Tomorrow is mast-stepping day; for some reason we cannot do it today, probably because it takes a while and Paul could only get out there this afternoon—also, Jeffie could only get out there this afternoon because the tide’s too high before 3-ish today. And then the day is shot, apparently. So tomorrow will be the big day but today is equally exciting. It’s especially cool because about a week ago I went over to the shop where the spars were and saw that 2 were missing—and I immediately thought that Paul had gone and started to do this himself, or with his waterfront pals, and I was relegated, as usual, to the person who did not count. How could I count, anyway? I’m new here, even though my family has been here a million years; I don’t know diddly about sailing or boats; I’m not a guy so the hail-fellow-well-met card can’t be played . . . all I was good for was taking care of Jeff Brown until more competent, more deserving people came along. And this made me so sad on so many levels. Because once again, I realized I did not matter.
But no, that was not the way it was at all. If I had stopped feeling sorry for myself for
10 seconds I would have seen that Paul had moved two spars to the side of the
shop because he needed to use the sawhorses.
And apropos of nothing the other day he said, “Don’t worry; I won’t do
it without you.” And when I looked at
him funny he said “You were thinking, ‘that sonofabitch went and did this
without me and I don’t count’” and he’s smiling as he says this and I think,
“How does he know this about me? Am I
that transparent, that needy?
I have got to get a grip.
I just hate the not knowing, the not having had the
experience or the credentials or the time served to belong to the club. And there are so many clubs where I am
outside looking in. Feeling sorry for
myself. Because I do that really well.
What, after all, did I do but what a hundred other relatives
and residents have done for the past 50 years—paint and sand and varnish and
caulk and love this old boat? I have no
cause to feel possessive. Yet when I
look out in my yard and there is this big empty space, I feel . . .
bereft. Jeff Brown will be on his mooring but now he slips back into the
public domain, far away from me or any claim I have, especially any expertise I
have regarding What Comes Next; our relationship is no loner intimate, or no
more intimate that the relationship he’s had with all those others who’ve
actually sailed him and known what they were doing.
My cousin’s husband said to me the other day, regarding one
of my uncle’s other boats, “I can’t sail.
I’m too old to learn. I
can’t. Okay?” and the way he said it, I
heard that hard edge, and I felt a kinship with him somehow—we who grew up on
the water and around boats and because of family prohibitions or insistences on
making your living off the water and not just lounging around on it, we were
denied this. It would have been different if we grew up In Nebraska. It was all around us, and we couldn’t touch
it.
And now that we can—or at least I can, it seems as out of
reach as it did 25 years ago: I am starting too late, I am foolish to think I
can be good at this, I am a rank amateur in a world of professionals and time
is not on my side . . .
But today, at 3pm, I get to be a tiny part of things
again. And again tomorrow. And I guess that’s good enough. At least Jeff is happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment