Night Howl, Deep in My Bones

Tags

Consciousness, memoir, Nature, poetry, sailing, universe

Last month around this time when the moon was full, our nights were filled with howling. Almost every night we could hear the mournful cries of coyotes in the fields behind our house, along with ecstatic barking, yipping, chortling–as if they were celebrating a kill, or worshipping the moon, or engaged in some wild orgy.  Or perhaps they were merely giving voice to the irresistible life force pumping through their blood and brains and hearts, a force of nature too wild and fierce to hold back.

The sound, terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, echoed long in my mind afterwards, like ripples of water moving away to the edge of consciousness and reverberating back again. Like something heard long ago deep in my bones, from an evolutionary or primal past.

They say we humans carry in our genes the imprint of life-forms going back to when the first cells emerged on earth.  Deep in our blood, our bones, our very atoms, lays some faint memory of our ancient beginnings. Phylogenists call it our “vast evolutionary tree.”

If we go back even further, traces of that time when the morning stars first sang together may still be felt when we look out on the night sky. We are the stuff of stars, after all, so say astrophysicists.

Carl Jung envisioned our Collective Unconscious as a reservoir lying deep within our psyches containing our evolutionary memories.  While they lay below consciousness, they break through in dreams and myths and fairy tales, in primitive urges, the call of the wild, in our more-than-human yearnings.

Sometimes we feel this wildness rising within when witnessing powerful displays of nature: thunderstorms booming across the land, waterfalls careening over cliffs, huge waves crashing against rocks, hurricanes lashing at trees, lightening forking across a dark sky,  earthquakes heaving beneath our feet.   It frightens and excites—creating both the desire to escape and to embrace that primordial power.  One wild howl elicits another—the urge to howl back, to voice our own wild yearnings—to sing or dance, or paint or play, or grab words from the air and fling them onto paper. I heard that howl and answered back one night on anchor watch in Pago Pago.  A hurricane was blowing a few miles off Samoa and we were set to ride it out if it blew into the bay.

I stood at the bow of La Gitana, hanging onto the staysail as the deck lurched beneath my feet like a wild stallion while the surging waves rose and fell and the chain from the anchor rooted deep in the mud below grew slack or tight.

Overhead a torrent of clouds crashed against a full moon, sometimes swallowing it whole, then washing away streaming moonlight. All around me the night raged while the anchor held tight, and I held tight, the terror and exhilaration pumping through my blood and brain.  The wild urge to let go and be carried away by the night was fierce. Later I tried to capture what it felt like.   Here’s what I wrote:

NIGHT HOWL

(Anchor watch in Pago Pago, Samoa)

Alone beneath a wild and ragged night I watch,

                            moonlight and clouds wind-tangled across the sky.

Suddenly I am loosened, lifted, flung far–

fingers raking stars, mouth howling moon, mind mooning time

my heart-beat

riddles the universe.

Alone beneath a wild and ragged night I stand, astonished,

gaping into the maw of some vast mirror.

It’s close to capturing what I felt, but the last two lines trouble me. “Gaping” and “maw” keeps the visceral effect I’m looking for, capturing the sense of trance-like awe and terror.  But mirror moves it away into something more philosophical or intellectual.

I’m tempted to stop with the line “my heartbeat riddles the universe.” That captures the physicality of my wildly beating heart breaking out of my body to become the heart-beat of the universe.  And it also hints at the mystery of human heartbeat itself being a riddle, the riddle of the universe, that the evolution of the universe over eons led to the creation of a human being, whose heart—its essential being—is the ability to reflect back upon the universe, to take it all in.

Human consciousness is the mirror through which the universe sees and knows itself, and through which we see and know ourselves—the fullness of being, our primal past and present standing face to face.

That’s a lot to howl about.

[Reposted from July 2012]

Water with a Razor’s Edge

Tags

beauty, Creative Nonfiction, cruising, Essay, inspiration, liveaboard, memoir, Nature, ocean, paradox, sailboat, sailing, sculpture, water, waves

Photograph by Sebastião Salgado

One of my favorite pastimes when we were sailing was watching the wake the boat made slipping through still waters. The glassy surface of the ocean rose up creating a razor-sharp edge as it continuously slipped along beside us, like a wave that never breaks.

Not every wake was like this and so fascinated me. It came only under perfect conditions. When the sea was clear and still, smooth as a mirror. When the wind was non-existent or so light it was like a baby’s breath. When we were sailing lightly on a zephyr’s breeze, or motoring through calm, still waters. When the wind rose and rolled, the wake would change, shot over with foam, its curl not so distinct, its edge not so transparent.

I’ve searched everywhere for a photo of a wave or boat wake that captures what so fascinated me, but the closest I can find are images of sand dunes with that razor-sharp edge following the undulating line of its crest. Sand dunes have their own haunting beauty and they too shift over time, but even so they don’t do my memory justice, for the wake I watched was alive, vibrant, constantly moving, a steady companion.

It was sculpture in motion, the way it  curled up continuously creating that sharp, transparent edge. A slight undulation along the lip as it held its form was mesmerizing. Watching it, I thought, I never want to be anywhere but here. And, I never want to lose this. I sought to etch it in my mind so it would always be part of me.

Of course, it wasn’t just the sight of that never-ending curl, that razor-sharp edge trembling in the sunshine that moved me. It was the whole experience. The still sea stretching out forever, the soft swish of the hull parting the seas, the whisper of the wind against the sails.  It was the tang of the salt in the air and the balmy breeze stroking my skin with silk gloves. It was me, bare-legs stretched out against the warm teak decking, sitting absolutely still in a sea of motion.

It was my family tucked away with me within our living, moving, breathing home, miles and miles from anywhere, safely embraced by the sea and sun and breeze.

If anything clearly captures the essence of what it was like to live aboard La Gitana all those years, it was the poetry of moments like this, repeated over and over again, like glittering pearls strung along a string.

