Life is an old family recipe

First of all, I wish I could say I invented the title of this column, but I did not.

I opened the cover of the August edition of “O, The Oprah Magazine” and there it was in an “IKEA” ad. Sometimes my themes cook up that way, like instant potatoes, they grow into something really good from nothing more than flakes.   

I’m at a bit of a standstill with my sailing adventures in that my rather antiquated six horsepower motor continues to gum up and give me angst. Nothing worse for a fresh new solo sailor (whose first real adventure was wrought with stormy memories) than to be threatened shortly thereafter and repeatedly with a coughing, sputtering two-stroke disaster.

Who knew one could have a touch of posttraumatic stress disorder after a rag doll affair in a sailboat. Yup uh huh.

So my motor is in the shop and sailing is sidelined until “Little Miss Evinrude” is running like a top.

No doubt I am trying to embrace my own preachings of patience—especially since I’ve waited months to sail and find myself stalled by simple mechanics.

Even so, I could use time at the dock to practice my bowlines. The “rabbit” and I are not seeing eye to eye at all.

I have failed to grasp and put into action the rote lesson, “You make a loop, the rabbit comes up through the hole, goes behind the tree and back down the hole,” more times in the last six weeks from fellow sailors trying to teach me how to tie the ultimate sailing knot, than I did in all the cumulative years of lessons learned raising three teenage girls and learning that I cannot  “nail ‘Jell-O’ to a tree.”

So I lean back into “Life is an old family recipe.”

What does that mean to you?

Perhaps it is simply that old family recipe of homemade bread, rhubarb jam, or a fruitcake recipe handed down by your grandmother and into your kitchen and out among your children.

Perhaps “Life is an old family recipe,” is reflected in your vegetable garden or in your hay field, because it’s the same way your father or your grandfather taught you.

Perhaps it is simply that you raised your children inside the same values you were taught from your parents. Perhaps it is that you raised your children outside of the values you were taught from your parents. Both are your recipe choices.

Perhaps it is the value you place on spiritual growth, a belief or understanding of a power greater than yourself--or a non-belief. Either way, it’s your life recipe, and your choice.

Perhaps “Life is an old family recipe,” is based on always being in control, or in letting go, being cherished or neglected, challenged or encouraged, smiled upon or always judged—and living it forward or passing it on—or not. Choices. 

“Life is an old family recipe.” 

And for what it’s worth, I think it’s worth some thought.

Time out for other stuff in life

Time out for other things in life

There’s a downside to throwing all of myself for months into a passionate hobby like sailing. Nothing else around here gets done.

The grass grew eight inches, dust settled in thick layers on windowsills and end tables and reminded me of what an abandoned house must look like.

The laundry was ignored until I ran out of underwear and was forced to dig out the dreaded “thong thing” I swore never to don again. Garbage day was missed so many times that I needed to buy bag tags—and used the whole package in one day.

What used to be the vegetable garden is now a weed patch overrun with thistles and crab grass. And oh, yes, let’s not forget about Mr. Squirrel, who during my sailboat frenzy found himself a mate and had a family of their own inside my sleeping bag in the garage.

The general lifelessness around here also signaled an infiltration of 32 geese that have been pooping themselves in just about every corner of my yard, including at my back door.

My daughters and grandchildren haven’t seen me in so long that they’ve started to rely on photographs to remind themselves of what I look like.

While my sailboat is a shiny new penny the other three quarters of my life has toppled into the red flag district of neglect.

Sometimes I feel like peanut butter melted to a thin paste in the hot summer sun and spreadable only in transparent layers. Spread thin—very, very thin.

It was my goal this past weekend to answer some of “today’s” questions such as, “Do I remember what a dust mop looks like?” “What is a vacuum cleaner?” and “When was the last time I took a stroll through the field?”

I was amazed to see during my field trip that the hay mixture out there is nearly waist high. How did that happen so fast and how did I miss it?

I also was reintroduced to wood ticks. A walk in the field made me fair game.

I didn’t find the tick on the inside arch of my foot until I was in the shower. I thought it was a piece of fuzz. When I tried to flick it off, the tick got stuck to my index finger causing me to freak out as I tried to boil it off with the shower head and down the drain, where I then imagined it clinging to the side of the pipe until the middle of the night, when it would crawl back up the drain hole and be waiting for me on the toilet seat in the morning.

It’s amazing how scared I get of something so small—right up there with thong underwear and yet am willing to strike out again alone in a sailboat after a rocky adventure in a storm.

