Night passage
The yellow VW van sat in the driveway, side door open so that my dad could take out the brown vinyl middle seats. Into the vacancy would go sleeping bags and a cooler, snacks and clothes and a huge Folgers coffee can to pee in on the eight hour trip through the cities of southern California, through the desert full of joshua trees and trailer parks, truck stops and tumble weeds, to the mountains where Bigfoot and horses and trout fishing lived.
When I was little I loved the drive up to the Sierra Nevadas not because we would see all these sights, but because I would fall asleep next to my sisters in sleeping bags on the floor, the motion of the van and the songs of Johnny Cash at San Quintin on the cassette player, the air vents recirculating my dad's cigarette smoke at 3am. It was exciting and comforting to be carried out to the packed up car, bundled in pajamas and heavy with child-deep sleep, knowing that the next day we would be breathing in pine scented air and throwing neon pink bait after rainbow trout in the tarn.
Tonight I helped pack up the boat (or pack away- remove movable things from tables, stow crystal glasses and heavy sculptures, tape down cupboards) and pull up the docklines, carry fenders to the bow.
Night passage.
I am going to fall asleep to the hum of the engines, the splashing of water on the bow, the rocking of my home in the Gulf Stream. I am comforted by these noises, these movements, excited to wake up to a new liquid -dotted -with -scrubby -Florida -pines (or palms) landscape. My sunrise navigation watch will steer us closer to Miami, closer to a nice dinner out, closer to the end of this charter season.
But for tonight, I will dream of dolphins and foamy waves and a bright yellow van with "A Boy Named Sue" drifting with wisps of blue smoke into the early morning night.
When I was little I loved the drive up to the Sierra Nevadas not because we would see all these sights, but because I would fall asleep next to my sisters in sleeping bags on the floor, the motion of the van and the songs of Johnny Cash at San Quintin on the cassette player, the air vents recirculating my dad's cigarette smoke at 3am. It was exciting and comforting to be carried out to the packed up car, bundled in pajamas and heavy with child-deep sleep, knowing that the next day we would be breathing in pine scented air and throwing neon pink bait after rainbow trout in the tarn.
Tonight I helped pack up the boat (or pack away- remove movable things from tables, stow crystal glasses and heavy sculptures, tape down cupboards) and pull up the docklines, carry fenders to the bow.
Night passage.
I am going to fall asleep to the hum of the engines, the splashing of water on the bow, the rocking of my home in the Gulf Stream. I am comforted by these noises, these movements, excited to wake up to a new liquid -dotted -with -scrubby -Florida -pines (or palms) landscape. My sunrise navigation watch will steer us closer to Miami, closer to a nice dinner out, closer to the end of this charter season.
But for tonight, I will dream of dolphins and foamy waves and a bright yellow van with "A Boy Named Sue" drifting with wisps of blue smoke into the early morning night.
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