I think now what fascinated me then was how this was such a clear example of the ever-changing changeless: The constant subtle variations in the wake’s shape that made it so mesmerizing to watch and yet changeless in its constancy, it never-ending formation. And while it lasted for hours, it was ever a new thing, newly created moment by moment.

I wanted to reach out and touch that razor’s edge, but I knew if I did it would  dissolve beneath my fingers.  How could water, so malleable that it melts through your fingers, create such a sharp, clear edge and hold it so long?

These things fascinated me then as they do now and fed my interest in the sublime ambiguities and paradoxes that underlie this beautiful world we live in.

Sailing with Sargent and Homer

Tags

art, art criticism, artists, boats, John Singer Sargent, painting, Paintings, sailing, watercolor, Winslow Homer

Recently I discovered the watercolors of John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer, two great American artists that I had known primarily for their oil portraits and landscapes. But each in their later years, especially when travelling (Sargent the to Mediterranean, Homer to the Key West and Bahamas) preferred painting in watercolor and created some astonishing works. Each was drawn toward capturing the dazzling whites and blues of the sea, the lights and shadows and reflections thrown up on the hulls of boats and mirrored in the water.

“To live with Sargent’s water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held,” writes one biographer. Another calls Homer “the poet of the sea.”

Sargent was born some 20 years after Homer and outlived him by about as much. But at the height of their careers their worked overlapped each other. Yet while working in similar mediums (oil and watercolor) and drawn toward similar scenes (boats, the sea, light on water) their styles, while equally masterful, were unique. Each captured some unique aspect of the sailing experience, and each captured the spirit of the thing they were after. But they were after different things.

I lived and sailed on the sea for many years, both in the tropics and the Mediterranean. I spent long days in tranquil coves and landless seas, as well as busy ports and colorful quay-sides.  I know that balmy bliss and dreamy languidness. I know the thrill of that chaotic energy.

Sargent’s watercolors capture the boldness and busyness of the ports, the dazzling brightness as the sun dances across the hulls of ships and scatters into the sea, winks among the rigging and splashes upon the warm decks. His paintings capture the sweeping rhythm of hull lines and mast tilts, of sails fluttering in the breeze above swaying decks.

Immersed in that chaotic noise, the eye is too dazzled, too overcome with the busyness and beauty of it all to separate out all the chaotic details. One sees only the mass and movement, the lines and curves, the dazzling light and cool shadows. That is what Sargent captures in the watercolors here. Immersion in the moment. When I enter his scenes I’m immediately transported back in time. I’m there standing on the docks with him . . .

 . . . or approaching the scene from a dinghy.

I’m seeing what he sees, feeling what he feels. I am right there at the center of it all.

Some insight into Sargent’s style and method can be found in a publication about his watercolors:

“Sargent’s approach to watercolor was unconventional. Disregarding contemporary aesthetic standards that called for carefully delineated and composed landscapes filled with transparent washes, his confidently bold, dense strokes, loosely defined forms, and unexpected vantage points startled critics and fellow practitioners alike. One reviewer of an exhibition in London proclaimed him “an eagle in a dove-cote”; another called his work “swagger” watercolors. For Sargent, watercolors were not so much about swagger as about a renewed and liberated approach to painting. His vision became more personal and his works began to interconnect as he considered the way one image—often of friends or favorite places—enhanced another.”

Homer’s watercolor scenes have a different style and feel. There’s no “swagger,” no startling viewpoints.

While Sargent’s watercolors have an abstract, impressionistic feel, Homer’s paintings feed a narrative. They aren’t so close up and chaotic. They have a writerly gaze. A “watching from a distance” feel. Rarely do you find a painting without people visible. Without the sense that you are watching a story unfold.

You see the wide sweep of sky and sea. You feel the heavy humidity in those clouds and the heat from that dazzling brightness. You see a crowded deck with people raising sails. You see an unfamiliar distant vista. You see a story unfolding. And while you see only one moment of that story, his paintings invite you to imagine more.

In Homer’s painting, the viewer is right there–we feel the heat, the hot sky, the warm water, the hand gripping the deck–but like a reader immersed in another’s story, not like we are there personally ourselves.

Homer’s paintings can be as exciting and full of movement as Sargent’s, as we see below.

But Sargent’s are rarely as full of human drama and emotion as Homer’s.

Or as dreamy and wistful.

And that’s a criticism made of each. How so many of Sargent’s paintings, while artistically masterful, fail to evoke human emotion or even a sense of what he sees as “beautiful,” as one critic complains. While on the other hand many of Homer’s paintings can be seen as nostalgic, or bordering on the sentimental.

As for me, I see something I love in each. Both speak to me and my experience in powerful ways.

As we were sailing, every leg of our journey was a story unfolding, for my family personally, but also for those people and places we glimpsed along the way. We were voyeurs as well as voyages. We saw scenes unfolding around us that never came to a conclusion. Long lazy days and balmy nights invited us to wonder where they might lead.

At the same time we were immersed in our very own chaotic and exciting sense-experiences, void of narrative, but full of feeling. We wafted between that abstract intensity and the dreamily nostalgic.  As perhaps we all do, immersed in the moment as the long thread of our lives unfolds.

Which artist speaks to you? Do you have a favorite among those shown today, or ones you’ve seen elsewhere?

You can read more about these artists and see more of their works in the links below.

Winslow Homer (1836 – 1910) 

https://www.artsy.net/artist/winslow-homer

http://www.winslowhomer.org/winslow-homer-paintings.jsp

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) 

http://www.johnsingersargent.org/

http://watercolor.net/john-singer-sargent-watercolors/

 

Celebrating Poetry: Music of the Spheres

Tags

Deborah J. Brasket, inspiration, music, National Poetry Month, poetry, sailing, Sailing Among the Stars, starry night, Troy Armstrong

The first poem I shared on my new blog five years ago was scribbled in the starlight on a moonless night while crossing the Sea of Cortez.