Nonetheless, I am back up to speed around here. I managed to clean my bathroom, relocate the squirrel family, cut the grass, do laundry, dust, bake some muffins, and make plans to get reacquainted with my six little peppers.

And then I took my dad sailing and we had fun. I really can do it all. 

This one is for the books

If I would have known ahead of time exactly how it would all play out on Saturday afternoon I’m pretty sure I would have chosen to stay safe at the dock and polish the stainless steel screws on my sailboat.

But that’s not what boats are for, right?

June 16^th was indeed the first time I sailed my boat. June 27^th was the first time I did it alone—as in I was the only human on board. The only other living creature was the big fat-backed spider that crawled out of my mainsheet.

I’d studied my sailing boat manual until I couldn’t see. I’d walked the boat from bow to stern talking to myself about how to rig that and how to raise this. I’d practiced all the moves 101 times.

I put on my “Indiana Jones” hat for good luck, started my little motor, shifted to reverse and backed out of my safe zone.

Within 15 minutes I could hardly believe it. I’d raised the sails, shut the motor off, and sailed in "Sand Bay" all by myself. Unbelievable!

And then the wind died.

I was to meet up with sailing friends at about seven miles from my safe little harbor zone.

I wasn't sure I could make it that far on my first solo voyage but one of the hardy roving tars had faith in me, so I kept going, taking a route north of “Nowhere Island,” past “Midway” and “Copenhagen Islands.”

The day was hot and muggy and most of the time the water shined like glass. I sailed whenever I could and motored when I couldn't, which was more than half the time.

I joked with the invisible man of “Murphy’s Law” about how coincidental it was to be on my first real solo sail in no appreciable wind.

I waved at lake lovers zooming by. One such group of women clearly enjoying their summer pontoon cruise shouted back to me “Beth! You rock! Rock on girl!”

I didn’t know who they were but my head swelled at being recognized on such a big lake and my "Indiana Jones" hat nearly popped off my head.

The skies to the west and south were dark and thundering and my optimist’s prime attitude blinded me to the wind shift. 

And then my little motor up and died just past “Mermaid Rock,” so I put sails up again and POOF! the wind picked up in "Water Narrows" and I sailed right through and into “Swell Bay.”

I came into view of other sailboats with sails down and motoring and I assumed it was the finish line of the Rendezvous Yacht Club’s “Sandpoint Island Race.” They were in fact seeking shelter.

As I was passing one of the boats I yelled to my friends onboard, “I have no motor!” and they looked at me with dropped jaw as I passed them going the wrong direction.

That’s when the wind exploded and off went my "Indiana Jones" hat into the brink and as fast as lightening the big bad storm blew into the bay and there I was with both sails up and a sitting duck.

It was a scene from the Robert Redford movie, “All is Lost.”

I don’t know how much time passed. I was flipped around like a rag doll and at one point was at a 45 degree angle with my boat—me high portside hauling on the tiller as I watched the lake pour in starboard and for a split second I was sure I was going to flip over.

I knew I had to let go and take a sail down and somehow I managed to ditch my jib and my main but forgot that my boom falls into the cockpit when the main comes down if its not hooked on the backstay first. The wind had a heyday with that too.

My friends had stuck around at a safe distance from my rag doll showcase and waited it out until I paid attention to their yelling instructions on where to go to get out of the wind, and then followed me. 

I wish I had that experience on video. I wasn’t scared but it was a harrowing adventure. Everything untoward that could happen to me in sailing appears to have happened all in one day AND on the first solo sail of my life.

The rest of my summer should be golden.

Here's to the journey

Well, folks, I can sail. Yes I can.

I raised my own mainsail and my own working jib and, as forecasted, headed out for my very first sail on my own sailboat June 16^th.

It was a defining moment in my life.

Granted I did have a consummate sailor friend on board who ensured my success by being there with good advice, but it was I, I Captain, who sailed the vessel.

The evening weather was perfect and the wind on Sand Bay allowed “Scout” to get in the groove and heel over. She cruised with a palpable energy—freed after nearly two years of landlocked stillness.

Under that dome of the present moment out on the lake there was nothing in my mind except my focus on keeping a trim sail and a steady course—with the orchestra music of the humming keel whizzing along under water.

A most humble “thank you” is due to the road so far—whose every winding and sometimes grinding bump, heartache, and heavy load got me to that incredibly happy “first ever” moment on the lake.  I could hear Maya Angelou saying, “Wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now.”

