Living life in more gears than one

Charles Schultz once penned, “Life is like a ten speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use.”

I think I’m a few gearshifts ahead of the game at this point.

In the last 29 days I have learned about electrical panels on sailboats, deep cycle and “AGM” batteries, pintles and gudgeons (which are not names of fairies from a fantasy movie), what contexts ay good bilge sponge, and what the real definition of “premium” is.

Sadly these days, “premium” is not a financial term that lends itself to fattening my wallet. It is instead the quintessential definition for how much storage space I have for supplies on my boat once I am out on the lake.

I’ve climbed a ladder every day for the last 29 days as I board my boat for “Little Miss Fix-It” jobs, or just to sit with my cold beer and dream.

I’ve contorted myself into strange pretzel-like positions to check small spaces for wiring schematics—all the while hoping I come across another hiding space for food and chocolate when I’m on a long cruise this summer.

I’ve scrubbed the entire boat inside and out by myself, de-oxidized the hull and waxed it back to the beautiful blue that was hiding. It’s been physically demanding and mentally freeing.

I have spent more time on the “Catalina Direct” website ogling over all the parts, pieces, and luxuries I can buy for said sailboat than I have spent on the entire Internet since it was let loose upon us all those years ago.

I’ve also watched “YouTube” videos on how to restore teak hardwood, splice wires together, and remove wires off a marine battery and how to use a battery charger.

All of the lessons on batteries warn against contact between negative and positive wires if one is still in contact with said battery. I should have taken the repeat safety course for dummies on that score. Yikes!

Most of all though; I have dwelt on what defines me as I try to decide what name to give to my boat.

She has never had a name, so the field is wide open to invent just about anything my imagination can muster up—provided I can repeat it three times clearly—and without laughing—on a marine radio.

Knowing that fact eliminated a few favorites right off the top—“All Gulls No Buoys,” “Passing Wind,” and ”Yacht Sea.”

I started a list of boat names in a note file on my IPhone. I’ve brainstormed them, picked one, then another, and second-guessed them all.

I was born in the arms of a good imagination but for the life of me, naming a sailboat takes the cake on difficult.

However, I have made a final choice. It came to me out of the blue as I was falling asleep one night. Quite simply the best name ever.

I’m tempted to let the cat out of the bag but that’s another story.

A snow day breeds positive vibes

I stared out longingly at my sailboat this morning. It looked dejected and beaten down by the skiff of snow that covered her like a thin white layer of wax paper that weighed two tons.

I’ll bet she, too, was thinking “Really? Snow? I just want to sail.”

And then again, she looked so right at home sitting there, waiting patiently for the next round of new paint, a cleaner hull, and a new life for the water.

A little snow wouldn’t keep her down.

It’s Monday night and it’s snowing again as I write this. I have the heat turned up, two sweaters on, and there’s a pot of pea soup brewing on the stove. The warmth feels good. It feels like a cozy winter story.

Mother Nature plays hard to get. 10 days of sunshine, one of snow. She gives and she takes away and she gets us all talking mostly about one cold snowflake event in a score of many sunshine moments.

Life is like that.

My ex-husband Peter used to say, “It is much easier to be bad than good.” He was right.

Don’t allow the negatives to get more attention than the positives.

I’ll bet the person out there with terminal cancer and is still able to stand at the window each morning, didn’t say today, “oh blast, it’s snowing again.”

I’ll bet that person said, “Thank you for another day.”

My grandson stood outside this morning and let snowflakes fall on his tongue and smiled at the tingling magic feeling that those most original phenomena in the entire world left on his palate.

Find something really good to talk about.

Take up positive thinking like my dad and repeat after me, “It’s always a possibility.”

My dad used to say that to my brother and I a lot when we were growing up. It gave us hope for whatever it was we were hoping for. Maybe we got our wish, maybe we didn’t; but we always had a positive spin on things.

Read the life lessons by Regina Brett, written at age 90.

“Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good; When in doubt, just take the next small step; Life is too short to waste time hating anyone; When it comes to going after what you want in life, don’t take no for an answer; If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back; Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, don’t save them for a special occasion, today is special.”