A few months later I received an email from Troy Armstrong, a classical composer who said he had set my poem to music to be performed by a choir. As I listened to the music, tears were streaming down my cheeks, for I knew this is what I would have heard that night had I ears to hear, sailing among the stars.

Poetry, as well as music, has the power to capture that state of wonder we all feel at times when confronting the beauty and majesty of nature, and its power to move us beyond ourselves.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, I’m sharing the original post below with the poem and a link to the music.

Sailing Among the Stars

Last night I swam among the stars. The air and water temperatures were both 78 degrees, so it felt like I was moving from one warm atmosphere into another more dense when I stepped in my pool. There was no moon and the Milky Way was strewn across the sky like scattered bones of light. When I lay on my back to watch them, it felt like I was floating among the stars.

And then I realized–I was! We all are.

We sail across the universe on the back of a tiny planet at the edge of a galaxy that swirls around us. Too often we forget that–how embedded we really are in the universe.

I became acutely aware of this one night when we were crossing the Sea of Cortez from Baja to mainland Mexico. There was no wind, no moon. The sea was perfectly still like the surface of a dark mirror, marred only by our trailing wake.

Above us the bare mast stirred a billion stars, which were reflected in the sea’s surface below. I felt like we were on a starship sailing through the cosmos.

Later that night I wrote this:

Night Crossing, Sea of Cortez

The sea appears so simple

With a dark, indulgent face,

The stars there twice reflected

Like a world spun out of space.

Our sloop shoots through the cosmos,

Through a mute and moonless night,

Our wake a fiery comet

Streaming effervescent light.

With all the universe inert

We slip from star to star,

Then reach across the Milky Way

Toward galaxies afar.

Eons swirl, light-years unfurl

And none can still our flight,

Leaping toward the infinite

To apprehend the light.

I’m not alone in seeing the overlap between the ocean and the night sky. Various artists are fond of depicting whales and dolphins and other sea creatures swimming among the stars. The ocean and the universe stand at the edge of the wild, the last two true frontiers we have to explore, except for the human consciousness, of course.  The ocean and the universe have become symbols for consciousness as well as adventure.

We seem to grasp that there is something that connects all three—some deep, dreamy, ever-flowing, ungraspable, powerful yet nurturing element in which we all are steeped. That calls us to move beyond ourselves, beyond the safe and familiar, the already known. That inspires us to reach for something that lies just beyond our grasp.

You can listen to the haunting music Troy Armstrong wrote at this link:

http://troyarmstrong1.wixsite.com/troyarmstrong/swimming-among-the-stars

Into the Flow, Bringing the Mountain Top into Market Place

Tags

Flow, harmony, in the zone, peace, sailing, spirituality, Tahiti

Have you ever felt being in the flow of things? That optimum experience that many athletes and artists feel when time disappears and everything you are doing just seems to click effortlessly into place?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who has written extensively on flow, calls it “an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness” in which you “become, at least temporarily, part of a larger entity” or even “at one with the harmony of the cosmos.”

I’ve experienced this a few times for extended periods, but most often only for brief moments. The type of flow usually comes after long periods of meditation, usually when I’m outside, immersed in nature, when thoughts cease and sights and sounds flow through me. “Mountain-top” moments you might call them. But occasionally, more rarely, they happen in the “market place,” unexpectedly, in the middle of a busy day. I love it when that happens.

The first extended period of this came when we were sailing in the South Pacific. We were anchored in a cove off Tahiti and I went ashore to do some shopping.

I felt unusually light-headed, as if walking on air, or as if some filter called “me” had disappeared, and all that was left was this crystal clear awareness taking in everything and everyone I met—that “not-two” feeling I mentioned at the end of my last post on ‘Lightness of Being.” That sense stayed with me during the bus ride to Papeete and slowly dissipated as I went about my shopping.

I wrote a poem about the experience when I returned home, focusing on the bus ride. When sitting in the open-sided bus looking out at the passing landscape that sense of “flow” was especially intense.

On a Bus to Papeete

Wind through the window
Streaming through my hair

I in my stillness
Hurtling through the air

Trees and grasses and roads bending
Faces with flowers and houses blending

Objects like petals on a dark stream,
streaming through me, leave me

Clean and empty as a hollow reed, still
faintly tingling with the rhapsody of being.

It happened another time when we had returned home from our voyage and I was working as a manager of a small popular family restaurant. It was Sunday morning and we were slammed. Folks were lined up out the door waiting to be seated. The hostess was going crazy trying to keep up with the demand, scribbling down names and crossing them off, leading couples and families to tables, bringing out highchairs and crayons and coloring books, taking out trays of water.

The waitresses were buzzing around the room taking orders, pouring drinks, balancing up to six plates at a time in their arms. The poor busboys were clearing tables as fast as they could, wiping them down, hauling cartloads of dishes back to the kitchen. Things were at a fever high pitch of frantic in the back of the house too, as cooks called out orders, slapped slabs of bacon and sausage on the griddle, flipped pancakes, whisked eggs.

And I was everywhere at once, making the rounds, helping out as I moved along, taking around coffee, refilling cups, chatting up the guests, helping to clear tables and seat people, checking up on missing orders, lending a hand to the stack of avocados that needed peeling to make up a new batch of guacamole.

Everywhere at once, acutely attuned to what was needed in the moment and filling in the gap, just streaming along, light-headed, calm, exuberant, being all things at once and nothing at all, just letting the ebb and flow of activity move me along, marveling even while in the midst of it, at how natural, spontaneous, hyper-aware, hyper-alive I felt.

It lasted all morning and well into the early afternoon. Then as the stream of guests faded, and the restaurant began to empty, so did the “high,” that sense of flow, and I was gently landed back on the ground again, normal me, but not a bit tired and still very happy.

Now most of the time I feel I’m being carried along mid-stream, not “in the flow” at the center as I was then, but skirting it, somewhere between the flow and the swirling eddies at the edge of the stream. It’s a pleasant place to be, knowing the “flow” is right there beside me, ready to whisk me away again when I’m ready and things are just right.

