Turning back
Red and numb, my fingers work the blue nylon into loops and knots, rain drizzling on to the deck, the furled sails, the smile on my face. I am wet and cold and I can't feel my fingers but we are moving towards the ocean. The outgoing tide ushers us towards the openness and I can feel it tugging at my chest: the salty nests of seaweed sliding past our bow, the breaching of whales punctuating commas on the horizon, the swallows who will appear and rest on deck before reassessing their course.
The clouds cease their crying as we stow lines and fenders, as we yip and hurrah and wind our way east. I free the main halyard and clamber up the mast where the head of the sail waits for me to adorn her with means of skyward propulsion. A twist of (red, numb) fingers secures the halyard and we are ready to raise that wind brushed fabric, ready to point the bow southeast across the swells, ready to hunker down for a night full of dark clouds and strengthening breeze.
I haul and crank and spur the sail into the air. The slight tipping, the hungry belly of the main satiated with wind, the land thinning to pale sand and green gray scrub as the buoys fall behind the stern: I am reaching towards home.
Another Home, where the soil is mixed with salt and water in slippery proportions, where the growth is fluid and the roots hold fast to time worn stones, where the tending is in the form of swirling thoughts and turbulent dreams. A vast farm of wildness unearthing before me.
Then.
Slack.
Rig.
Unsupported.
Mast.
Big.
Fucking.
Problem.
We curse and swing 180 to port. Furl sails, unbury fenders, cleat off lines with bitter ends in bowlines ready to catch the dock. The hurrahs stowed away, we motor towards repairs, towards another day or week of waiting. I (begrudgingly) give gratitude for failure early in the voyage, for the chance to turn back when there is turning back, for the taste of my salty heart fluttering in the wind and swimming in the waves and working through the line in my hands.
I shove red and numb fingers into damp pockets and know this voyage will come to me when I need it. That the waiting is part of the allurement, of the work. That my heart is still unfurling even (especially) in the disappointment. Home cannot abandon me, as I will not abandon it.
Wind, waves, sea, and soil. The love and the longing. The alchemy of my soul.
The clouds cease their crying as we stow lines and fenders, as we yip and hurrah and wind our way east. I free the main halyard and clamber up the mast where the head of the sail waits for me to adorn her with means of skyward propulsion. A twist of (red, numb) fingers secures the halyard and we are ready to raise that wind brushed fabric, ready to point the bow southeast across the swells, ready to hunker down for a night full of dark clouds and strengthening breeze.
I haul and crank and spur the sail into the air. The slight tipping, the hungry belly of the main satiated with wind, the land thinning to pale sand and green gray scrub as the buoys fall behind the stern: I am reaching towards home.
Another Home, where the soil is mixed with salt and water in slippery proportions, where the growth is fluid and the roots hold fast to time worn stones, where the tending is in the form of swirling thoughts and turbulent dreams. A vast farm of wildness unearthing before me.
Then.
Slack.
Rig.
Unsupported.
Mast.
Big.
Fucking.
Problem.
We curse and swing 180 to port. Furl sails, unbury fenders, cleat off lines with bitter ends in bowlines ready to catch the dock. The hurrahs stowed away, we motor towards repairs, towards another day or week of waiting. I (begrudgingly) give gratitude for failure early in the voyage, for the chance to turn back when there is turning back, for the taste of my salty heart fluttering in the wind and swimming in the waves and working through the line in my hands.
I shove red and numb fingers into damp pockets and know this voyage will come to me when I need it. That the waiting is part of the allurement, of the work. That my heart is still unfurling even (especially) in the disappointment. Home cannot abandon me, as I will not abandon it.
Wind, waves, sea, and soil. The love and the longing. The alchemy of my soul.
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