and, touchingly, a fair group of fathers-of-small-babies-pushing-their-children-through-the-streets-to-let-their-wives-sleep-in-to-an-almost-humanly-acceptable-time-of-day-heroes.

As Time Passes Quietly

Dear Sister, Dear Friend, and to
Those of Us who remember... days
Of hopeful anticipation, butterflies,
That prickling sensation, those
Moments before flight, when there
Was air under my feet, oh the joy,
Oh the lightness of breath… stepping
Forward into an adventure. Knowing
I'd never really know, but still...
Leaping, prancing, twirling with
Abandon, because life was spring
All was new and my spirit was free.

Now my dreams are muffled in
Coats of daily challenges, whether
Fair or not, it does not matter,
Really, truly, they do not define my
Self. Time slowly, quietly dances
Amongst the leaves of such splendor,
Such sublime lightness. The falling.
Who would have known? Certainly not
Me of the past. Thank God for that.

Mediation Weekend

Wandering out into the garden in the early morning hours... to catch the threads of spider webs on my face, the drone of the bees amongst the apple blossoms, and the droplets of dew on the edge of my pantlegs.

Cherry Blossom Petals

photo from topmedic

Young boy loses himself playing in a sandbox populated with last year's toys and carpeted with this year's cherry blossom petals.

Quiet Sunday

It's a quiet Sunday afternoon after a very busy week. Another very busy week. As many have been this year. Going to have to rethink this busy-ness, or this business of constantly being preoccupied with the white noise of purposeful professional endeavours. Instead, why shouldn't I just try to discover a mindfulness, an awareness for small pleasures and tender mercies that unfold each day. Such gifts.

Thank you for reading this blog.

Sometimes Life Flows Gently

The last week or two, life has been good. It is hard to describe except life appears to be flowing gently. I call a potential customer and they say, "Sure, bring your concept over." I call the insurance company who has just sent their second notice and they say, "No problem. When can we expect payment." (I kid you not). A friend sends a photo of a peace lily, which I am hoping to make up into a collage for another friend's new home and right from the first moment the collage makes itself.

Then to top it off, I am bundling up to go outdoors after having spent a hectic day trying to get some office work done, and my mother-in-law (who lives next door) comes in and ask if it is ok if she makes dinner tonight. How marvelous is that!

Early Moring Surprise

Typically, Sunday mornings are a time when we sleep in. A dear and loyal friend shows up at 11 o'clock with freshly baked bread rolls and the Sunday paper. (Yes, we are very spoilt.) This means that somewhere around ten to eleven one family member has to be awake enough to make the coffee and set the table. The rest of breakfast preparations is done once our friend arrives.

This morning I decided to get up early and go for a walk before breakfast. There was fog blanketing the streets and I wrongly presumed I'd be the only person wandering around. There were signs of life everywhere: people walking their dogs, fathers pushing baby carriages, couples walking arm-in-arm, tourists getting their last look of the city before flying home. I completely forgot that I was also once a member of early Sunday society.

I think I will become a member again.

Lone Slipper

Mystery of the day: I woke up this morning with cold feet and went to put on my slippers. The problems was, there was only one lone slipper there. It was really strange. Obviously, I took off my slippers at the same time. Why wasn't there two slippers there?

Mystery solved: the slipper got caught in my trousers and went through the wash and was spit out this evening in the dryer.

Short Days and Sleepless Nights

Just bits and pieces of going-ons and mundane reflections...

Is it only me, or does your sleeping patterns change with time of year and increasing age? I used to hibernate in winter. Literally, sleep long and deeply through all the dark months. Now, I'm battling to get five or six hours a night. Sorry, this sounds like more a complaint than it does a reflection.

October is a month of quiet anticipation in Luebeck. No one starts with Christmas, but you can see that the shops and the marketplaces are itching to pull our their decorations and lighting out. I love this city for its music and lighting during Advent. I'm going to see if I can post a photo a day (ok, every few days) capturing the delight of the season.

We have an optics shop around the corner from us that is owned by a suppressed drama queen. For, let's face it, there is nothing more sobering than spending your days helping people to try on glasses. The only way the owner can let loose is in his choice of window decorations. He does really unique decorations so numerous and varied it is hard to know where to start. Oh, yes, how about the decoration he put up just for Halloween: a lifelike mannequin lying down with contorted limbs, covered with a white sheet, stained red as if from a bullet hole; pronouncing the victim one from a murder scene. The figure is outlined with chalk and glasses bejewel the "installation". Totally bizarre. The fact that the optics shop is right next store to a toy shop only makes me wonder how many traumatized kids are going to remember this window display for a long long time to come.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Nowhere to go but home

“... and there is nowhere to go but home, which is nowhere to be found and yet is here,
unlost, solid, the very ground on which you stand but cannot visit ...” George Szirtes

Late autumn afternoon. I'm on my way into town to do some chores. A carpet of leaves lie on the sidewalk leaden down with rain and shadowed by the winter darkness that is coming. My mind hears sighing whispers about summer travels on coastal waters in warmer seas. I turn my back on the idea of pressing on, and instead return to the warmth of home with its golden lighting and silly loving family chatter.