But happy too that I’m avoiding for the most part those pesky eddies that try to pull me away into the shallows—-those petty, tiresome swirls, and fearful spins, and down-spouts of grief and anger that are always there, ready to pull me under and upside-down when they can. Usually I am able to scramble free easier than I have in the past, knowing that whatever trouble in the world they represent is more easily solved when I’m not tumbling around in the turmoil.

Mostly it’s a balancing act, trying to bring those mountaintop moments into the marketplace and finding myself somewhere in between. Not an unpleasant place to be.

[First posted this in May 2013 under a slightly different title. Things are rather chaotic in my life right now and I found this post a soothing reminder. Still seeking to bring those mountain-top experiences down into the market-place.]

Music for Sailing Among the Stars

Tags

music, poetry, sailing, Sea of Cortez, Stars, Troy Armstrong, universe

One of my poems has been set to music. An amazing composer, Troy Armstrong, emailed me earlier this year and told me how he had found one of my early blog posts called “Swimming Among the Stars,” which featured a poem I had written long ago. He was so moved by the poem he set it to music.

His choral piece is called “Swimming Among the Stars,” and while I was thrilled and honored that he should do such a thing, I was blown away by the song itself, which is hauntingly beautiful. You can listen to it at the link above.

While it’s meant to be sung and he’s working on having it recorded by a choral group, what you hear below is from a synthesizer. Even so it’s incredible . . . tell me what you think. I’m so deeply humbled by it. You might want to visit his website and hear more of his music. Some created for orchestra, string quartets, solo instruments, and voice.

The poem and part of the post that inspired this music is copied below, or you can read the original here, which included a night swim. It was written when we were sailing across the Sea of Cortez one moonless night. Here’s what I wrote in that post:

We sail across the universe on the back of a tiny planet at the edge of a galaxy that swirls around us. Too often we forget that–how embedded we really are in the universe.

I became acutely aware of this one night when we were crossing the Sea of Cortez from Baja to mainland Mexico. There was no wind, no moon. The sea was perfectly still like the surface of a dark mirror, marred only by our trailing wake.

Above us the bare mast stirred a billion stars, which were reflected in the sea’s surface below. I felt like we were on a starship sailing through the cosmos. Later that night I wrote this:

Night Crossing, Sea of Cortez

The sea appears so simple
With a dark, indulgent face
The stars there twice reflected
Like a world spun out of space
Our sloop shoots through the cosmos
Through a mute and moonless night
Our wake a fiery comet
Streaming effervescent light
With all the universe inert
We slip from star to star
Then reach across the Milky Way
Toward galaxies afar
Eons swirl, light-years unfurl
And none can still our flight
Leaping toward the infinite
To apprehend the light.

I’m not alone in seeing the overlap between the ocean and the night sky. Various artists are fond of depicting whales and dolphins and other sea creatures swimming among the stars.

The ocean and the universe stand at the edge of the wild, the last two true frontiers we have to explore, except for the human consciousness, of course. The ocean and the universe have become symbols for consciousness as well as adventure.

We seem to grasp that there is something that connects all three—some deep, dreamy, ever-flowing, ungraspable, powerful yet nurturing element in which we all are steeped. That calls us to move beyond ourselves, beyond the safe and familiar, the already known. That inspires us to reach for something that lies just beyond our grasp.

I’m still reaching. Are you?

Sailing with Kids into the Unknown, Continuation of Sea Saga, Part VI

Tags

adventure, Baja, children, Cruising (maritime), Formosa 46, lifestyle, memoir, Mexico, sailing, Sailing Around the World

This post is a continuation of the article I wrote about long-distance sailing with children that I wrote long ago as we embarked upon what would be a 6 ½ year voyage around the world. Read Part I, HERE.

Cruising with Kids, Dream or Nightmare?  Part Two

So amid tears and protests, we moved aboard “La Gitana” where she lay patiently at her slip in Ventura, California. There Dale and I gave up the roomy aft cabin to the children with their collections of stuffed animals, Barbie dolls and Star War Empires. Then we settled back to await the inevitable bouts of tears and sulkiness that must accompany this new adjustment period in our lives.

But it never happened. Chris was too busy learning to sail our dinghy, while Kelli was totally enchanted with her new, tiny inflatable and happily rowing off backwards to visit new-found friends living at the marina.

Soon surfing and boogie boarding became the favored past-time, and the children were heaving boards to heads and going off to explore the waves together.

By the time January and our much delayed departure date rolled around, the children had made new lives and new friends for themselves at the marina. But there were no tears at departing this time–they were as ready to head out as we were.

Already they had learned that they could adapt to a new environment and make their own places in it, wherever that place might be.This easy acceptance of and adjustment to the cruising life continued. We spent two delightful weeks at Catalina Island before heading further south.

Even in that short time, the children’s sense of independence and self-reliance increased as they rowed themselves ashore each day to explore the little town of Avalon by themselves or took their places at the fishing dock among all the old-timers there.

Chris became so adept at working the oars of our ten-foot dingy that he became the family’s official rower. Whenever the four of us went to shore together, it was his strong back and broad smile that transported us there.

I’ll never forget one twilit evening when Kelli offered to row the trash ashore, and, despite my doubts, Dale said she could handle it. I watched, trans-fixed, as my little eight-year-old daughter heft the large bag into our ten-foot dingy, untied the painter and shoved off, manning the heavy wooden oars that I myself had trouble with. She rowed, not backwards this time, but like a good seaman with her back to the future as the gathering twilight slowly hid her from view. Kelli won more than a bit of independence that day–she won respect and admiration, for she rowed a straighter course than I could.

By the time we reached Cabo San Lucas and rounded the tip of Baja into the Sea of Cortez, we had discovered that many of the more trivial concerns that, nonetheless, loomed so large in our minds had disappeared. Now it’s hard to imagine why we once thought that lack of privacy or cramped quarters would become a problem.