After my partner, Jon Fistler, committed suicide in 2012 I came upon a bracelet at a local market that had beautiful jade beads and the words “For the Journey” stamped on a tiny piece of silver that hung from the black cording. I wore it a lot in those months following his death, as a rite of passage I suppose, for all the unknowns I knew would come my way. After a long while I took it off and put it away.

I put it back on in January, to help me once again, and vowed then to leave it on until I wore it out and it fell off. I believed that when it left my body, it would be a sign that I had reached an important crossroads in my life.

No word of a lie, the bracelet let go at noon on June 16^th, about five hours before I sailed my boat.

No date in history could have been more significant for that bracelet falling to the floor, given how I’ve struggled with my apprehension of taking the big leap—the one that meant the most—the one I wanted—the one I feared.

Truth be told I think I have been on a long road since that cold and traumatic January day in 2012 and Jon’s suicide. That was the day something inside me shifted out of place and ever since I’ve been on a personal journey to learn the lesson of letting go of what I cannot control, and to letting go of my fear of the unknown.

That day came on June 16^th. 

"As I sail through change

My resolve remains the same

What I chose are magic moments

Because ships are safe in the harbor

But that's not what ships are made for."

I know for sure I’m not done with my changes, and thank heaven I’m not.

But this “Little Miss” just sailed through something very, very big.

Raise the sails and let go

By the time you read this in the newspaper on (or after) June 17^th I will have left the dock on my own boat and raise sails by myself and used the wind as my journeyman.

That most awesome event happened last night after work, June 16^th.

But I am writing this on June 15^th, for deadline purposes, and can only imagine in my wordy mind what it will be like to be in the moment I have dreamt about since February.

My column on June 3^rd talked about fear and how it grows like a fungus and covers up all the good stuff. It kills joy and pleasure and excitement and even after I talked about facing it—still—fear stood there before me, trying to convince me I couldn’t do this thing.

On June 7^th, knowing full well I was booked with sailing friends to put my boat in the water the next evening, I grappled with my fear.

As I smoothed out the air bubbles from the vinyl font signage of “Scout,” set in deep blue sticky lettering on the side of my boat, I started to cry from my fear.

As I peeled off the paper liner, fretting my “what ifs,” I thought about my Grampa Caldwell and how much fear he must have had facing the horrors of war in those filthy, soggy trenches in France during World War One. 

By the time the paper was peeled away to reveal “Scout” I had closed the door on my fear. If he could find the courage in a real war, I could sail my boat. Piece of cake.

On June 8^th with a lot of help from my sailing mates, “Scout” was launched happily in a lovely little bay not far from here. My friends helped me raise her mast and we all watched proudly as she shape-shifted, stretched out, and settled in, tied to a dock in the buoyant blue of “Rainy Lake,” Piece of cake.

On June 11^th my sailing friend taught me how to put the main sail on. Piece of cake.

June 12^th, after stocking “Scout” with everything I needed to escape the trappings of land and sail off into the great unknown, I spent the first night ever on my own sailboat, tied to the dock where she’d been launched. It was a heavenly piece of cake for sure.

That evening, I watched “Captain Weekend” videos on “YouTube” and learned how to hook up my new marine deep cycle battery. Channeling “Red Green” I used aluminum foil and duct tape to cover my cabin windows. Worked great. Piece of cake.

Friends stopped by and helped get “Evin,” my little 6HP motor started and took me out for a “motor only” trek around the bay, and gave me lessons on how to dock again without smashing my bow into the cement pillars. (That piece of cake is reserved for the first time I do it alone.)

By the time you read this, I will have raised her sails and done the thing I have feared the most and I will have had so much fun that I won’t ever be the same woman again.

Letting go is not a piece of cake but once I get there, it will feel like a million bucks.  

On fear and second thoughts

My sail boat still remains in my yard on a trailer, far from the wind and waves.

The grass growing underneath the boat trailer, that I cannot reach with the lawnmower, grows tall and thick.

I now lament each day that I watch it grow unfettered because it defines the one more day—and one more day again—that I am not on the water.

For many years I have subscribed to “Notes from the Universe” and every morning around 5 a.m. (and without fail) I receive a philosophical message in my email. The message usually is the first thing I read when I wake up, because it helps me set the pace for my day.

One recent such message read, “For every fork in the road, Beth, there are often two paths from which to choose: the one you "should" take and the one you want to take. Take the second. Always take the second.”