Dusk

The first quiet day spent at home in a long time. Bliss. Rain falls. This American Life podcasts play the hours away. Slowly, dusk comes unannounced and almost unnoticed.

Sunny Summer Afternoon

A gloomy wet autumn morn
Turns impulsively into a
Vibrant sunny summer afternoon.
My heart rolls over
And thwacks with elasticity
I run out the door
Into a crowd of sun seekers
Filling all the tables
At a nearby café.

Raindrop splattered tabletops,
The only remaining evidence of
Those depressing  past hours,
Are ignored by all
And the waiter;
Who shares the luxury of a
Smoke with a regular, and the
Simple dealings-of-the-day.

A Parallel World

The nearby turkish barbershop is closed this week because of rennovations. The place has a large front window that frames the flow and buzz of activity within. Turkish barbershops are a fascinating sub-culture in the neighbourhood we live in. Hair is cut, beards are shaven, and excess facial hair is plucked with much finesse.

It is not an exageration to say the effect is more sculpturing than hairdressing. In contrast to other barbershops, the shop across the street allows older sisters, mothers, grandmothers to sit on the bench across from the row of barberchairs and watch the master barbers at work on their loved ones. Sometime it seems as if there might be more observers than there are customers, but that might be my subjective opinion.

A Sunset of the City

The hot dry summer days loll on. I’m still seeking employment. Though I should say, I do have meaningful employment; lots of projects being juggled both here and in Kimilili, Kenya. Now I just need employment with a salary.



Listening to poetry these days. Find it soothes my restless soul. Today’s find was Gwendolyn Brooks’s, A Sunset of the City. Please go to this link and her speak the poem. I love how she describes growing older,

“It is summer-gone that I see, it is summer-gone.
The sweet flowers in drying and dying down,
The grasses forgetting their blaze and consenting to brown.”

There are moments now when I feel such, but I try and let them flow away with the summer breeze.

Windows of my Journeys II

Life is ridiculously busy since I returned from Toronto. Everyday I start with a list of items that need to be done. The end of the day comes with having crossed off quite a few, but there are always more left only half-done.

It is not yet noon today and the list looks something like this:

• write three blog posts for up-and-coming Football Tournament in Kimilili (not done)
• go for long walk with A. (done)
• work out job search priority list with A. (done)
• create mock-up text for website my son is creating for sponsor company in Nairobi (mostly done)
• write S. in Germany who is going over to Kimilili as a volunteer in August with the list of contents of the two boxes I sent to him yesterday that he will take with him (not done, left over from yesterday)
• ask A. whether she knows anyone with an old laptop for the women's co-op in Kimilili (forgot)
• rework "Women on a Journey" concept (started, needs lots of work)
• write C. about whether her family is willing to help if needed for young woman I know who is going to work in Capetown's townships (not done)
• wish C. happy wishes on starting new job tomorrow (not done)
• prepare for charity shop monthly meeting (not done)
• attend charity shop monthly meeting (not done)
• need groceries (not done)
• 5 other items that I forget what they are (typical, ssheesh)

Mid-day... time to get going...

Collage makes me feel calm when all around me chaos rules.

From Another Perspective

One of the reasons I so delight in going to cafés is because I love looking at the mundane day-to-day dealings of life viewed through the eyes of a stranger (me), yet also that of a participator (customer).

This lets me sit and watch two fellow customers idle away the morning waiting for the rain to stop.



Or just watch a veteran waiter work the espresso machine with an ease of movement that is highly enviable.



Or, consider how our choice of footwear can say about our personalities.



In the end, the experience of sitting in a café is similar to being both an insider and outsider all at the same time.

Not all things go wrong...

Was listening to Felix Dennis' poem, "Not all things go wrong..." this morning and thought it went well with the collage I made yesterday.

The last paragraph of the poem,

"Not all things go wrong - and after
Winter's famine comes the spring,
Kindness, beauty, children's laughter -
Joy is ever on the wing."

rung so true of these days, like today, when the sun shines and all members of this household are pleasantly preoccupied with various adventures.

Early Morning

On my walk this morning, I caught the glimpse of a couple taking their boat out for an early morning journey. Most of the other people on the bicycle paths and sidewalks were rushing on towards their offices or school classrooms. I imagined the couple standing near on the top deck with the thermos full of hot coffee and a sunny day in front of them, and was envious of their freedom.

Then I realised that I also had the freedom to take a short journey of my own.

So, I sat on the sunny bench in an empty playground and listened to Krista Tippet and Alan Dienstag's insightful conversation titled, "Lessons from the Lifelines Writing Group 
for People in the Early Stages of Alzheimer's Disease: 
Forgetting That We Don't Remember".

It was a wonderful stolen hour.