Our forty-six foot Formosa with its large center cockpit and forward and aft cabins has provided us with all the privacy and living space that we seem to need. We live as peaceably here as we did in our house and perhaps more so. Not only are our cramped quarters not a problem, but they have often proved a blessing.

Now when the children bring the Legos out to the salon table to build spaceships, Dale or I are often drawn into the creative enterprise. And it is easy to supervise school lessons from the galley while in the midst of kneading sourdough or canning chicken. Then, when we do need that time to “be by ourselves,” we’ve found that cooperation rather than space is the prime factor. And cooperation is readily available. Why we once thought otherwise seems a mystery now.

The simple luxuries of a daily shower, a washing machine and TV are no longer missed. While the privacy of a good, hot shower is still a luxury that we would readily welcome, we’ve found that it’s only just that–a luxury, not a necessity. Its absence does not affect the quality of life or well-being in the least.

Fresh water sponge baths and sea-bucket showers are enough to keep us feeling as fresh and clean as the humidity permits. Then, when we are in a port where fresh water is plentiful, nothing compares with a fresh-water sun shower during the heat of day or within the warm caress of a starry night.

I’ve discovered that washing laundry in buckets of salt water and rinsing them in fresh keeps our clothes as clean and soft as they need to be. It is not the drudgery that I had anticipated. At the house, doing laundry for me was always a rather tedious task performed alone in the semi-gloom of our garage. Now I do the laundry in a bikini on the bow of the boat with the brilliant sunshine and wind refreshing my spirits while panoramic views of busy harbors or lovely anchorages enchant my mind. And never am I a lone. There is always Chris to haul up buckets of water for me, Dale to help rinse and wring, and Kelli to hang the clothes on the life lines.

The absence of TV has been one of our greatest blessings. It opened the fascinating world of books to our children who, until we began cruising, seldom read. We were only a week into our cruise when Chris, quickly drying the last of the dishes so I could begin our nightly reading session of The Hobbit, exclaimed, “This beats watching TV any day!” And this from a boy who had suffered the cruelest deprivation of his life only months before when we cut the cable to MTV.

Since we’ve been cruising, I’ve ceased to worry about depriving the children of their involvement in organized sports and clubs. We’ve found that this life at sea provides ample opportunities for developing skills, independence and self-reliance that more than compensate for that lack. These cruising activities seem to be more holistic in scope, as well, encompassing many aspects of a single theme.

Fishing, for example, has become a favored past-time for the children, but this passion involves far more than casting a line into the sea. Each child catches and salts down his own bait, rigs and cares for his own poles, then cleans and fillets his own catch. They both spend many enjoyable hours making lures out of feathers, bits of colored string, and other odds and ends.

Chris, especially, actively seeks out and devours any articles or books on the sport of fishing that he can find, and he spends hours pouring through our charts and cruising guides, looking for the best fishing and diving spots.

Our fish identification book has been worn to tatters by constant perusal. Now, when I am puzzled by the identity of an unfamiliar fish, I have only to describe it to the kids to find my answer. Even the children’s artwork nowadays includes many finely detailed and colored drawings of the fish they admire.

In cruising, we’ve found that many of the skills that the children learn provide as much practical use as they do play, Rowing, sailing, and working the out¬board motor are not only fun but are the children’s main means of transportation to and from shore. Swimming, snorkeling, and diving provide excellent recreation as well as dinner.

Chris has become quite proficient at hunting and spearing fish and lobster, often free-diving to thirty feet to stalk a grouper or free an anchor. Kelli’s snorkeling and diving produces clams and scallops for supper, as well as a myriad of pretty shells for creating jewelry.

A cruising life does provide less opportunity for the children to play with their own peers, but even this lack does have its compensations. The children have been forced to seek companionship in unexpected places, including each other. Their many expeditions to shore to explore the beaches and towns together has fostered a growing sense of responsibility, cooperation, protectiveness and con¬sideration between the two. It is often commented on how close they seem to be–comments rarely merited in the highly separate lives they led ashore.

In addition, both children have become quite adept at striking up friendships with many of the adults they meet. These adults have included not only other cruisers or vacationing Americans, but many of the local Mexicans as well. Some of these friendships have become very special .and lasting, while others have led to some unique experiences.

The children’s increasing command of Spanish has allowed them to become friends with some of the Mexican shopkeepers and fishermen and their children. In the process, the children have waited on tables, made signs in English, and helped out their friends in other small ways, as well as enjoyed several tours of local commercial fishing boats. One special friendship with a young American couple working down here led Chris to work and pay for his own diving instructions, allowing him to become a certified scuba diver at the age of twelve.

When the children do happen to come into contact with other cruising children, these friendships tend to be swift and deep, bonded as they are by their shared, unique experiences. They are learning that friendships need not be limited to one’s own peer group or even to one’s own nationality but are to be nurtured and savored wherever they are found.

One of the very special aspects of cruising has been the increased opportunities it provides for children and parents to play together. The few bouts with boredom aboard our boat have only led to the discovery and sometimes rediscovery of enjoyable pursuits. I’ve discovered the joys of sewing, an activity I had formerly shunned, when Kelli and I began to design and hand-sew doll’s clothes. Dale, after a lifetime of avoiding most board games and cards of any sort, now enthusiastically plays both with his family. The children’s love of drawing has caused me to rediscover my own love for it and Dale to discover it for the first time. Most notable, I believe, is the rediscovery of the child within the adult, as Dale and I find an increasing sense of whimsy and nonsense pervading “La Gitana.”

It is not only the play and pleasures, however, that are shared aboard a cruising boat, but the work, the responsibilities, and the learning as well. Aboard “La Gitana,” all the water and fuel hauling, the grocery shopping, the laundering and cooking, mending and sewing, and the bottom cleaning are joint activities, shared by all to some degree. Chris and Kelli are a great help when it comes to sailing the boat. They handle much of the foredeck work as well as much of the anchoring now.