I work on my boat nearly every day—fixing this, painting that, ordering this or that, and with every day that passes, I find one more reason why I should not launch. I could play “Miss Fix It” all summer long. Safely, I could do that.

I’m scared to take the next step—the one that means the most—the one I want—the one I don’t know enough about and the one I fear—sailing my “Scout” on my own.

That’s the worst thing about fear. It grows like a fungus and covers up all the good stuff. It tramples “could” and infects me with “not sure” and drowns out “want.” It kills joy and pleasure and excitement.

Before I started writing this column I was sitting in the cockpit of my “Scout” admiring my yard from my perch on stilts above the long grass and contemplating how I got “here.”

If someone had told me in early January that I would have my own sailboat by April, I would have said they were delusional.

But life changed the scope of my vision and my decisions. I couldn’t imagine my life without sailing in it and I was infused with a passion to do something to change that.   

If end of April someone would have told me that by the first day of June I would be finding all sorts of excuses why I couldn’t do the thing I want most of all, I would have said they were delusional.

Go figure.

A friend of mine with an eye for philosophy fired off an email to me about Mark Twain and Maria Shriver. Paraphrased, it read, “Throw off the bow line,” and “Let go of the life you imagined so you can experience the life you were meant to live.”

And then there’s the advice of my friend and consummate sailor, Colin, who stressed, “It will all fall into place. Stop worrying. Get the boat in. Then have fun!”  

I want to take that big, scary step. I want to never give up.

"Authenticity, the experience of truth, is our richest food. Without it we will freeze to death.”  I refuse to freeze.

I’m going in.

A boat name to sail on

Since the moment I made the decision to buy my sailboat, I have dwelt a lot on what defines me as I sought out a name for it.

I’ve brainstormed names, picked one, then another, and second-guessed them all. It’s nearly been a daily think tank for three and half months.

However, I’ve made a final choice. Quite simply the best name ever.

I was nicknamed “Little Miss” by a friend of mine who understood me and my journey through some tough hardships. “Little Miss” is the name of a 2010 country hit song by the duo “Sugarland.”

Both the band and the song have been long time favorites of mine. To his credit, my friend was fairly accurate calling me “Little Miss.”

I’m tough, I do my best, I never rest. Sometimes I do give up, hide my scars and yet, I go far. And I am so much more than I like to talk about. I have had more than one brand new start and I believe that sometimes “you gotta lose til’ ya win.”

I am defined by all of it, but “Little Miss” isn’t the name I chose for my boat.

I love my country of Canada. I passionately love where I live in it and I cannot imagine moving away from Rainy Lake, ever.

The sunsets here are spectacular, the air is fresh, and there is a world of adventure at nearly every turn.

“Canadian Skye” is another of my favourite songs. It makes my heart leap when I hear the band “Spirit of the West” sing it.

But “Canadian Skye” isn’t the name I chose for my boat either.

“True North.” I am a northerner. I am true. I try to wear my heart on my sleeve as much as I can, because life is short and I don’t want to waste it by hiding—even if its risky.

I am my own “True North.” Certainly that does define me.

But “True North” isn’t the name I chose for my boat either.

I want to live and cruise on my boat and take it all in.

“Vista Cruise” was a dead ringer for me. It encapsulated the two words that depicted why I bought the boat in the first place.

But alas, one day I would be sailing near Belize and come under the shadow of the future “Carnival Vista Cruise liner.” That just wouldn’t do. 

So of course, “Vista Cruise” isn’t the name I chose for my boat either.

Between 1920 and 1922 my grandfather John Murdoch Caldwell wrote love letters to his sweetheart and fiancée Pearl Davis. I have 60 of those love letters still in their original envelopes.

The loving words my grandfather wrote to my grandmother are exquisite. Every one of the 60 letters, still as legible as the day he wrote them, speak volumes about what a kind, gentle, loving soul he was. 

Sometimes he slipped violets in the letters, and there they remain, pressed between the notes of his heart for 94 years.

He began nearly every letter with “Dear Buddy.” I will never know where he found that term of endearment for my grandmother, but by the looks of the envelopes torn open by her fair hand, she could hardly wait to read what he’d written.

Grampa Caldwell was a gunner with the 35^th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery in World War I. He fought in Europe and he survived to come home, fall in love, and raise a family of five children, one of whom is my father, Bruce.

I was lucky to be able to spend summers of my youth with my Grampa Caldwell. I loved him and he loved me right back.

