Ocean Wings

Ocean stretches salty paws to the horizon, a fur of seaweed and sunken shells deep in the hide. 
Land growls in the absence and claws at my back, drawing my thoughts to marshy fields and jagged tree trunks searching for blue sky through a tangled pelt of clouds. 

Time twists and breaks, flexes like the bow of this pummeled boat. 
I strain my dreams through the sieve of stars overhead and what falls remains to be slumbered upon. 

Here in my hands the wings of a fish tremble and push, a curve pressing into the palms behind bloody knuckles as translucent bones shift and spread. A gasp and release, a shriek and a sigh. Into the water into the night we move forward together in leaps and glides and a jauntiness I never knew I held. You teach me well. 

I wipe the sun streaks from my eyes and let the moon wash over me its secret language of reflection, illumination from source unseen. The song has just begun in the quiet of the dark and I hold the notes between waves, between screaming gusts, between fingers that can no longer grasp this place. 

We understand each other: the dive and flight, the relinquishment of time and holding of grace. Fins and feet, whale jaws and rhubarb roots. None of it makes sense until I stand (swim) in the middle of it all and let it go. You (I) tumble back into the blackness, trusting whatever is after you (me) drives us forward and calls us to the slippery descent back Home.  

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.

Another (totally different) Passage

Signal Flags

The grab bags are packed and ready by the bunk: water, granola bars, blankets.
She is listing hard. The ballast is deep but the weight rolls and shifts and kicks within her. She hasn’t yet left the dock, the lines (blood and flesh) still hold her.
She will soon be righted.

I am anxious as I go through the aisles of Trader Joe's on this familiar game of passage-making preparation. Who knows how long the passage will be? What should I expect? I provision heavily. Dinner one: bacon wrapped pork tenderloin with mashed taters and sauteed apples. Dinner two: stuffed turkey breast with roasted fennel and onions. Dinner three: portobello mushrooms stacked with roasted peppers, spinach, and goat cheese.
Nothing spicy, nothing too acidic. Don't make anyone sick.

I think on all those evenings gazing up at the emerging stars as a warm bowl of pasta sits on my foul weather geared lap, salt spray seasoning my food. I think of the nights I have been too tired to enjoy eating but needed the companionship a meal provides. I think of the nights held by the water, the sloshing fluid my home and the thumping of the bow through the waves a reassuring heartbeat.

This will be different. The city lights blur out the stars and moon. This roof will be my universe.

How many casseroles should I make? How much freezer space will I have? Will any of us be hungry or too exhausted to eat? I know one of us will be a drinker. It doesn’t worry me. I hope he drinks a lot actually. And sleeps through the night.

He’s not on watch this time with the rest of us.

He is the reason for the watch.

The passage will begin with cramps and contractions and a ride to the hospital. There will be storms with lots of cussing and lulls with hand holding and sweet words. There will be blood and poop and life and joy.

This is a new passage with my listing, rolling, very pregnant sister.

All I can do is cook and clean and feed and support: my usual role, in a very different setting. These cupboards aren’t on the diagonal, these onesies don’t need to be waterproofed, this passage has no set destination.

It is time to throw off the docklines little one! 

(but wait til next week, I hear my sister saying)

You will be our captain, no doubt about it.

I'm ecstatic and terrified and overjoyed for this (your) delivery.

Fair winds and following seas until we meet!

Before I go...

My stomach tightens and churns.
I am going to sea.
I pull my hood over tangled hair, wrap my neck and feet with wool, pull on rubber deck boots and worn purple gloves.

My heart tingles and leaps.
I am going to sea.
I am in love with the idea, the action, the motion, the creatures, the deep dark mystery. I am elated and terrified. This happens each time I pack my sea bags and stumble down the dock. I imagine all those things you don’t want to imagine: the ship sinking in a storm; falling overboard on a night watch; knocked in the head by the boom; appendicitis 1000 miles out; fingers, arm, leg yanked off wrestling a line. These are things I should not think on, should not say or write lest they come true (knock on wood, spit over your shoulder, turn around three times).

Death follows me as flying fish skimming over the waves and swallows fluttering above the boom. That is why I sail. Not because I want to die, but because I want to live more fully, experience each breath with gratitude, savor each step on land or boat. I feel death’s whispers mingling with salty air and I respond with a quiet reevaluation of my life. What are my deepest longings? Who would I want to talk to as the ship was going down? What dreams have I neglected? What haven’t I done that I would like to do? Who are my people?

I have time out here to think and process and dream. Sometimes it hurts as scenes are played and replayed and no matter how much I try I can’t change the script. Sometimes I come up with ideas that make perfect sense 500 miles off shore but seem ludicrous back on land. Sometimes on dark nights I create strings of words and the stars help me garland the heavens with my stories.

I am a mere inch of fiberglass away from the dark and murky depths of the sea. I can feel her breath casting the boat over her back. I want to explore the depths of my own dark and murky soul, to meet her at the edge of dreams and tumble through the world together.

I don’t want to conquer mother ocean, or the wind, or death: it is not possible. I want to explore the things that frighten me down in my core because I know it will cause me to love them, the world, myself, more deeply than the deepest grains of sand at the bottom of the most remote canyons in the sea.

We motor into the river and the fear drops away. We raise the sails and I whoop in joy. I catch myself smiling and laughing and dancing across the deck. The wild dark waters swim across the hull and welcome us in a frothing confluence of salt and fresh. My belly is calm. My heart is light. With this movement forward, with this action of raising cloth to the wind, I find a piece of my wild self raised to the sky.


We have not left the river, we are not in danger yet, these waters are swirling but calm. On the ocean we will face bigger waves, bigger winds, bigger challenges, but we will be held by the seas that shake us. We will be exactly where we all need to be, reaching or close hauled or running on the perfect course, as crooked as our wind-dictated path may seem. Death will holler through the rigging during squalls and tuck us into our bunks, our eyes red and fluttering after four hours on watch.

Death and life, night and day will dance with the dolphins and whales off the bow. They will sing with us to the stars. They will steer us to the islands through our salty hands.

We will be wild, we will be peace, we will be alive as we are cradled in all that is and was and will be.