School, however, is our most challenging responsibility. I have been very pleased with the quality and content of the Calvert correspondence lessons, but it has taken some time for all of us to adjust to the children-as-pupils and mother-as-teacher relationship. Having taught school a bit in the past, I had no qualms about teaching my own children. However, I have since discovered that there is an emotional bond, or perhaps tension, between mothers and their children that does not exist in the normal classroom and does not facilitate the learning process.

It seems to make the goofing off and the squabbling, the stricter expectations and shorter tempers all the more prevalent. The children somehow feel much freer to criticize their own mother’s teaching standards and techniques than they ever did their former teachers. I, in turn, find my own children’s sloppy work habits and inattentiveness much more exasperating than I did with my former students. Even normal shipboard activities seem to confound our best efforts as Dale tears apart the salon looking for some tool while working on one of his own projects, or friendly neighbors row by for a chat. Underway there is always a herd of dolphin, a caught fish or a call to tack to upset our lessons. And yet, I keep reminding myself, isn’t this what we imagined maritime cruising to be all about–pitting ourselves against the unknown challenges in the world, in each other, and in ourselves, grappling with it and coming out the better?

And so, we’ve grappled with our schooling these past two years, and, in fact, have seemed to come out the better for it. School is now a much more orderly process. The disruptions still occur, but we’re learning when to be firm and when to be flexible. The children are learning to accept my higher standards, and I am learning to handle the highs and lows of teaching them with more equilibrium.

The satisfaction of personally supervising their studies and watching each child struggle with and acquire new skills and concepts now outweighs the moments of temper and frustration. Dale and I feel, more than ever, that the children are receiving a better, more comprehensive, more individualized education than they ever would have received ashore. And, in the process, our own basic education is getting a thorough review. It’s a learning experience shared by all.

We have been cruising aboard “La Gitana” for over two years now, and not one of us would trade this life for our life ashore. Not all of it has been pleasant. I haven’t mentioned the time our drinking water turned a gunky brown and all of us were sick flat on our backs for a week, or the time I heard a bump in the night and looked out the porthole to see a huge shrimper looming over our bow, or the time I set the kids’ bunk cushions ablaze while trying to dry them with the portable heater.

Then there was the time I dropped the thermometer and the mercury rolled into the 45 gallon water tank that Dale had just cleaned and refilled, and the time our kitten swallowed some bait attached to a fish-hook, and in her excitement jumped overboard and had to be reeled in on the pole. And there have been other times like these, including the common drudgery of hauling water, cleaning fuel tanks and scraping the boat’s bottom. But what life is without these “times”?

To me, one of the magical things about cruising is this meshing of the ordinary with the extraordinary, the dreadful with the delightful. This life, we’ve discovered, is not an extended vacation, an action-packed adventure, nor an escape from reality.

It’s neither dream nor nightmare but simply a way of life—of living from day to day—that we find very satisfying. All of the doubts that plagued me before our cruise began have now been thoroughly tested and dispelled–at least for the time being. I’ve learned that this cruising life can be all the things that we dreamed it to be, and more, and sometimes less. In fact, it’s a wonderful life; but this one, like any other, has its great unknown–and that’s the magic of it.

MORE POSTS ON OUR SEA SAGA

Sea Saga, Part I – Catching the Dream

Sea Saga, Part II – Honeymoon Sail Bailing Water

Sea Saga, Part III – First Stop in Paradise, the Virgin Islands

Sea Saga, Part IV – Ex-pats and Pirates in the Bay Islands of Honduras

Sea Saga, Part V – La Gitana, Our Larger Self

Sea Saga, Part VI – Cruising with Kids, Dream or Nightmare? (Part One)

Sea Saga, Part VI — Cruising with Kids, Dream or Nightmare?

Tags

adventure, children, Cruising (maritime), Dreams Come True, life-style, memoir, sailing, Sailing Around the World

The following is an article published in Latitude 38 many years ago. I’m reprinting it here as part of our Sea Saga series, about our six and a half year circumnavigation aboard our sailboat. The article will be posted in two parts. This is the first.

Cruising with Kids–Dream or Nightmare? Part One

It was the last day of our garage sale and I was happily breezing through the house directing potential buyers to the last of the hanging plants and picture frames. Within the week we would be moved aboard “La Gitana,” our 46-foot Formosa, preparing her for our long-awaited cruise into Mexico and the South Pacific. I was so excited by the prospect that I almost didn’t notice Kelli, our eight-year-old daughter, when she came into the family room and stood staring at the empty walls as if stunned
.
“I thought it was only a dream!” she cried, then burst into tears.

It was “only a dream”–a dream-come-true for Dale and me. But for our children, it may have seemed more of a nightmare as they watched the bits and pieces of their lives being hauled away by strangers.

A year of patiently hand-feeding them tales of sailing off to tropical isles where they could swim, snorkel, and fish every day was rapidly losing its influence. When tasted with the very bitter sacrifices that were being required of them, such tales did not seem so sweet.

Our decision to go cruising had not been a sudden one. The idea had been playing in the backs of our minds since we were first married. We decided then that “someday” when the children were the “right” ages, when we were financially able to leave on an open-ended cruise without the need of returning to a work-day world any time soon, we would leave for the South Pacific. Ultimately, our dream was to sail around the world.

But it took an idyllic bareboat charter in the Caribbean some ten years later to finally budge that dream into reality. We realized that our children, then seven and ten, were the perfect ages for living aboard a boat. And with a little reshuffling of the financial deck and a lot of belt-tightening, we could just about squeeze by on that open-ended clause.

After all, if we didn’t go now, when would we? We could wait until the children were grown, but how could we deprive them of such an adventure? And who could wait that long anyway?

Dale and I spent many happy hours convincing ourselves that what we would be offering the children in a life at sea would more than compensate for the things that they would be giving up. We thought of the wonderful experience of traveling, the great cultural and environmental education, the challenges and opportunities for self-development. It all sounded so good, so true, and yet, a perverse thought kept plaguing me: Was it perhaps “too good to be true”? I began to consider the darker side of life at sea.

