Sorry, I Have to Go — And Come Again
Leaving the proximity of my grandchildren for the open sea
I’ve always loved the quiet shores, those unfettered with lovers, or other friendly beasts. I spend the time, lately, thinking about the purchase of a boat, not to sail away, having done so too many times, but to escape, live on, make it my home.
What concerns me is the coming of change — that onshore there is a disquiet, an uncertainty, neighborhoods at odds, and I’ve thought about this on long walks, till my feet have blisters, heading inland to where the sun sets behind buildings. I have discovered I cannot unwind to the sound of clocks in towers but only to the time when I have put my bare feet on polished sand.
I hold nothing back, guilty of dark suspicions and aware the end of something is encroaching. People live with little grace anymore. I’m out of community-based knowledge, but full of love. That said, I fear what love I know is limited to the circle of the Earth, its space, and time.
I’ve been busy making sure to live out one last dream, that upon the ocean I shall breathe my last breath.
So, I should expect in the year coming, I will be somewhere, not here, no longer writing my words in a walled garden, or in a park, sat in a coffee shop, or learning in libraries, because it’s time to begin cleaning out my closets.
There will be no need to mind my temper, stay in bed past the sound of rush hour traffic, eat in crowded restaurants, with no secret places to tell lies, big or small, or try to shape sandcastles from mortar.
I’ll have time to be bored…
But wait…aren’t bedtime stories waiting to be written, a child’s hand to hold, young birthdays to celebrate, examples to set, how the knife is on one side, fork on the other, children in which to invest my love?
Here is my dilemma. Grandchildren at the centre of my life. Young ears in which to whisper secrets. All my gentle, wasted love still to give. Children teaching me to be gentle, kind, and interested. How they make life real…willing me to come into their sunshine.
How quickly things change, dimples into wrinkles, and love changing back to what it was before it came.
I was ready, raring, recharged and unafraid to hold someone so new when they arrived. A child is a way to learn life’s most important lesson, how to look at things in more than a single-minded way.
With two years of loving presence given, it is time to return to the sea. Of course, I’ll come to find them, hold their hands, search for the blinking owl in morning. There will be many such days ahead, airplanes boarded, Sausalito left behind for those hours I want to spend with them.
But they will also fly to me. I’ll explain reasons as to why granddad is living on a boat, show them the pilot house, the head, bow, and stern, point out all the things we pass, explain the buoy, finger the nautical maps, answer a lifetime of questions on a single sailing.
I cannot explain, brave as I am, why things change. I think the ending is too personal, too delicate. Whatever it is that drives me back to the sea, too old to be running away, far beyond seventeen, is an old man’s feelings, his hopes and desires begun way back when and now ready to be finished.
Railroads never caught my imagination, busses came along late or not at all, flying lost its calling, and flowers were always seasonal.
The ocean is certain, every minute, day or night, year after year, it rolls and heaves, and ebbs, its calling never ceasing. The sea does not afford one a bench on which to relax, no tree to shade beneath, it advertises nothing but what you meet.
There are no buildings restricting a view of the sky, it cares nothing whether dressed or naked, it disobeys rules, as much as it confuses the unwitting sailor.
It is not a place to be naive, there will be shivers, lopsided stars, cracking knees, pinched fingers and rope burns, groans in the wind, and storms that make a skull frail.
But there will be harbors, too, a place where grandchildren eat ice cream, play pirates on the deck, flying the skull and crossbones, and where kisses abound until little ones are fast asleep.
How can I be anything other than what a child will demand, filling my head and heart with wonder, coming home to smiles and the truest words I know: I am so lucky to have their love in my life.
Note: Bering yachts (Our first choice) have changed their fleet dimensions to the smallest being 70 feet and by law would need a captain. Too big. The Nordhaven 60 is our second choice, promoted to 1st.
(Pic above not actual boat)
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