Wisdom unfolds in sweet form

First of all, I am writing this with sea legs and if I didn’t feel the floor under my writing desk in my bedroom I would swear I was on the sailboat socking through the waves on Rainy Lake. It’s incredible how the human body continues to process motion some 20 hours after setting foot on dry land.

I suddenly have visions of the old salt “Santiago” from the novel “The Old Man and the Sea” and wonder if he had sea legs after his long fishing voyages.

As I quiet the bobbing visual that is my laptop screen I’m also thankful that sometimes “the more you know” is best left unknown in a dark place.

I was sitting in an outhouse on an island campsite on Rainy Lake doing my thing Sunday night after a long day’s cruise, as the last slices of light poured in through the cracks of the old wooden door at the dimming of the day and making it hard to see.

I already was batting zero with my little shred of toilet paper but if I’d have realized I was sharing limited and personal space with a very large brown recluse spider, dangling as it were just outside my peripheral vision, my screams would have disintegrated the structure and my sailor friends who were sitting around the camp fire, would have had to build a new “poopatorium” for the campsite.

The incredible event would have become part of the adventurous log of sailing stories that include the “Bagel Incident” I heard told by “Sailor T” this weekend.

Thankfully my captain waited to tell me about the arachnid until I was far enough away from the outhouse to save them all a lot of construction work. He is wise in sweet form.

I have a “bucket list” and although the remote Kettle Falls Hotel on Rainy Lake wasn’t on it, everyone else should add the amazing destination to the register of wonderful spots to visit.

It was the happening place to be Saturday night as crewmembers of the Rendezvous Yacht Club docked their fleet and weary bones there after the annual 25-mile “Kettle Falls Regatta.”

Lucky me to be first-mate on the “Morning Dove,” for my inaugural Kettle Falls race where I fast-tracked my way to understanding that on a sailboat a “leech” isn’t as gross as the one you get between your toes and “aft” is not the slang term for the time of day that comes post-lunch. A “sheet” is not what’s on my bed and “boom” is not just a verb—and the noun can knock you off your feet if you’re not paying attention.

Saturday evening was something out of a storybook for gals like me who don’t get out much in life to experience the new and unknown. I was mesmerized by the hotel’s history and the entire and entertaining world of the Kettle Falls tradition that becomes the Yacht Club members after they lower the main and lift and alight the atmosphere there with a glass, a song, and plenty of spirit.

I was sitting in the moment on the hotel screen porch happily listening to guitar music, tapping my foot to the rhythm, and holding the warm hand of my captain and thinking about the times I have second-guessed whether or not I deserve all the good things I want out of life. 

Sometimes those things are as simple as a day off and sometimes those things are much more important in my life and yet remain for one reason or another in neutral while I debate outcomes and unknowns instead of going with what feels right.

How many of you reading this right now can relate?

Go buy a bag of “Dove” individually wrapped chocolates.

Sailing home across the lake on Monday afternoon, my captain and I took a snack break and each opened our chocolate and read each other the caption on the inside of our wrappers. It’s uncanny sometimes the messages life gives us if we just listen.

Later that afternoon we crashed for a power nap at anchor on the bunks across from each other in the boat cabin and as I was just about to saw off for my “15,” my captain looked over at me and repeated the message he’d read earlier.

"Give yourself permission." "You could write about that,” he said with a smile.

Wisdom unfolds in sweet form.