Simply moving aboard a boat and sailing off into the world was going to require some drastic changes in lifestyle quite apart from the obvious benefits. The mere logistics of gathering the four corners of our large house and fitting it within the space the size of our family room alone required some creative mental maneuvering. Trying to envision some semblance of tranquility and order within such a jumble seemed beyond the stretch of my imagination.

Could the four of us truly be happy living together in such close quarters? Wouldn’t the lack of space and privacy release hidden demons within us that would turn our cruising dream into a nightmare?

Even simple luxuries took on new ominous dimensions as I tried to mentally delete them from the frugal lifestyle we were contemplating. While it seemed we ought to be able to live happily ever after without the benefits of hot showers, a cold fridge, a washing machine and TV–what if we couldn’t? Who knew what trivial monkey-wrench could throw the whole dream askew?

One of my secret fears was that we might all become extremely bored with our cruising life. I tried imagining day after day, week after week of nothing but bright skies, warm seas and white sand, and found the effort becoming tedious.

After all, just how much swimming, fishing and snorkeling could one endure? Even heaven could become tedious after a while—couldn’t it?

Most of our worries centered on the children. Chief among these, and certainly the one most on the minds of the grandparents, was the question of safety. Were Dale and I being irresponsible in taking the kids off into the unknown danger that seemed integral in such long-distance cruising? Who knew what deadly storms or hurricanes, shark and appendicitis attacks, pirates or revolutionaries we would be exposing them to?

Then there were their social lives to consider. Our children never seemed so happy as when they had hordes of kids to play with. Surely it was grossly unfair of us to deprive them of their peers and of the opportunities and enjoyment that organized sports and recreations offered. Often, I would find myself closely watching my two children as they moved about their daily activities–the very activities of which we would soon be depriving them.

Christopher, at eleven, was fully enmeshed in that preadolescent social scene of soccer and baseball, skate boarding and video-games. It was a life-style in which he felt quite comfortable, and even while Dale and I felt that the life we were offering him was better, the question remained: Would he think so, say ten years down the line? Or would he feel cheated of the normal activities of adolescence?

At eight years old, Kelli’s life was so much simpler, and yet such simplicity seemed all the more wretched to deprive her: doll houses and baby cribs, roller skates and her first two-wheel bike, gymnastic classes and tap dance lessons. Was she a budding ballerina whose career was being cut to the quick? What other new talents and skills would be left unplumbed as we dragged her away from future softball games, piano lessons and Girl Scout activities? Really, just how much were we truly asking our children to give up in order to accommodate our dream?

With Kelli’s tears that bright June morning, all of these questions and doubts came bubbling back to the surface, bringing into sharp focus our quandary: would this cruising life that Dale and I so clearly envisioned reach in reality the expectation of our dreams; or would it fray somehow and wear thin under the wear and tear of everyday living, dissolving into the nightmare our children half-expected?

The trouble was that we would never know until we had lived it. And to Dale and me, regardless the outcome, this life we so clearly envisioned seemed worth the effort and the risk. We had this singular opportunity to draw together as a family and pit our strengths, our skills, and our spirits against an unknown life and, just perhaps, come out the better for it. It was a chance we could not pass up.

(To Be Continued) Read part Two HERE:

https://deborahbrasket.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/sailing-with-kids-into-the-unknown-continuation-of-sea-saga-part-vi/

MORE POSTS ON OUR SEA SAGA

Sea Saga, Part I – Catching the Dream

Sea Saga, Part II – Honeymoon Sail Bailing Water

Sea Saga, Part III – First Stop in Paradise, the Virgin Islands

Sea Saga, Part IV – Ex-pats and Pirates in the Bay Islands of Honduras

Sea Saga, Part V – La Gitana, Our Larger Self

La Gitana, Our Larger Self – Sea Saga, Part V

Tags

adventure, Boat, circumnavigation, Dreams Come True, Gypsy, La Gitana, lifestyle, live-aboard, Sail, sailboat, sailing, Sailing Around the World, traveling, Yacht

We named her “La Gitana,” Spanish for the gypsy, partly in tribute to our family’s Spanish heritage, partly because sea gypsies are what we would be once we moved aboard her and sailed away, partly for my long fascination with everything pertaining to Gypsies.

I loved the music, the dancing, the clothing, the jewelry, the colorful furnishings of the caravans. I loved what they stood for, the capriciousness of their existence living on the edge of society, their adventuresome spirit, their playfulness and spontaneity, their wildness—all the things we grew up thinking of as gypsy-like. La Gitana symbolized all of that for us. We feminized the masculine gitano and added the lyrical signifier “la” for alliteration, and to show her singular importance. The, not a.

Of course she had to be feminine—all ships traditionally are. They are vessels that serve us, that carry us in her belly, under her wings. Her sails are softly rounded breasts bravely and proudly pulling us onward. And she was alive! So lively with a personality and purpose all her own—a creature, not a thing.

She seemed almost as alive to us as the other creatures that she cavorted with, the dolphins that played at her side, the whales that swam beneath and circled her, the flying fish that landed on her decks. Her spirit was all her own. But her breath, her pulse, her beating heart, her life blood, was us, the people who inhabited and cared for her, plotted her course, walked her decks, stroked her beams, and dreamed her dreams.

It was a symbiotic relationship. We trusted her and sank everything we had into her. And she depended upon us to steer her away from the harbor and allow her to run with the wind, to lead her to a safe haven and hunker her down when the hurricane blew.
Originally she was called “Swagman,” which is what peddlers and tinkers are called Down Under. We bought her from an Aussie living in San Diego who had commissioned her to be built in Taiwan—a Formosa 46, a 46-foot Peterson designed cutter rigged sloop with a center-cockpit. Cousin to the better known and more costly Peterson 44.