60 love letters to his sweetheart, some of them signed “Johnnie,” but most were signed with a name that I can only imagine defined him in the war, and once home, as my grandmother’s loving watchman.

“Scout.”   Quite simply the best boat name ever.

A few words about motherhood

When my daughters were “littles,” I would show them their reflection in a mirror and had them practice saying, “I love you” to them.

At bedtime when it came time for prayers of gratitude and lists of whom they loved, I cued them in as first on their lists.

There are countless philosophical quotes that preach loving yourself first.

I can’t write a better one than to encourage you to look in the mirror at yourself, really stare into those eyes, be you man or woman, and tell yourself “I love you” until you believe it.

Like most moms, there were times when I was sure I had failed other courses in the school of motherhood consecutively and bigger than a certain Canadian hockey team.

All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own. This I know for sure.

I am the luckiest of moms. Thank you Heather for writing such a wonderful tribute to me for Mother’s Day on behalf of yourself and your sisters.

“You are beautifully written.
You transcend the wisdom of your favourite books, and your favourite quotes have nothing on the knowledge that you feed back to people.
You are everything good in the world.
You walked into my room and told me your heart was in perfect condition- proof that fractures heal.
You are not to be held back.
You are strong, you are mighty.

I swear you were a Greek Goddess of resiliency in another life.
In the face of adversity, you do not cave.
You let yourself feel what the world has given you, turn it around and teach us lessons of courage.
You helped us grow and never failed to give us exactly what we needed.
There are things I’m sure you wished were different for us, people we never got to fully experience.
Please never forget Mom,
You raised three girls into three women.
 If you ever have doubts, fears, worries about who we will become, take a look in the mirror. 
We have your blood running through our veins, filling our bodies with life.
There is nothing more we could ask from you.
We are not perfect but we have something to aspire to when we look at you.
Thank you for taking care of us when we were sick, and loving us despite our hormones.
Thank you for always favouring us even when you needed it more.
Thank you for loving me even when I don’t want to wash the dishes.
I wish you so much happiness that you can’t even contain your smile.
The words I have to describe the love I feel for you are simple because there is nothing complex about loving someone so easily.
I hope you can see you are cherished.
You are loved beyond measure.”

 

Stop, look, listen, time out

I looked out my kitchen window just now and there was my black cat sitting like a statue in the driveway and staring at me with her telepathic flat stare that said, “You must let me in.”

I think “Millie” is feeling the pinch of neglect these days as I race around here like the human version of racehorse “American Pharaoh,” winner of the Kentucky Derby.

I put the spring in “Spring” and the get up in “Go.” I am a machine—the female underdog shadow of middleweight boxer Manny Pacquiao as I fight my way through the chores and to-do lists that multiply like rabbits on my kitchen table.

My cats miss me, my daughter who is home from University for the summer certainly has cause to ask me if I remember who she is, as we pass each other in the porch doorway with my spring causes stuffed under both arms and in my hands. 

And the causes that do not fit there, are thrown in back packs and slung both shoulders. I have lists in my jean and shirt pockets, in my shoes and two wrapped in pencils shoved along the top of each of my ears.

I make a beeline for the barn to do my chores there and I can feel my Grampa Joe’s mission-style focus teeming in my stride.

I was in the grocery store after work tonight, nearly hell-bent on getting home to attack “The List” that my pace nearly put two car lengths in between my and the daughter who’s home for the summer. “What is your name again?”

As I type this Bruce Cockburn popped into the stream of music playing on my laptop with “Last Night of the World.” 

“What would I do that was different?” he chimes, strumming that beautiful guitar of his.

The first thought I had was that I’d bargain for more time, because I’d have too much that I wanted to do on that last night. Then I laughed out loud and said, “Beth, you just don’t get it.”

And then I really got to thinking about what I would do on the last night of the world. 

Here goes;

I’d listen to guitar music while facing the sunset. I’d say the words “I love you” a lot, to a lot of people I care about. I would meditate a little, say thank you a lot and try that expensive red wine I’ve always wanted to taste.

I would watch birds fly and listen to them sing, because they sing anyway. I like that about birds. They are among the most genuinely positive creatures on earth.

I would eat chocolate and write some good thoughts about my life. I’d listen to the late Louis Armstrong sing “What a Wonderful World,” I’d burn my to-do lists and I’d laugh in the face of my misgivings.

And to think I wasn’t even going to slow down long enough to write this column.  

Slowing down is on my list too.