We had invested so much more than money in her—our hopes and dreams, our safety and security, our hearth and home, our larger selves. She is what separated us from the sea on those long ocean voyages and moved us through the air by harnessing the wind. Deep in her belly she rocked and sung us to sleep. When the storms rose she sheltered us from the rain. When huge rogue waves came crashing down she lifted us up. When the wind died away and left us floundering in the middle of nowhere, she was the still center in a circle of blue.

I cannot tell you the pleasure and affection I felt when we were ashore and looked out at her waiting patiently for our return. What it felt like to bring our dinghy aside her and hoist our provisions aboard. The thrill of weighing anchor and heading out to sea, raising her sails, watching them fill.

Hunkered beneath her dodger during night watches, I listened to the rush of waves and sails in the black, black night, and watched her mast stirring stars. Sleeping below deck as she rocked with the waves, her rigging humming overhead, the soft gurgle of the ocean whispering through the hull, was sweetness like no other.

I loved sunning my chilled skin on her warm teak decks after a long morning hunting and diving for scallops. Falling asleep in the cockpit on balmy days in port, watching the stars gently rock overhead as she rolled with the soft swells.

How I miss her! But we carry her in our hearts and in our memories, in the words on these pages, and the novels I am writing. I like to think another family has taken over where we left off, hugging her close, and steering her on new adventures.

La Gitana—my larger self.

MORE POSTS ON OUR SEA SAGA

Sea Saga, Part I – Catching the Dream

Sea Saga, Part II – Honeymoon Sail Bailing Water

Sea Saga, Part III – First Stop in Paradise, the Virgin Islands

Sea Saga, Part IV – Ex-pats and Pirates in the Bay Islands of Honduras

Sea, Sky, Earth, Fire–My Daughter on Her Wedding Day

Tags

adventure, daughter, sailing, traveling, wedding

She was married beneath a cliff on the edge of the sea standing barefoot on the rocky beach.  Barking seals sunning on rocks and crashing waves nearly drowned out the simple ceremony.

Hunchbacked boulders rose from the sea behind her like giant guardian sentinels. A single guitarist played flamenco music to match the red rose in her hair while the late afternoon sun glimmered across the waves.

Sea.  Sky.  Earth.  Fire.  All four essential elements holding the world together blended beautifully together that day.

It’s not surprising she would choose such a setting for her wedding day, with all the things that she loves, that helped shape her into the strong, fearless, independent and beautiful woman she is today, in full display.  Sea, sky, earth, fire.

She grew up on a cruising sailboat, after all.  The rhythm of the sea and sky moves through her body.  She was rocked to sleep in her bunk with the sound of the wind and waves rushing all around her, and a sky full of stars for a nightlight.

The world was literally her playground. In every new port or cove we entered she and her brother would row ashore to explore on their own–us trusting they would return safely to us.

Even when her bother stayed behind in Australia she continued to explore on her own.

In Cyprus, Turkey, Malta, Spain—this woman child of fourteen slipped through the streets with her canvas backpack and torn jeans scrawled with the names of the heavy metal rock bands she’d come to love.

With her long dark hair and sun-browned skin, her dangling earrings and silver bracelets, she looked like the Gypsy she may have been, her Spanish heritage in full flaunt.

Her first guitar was purchased in a tiny shop in Toledo.  I can still see her bending tenderly over the strings, strumming softly, her face half-hidden by her long bangs and curling strands of hair.

When we returned home after seven years of living on our boat, I worried about this woman-child who had barely seen the inside of a classroom, who had been home-schooled nearly all her life, whose lab work was diving for scallops, gutting fish for frying, drying sea-horses, and identifying shells she’d found beach-combing.

Whose knowledge of history was gathered from the villages she roamed, the cathedrals and castles and museums she visited, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Parthenon in Athens, the Alhambra in Spain.

Political science was gleaned first hand when we were caught in a coup in Fiji, aided by navy sailors flying the cycle and hammer in Port Aden, accused of selling arms to  enemy rebels in Sudan, and sailing into Panama on the day it was invaded by US warships in the overthrow of Noriega.  How would she survive High School in the United States?

I needn’t have worried.  She was as solid as a rock.  She had such a strong sense of herself that none of the juvenile drama and gang warfare and cliquish snobbery fazed her.

Nor was it surprising that she chose archeology as a career, or took up skydiving and surfing as her hobbies, or fell in love with someone who loved the sea and sky as much as she did, a fellow skydiver and surfer.

My daughter is as earthy as she is sea and wind washed.  As  down-to-earth as they come.  She digs in the earth for a living. She hikes across hills and mountains surveying the land and mapping archeological formations.  She uncovers and catalogues chards of earthen pottery and stone tools from ancient middens.

She hammers copper and strings stones to make her own earrings. She grows her own herbs. She designed her own wedding gown, baked and decorated her own wedding cake.  She runs marathons, works out in boot camps, and eats mostly vegan, mostly organic.  She takes charge of any calamity with the iron resolve and don’t-mess-with-me attitude of a Marine staff sergeant.  If she hasn’t had her morning coffee—well, watch out.

For there’s fire in her soul too.  You can see it in her dark snapping eyes, her loud belly laugh, and the way she salsas across the dance floor. In the way she tumbles from planes and rhumbas across the sky, nearly 2000 jumps now.

The thorny rose tattoo that circles her ankle, the diamond stud in her nose, and the chipotle pepper in her dark chocolate wedding cake all attest to her fiery, feisty nature.

You can see that fire in the flamenco inspired wedding dress she designed with the tea-dyed Italian silk, layers of French Chantilly lace and funky high-low hemline, a red flower in her hair to match her red heels. You can see it in the flowers she chose for her bouquet, the scarlets  and purples and oranges. You can see it in the way she looks at her new husband and basks in the love-light of his eyes.

Sea. Sky. Earth. Fire.  All are perfectly balanced in this beautiful daughter of mine, and blended in perfection on her wedding day.

Did I mention how much I love her?  How proud I am of her?

For you baby girl, from your mama–the speech I never gave but composed in  my heart as I watched you on your wedding day.  January 12, 2013.  Twelve days after the world was supposed to end your new life begins.