I’m dreaming of future holidays that are on my bucket list. How about horseback riding in Iceland or kayaking the Haida Gwai on the B.C. coast? Italy is on my list and so is the Grand Canyon.

And now I have a sailboat and my adventure list is growing to include not only the fabulous Rainy Lake, but also sailing my boat one day on Lake Superior and to the Apostle Islands, or maybe even a salty dip in the ocean off Florida.

And I’ve been told by a reliable source that recently there was a Catalina 22 tied to a dock in Belize. Just imagine. One day it might be me.

All these great thoughts and all because it snowed today.

New words wash ashore with my boat

If it wasn’t for lists I would never get anything done around here, although I freely admit that sometimes just having a list makes me feel I’ve accomplished something, and sometimes that means nothing the list really gets done at all. I just look it over and cross stuff off and add other things to it.

In fact on the desk beside me right now is a list I wrote in the spring of 2014. It reads, “outside tarp (not sure what that means), new patio flooring, black earth, lawn seed, rocks, cinder blocks (not sure what I was thinking about here either.)

I don’t think any of those “to-dos” were accomplished, but the list still looks good just sitting there beside my coffee cup.

I have lists on the go for spring projects inside the house and out, including a separate one for basement, one for the barn, one for interior painting projects, and one for my garden and flowerbeds.

Of course I now have project lists on the go for my sailboat including a list of questions about what exactly it is that I’m looking for, how to spell it, and what the heck it means. 

Now if I could just learn how to carry on a proper sailboat conversation about it all!

“There are no such things as ropes on a sailboat,” a fellow sailor recently said to me, chuckling over something I’d said. Indeed. They are “sheets,” and no, they won’t double as bed cover for my tired aching skeleton at the end of day on the lake.

A “hatch” is not what comes after the chicken egg, and there is no “front” and “back” of a sailboat nor is there a “right or left” and “port” sadly not a reference to a fortified wine.

“Starboard” is not a term used by Captain James Kirk. “Winch” is not slang for wince and “Aft” is not slang for after. “22” is not a rifle, it is the length in feet of my sailboat. 

“Main” is not a street and the good ol’ “red, white and blue” is not a reference to the U.S. flag. It is the electrical schematics on my boat that I am determined to learn how to read and how to fix.

The “head” is not what is on my shoulders. It’s is the “go-to” for bathroom relief. Curtain please.

“Whisker pole” is not some guy’s beard hair glued to a cedar post and “tiller” is not a garden tool. “Tang” is not a drink; “pulpit” is not from whence the church minister gives his sermon. 

“Gooseneck” is not that which I would love to throttle for pooping in my farmyard and a “traveler” is not the guy on the highway looking to hitchhike. 

“Tell tales” are not the little children in your life who like to out their siblings for misbehaving. “Tang” is not a drink and “block” is not something even remotely related to me during those times when I can’t think of something to write about.

I wonder if chocolate is in the sailing supply manual?  It will be when I’m done.

Here's to uncharted waters

Someone paid me a heartwarming compliment recently, revealing to me that I enriched life during time spent together.

I’ve learned to say thanks for sincere moments of offering like that. 

There was a time when I would have reduced the accolade with “Oh, don’t be silly,” or “I don’t know if I’ve done that,” or “are you sure you mean that?”

Today I love and believe in myself enough to accept it as true when someone says such a nice thing about me. And good feelings are best when shared.

That is not to say that I don’t doubt myself sometimes. Books sliding off the shelf of my life can, on occasion, raise doubts of all kinds. Sometimes a turn of events harangues me enough that I call into question my integrity, gullibility, reasoning, and intentions.

I think even the strongest of us have moments like that. What’s important is that we, each in our own way, find gratitude, lessons, and keep walking our path.

One of my favorite songs right now is “Silver Lining,” by First Aid Kit. I can’t remember how that song dropped in my lap but it certainly came along at an appropriate time.

“There’s no starting over, no new beginnings, time races on,

Gotta keep on going, looking straight out on the road,

Can't worry 'bout what's behind you or what's coming for you further up the road, I try not to hold on to what is gone, I try to do right what is wrong.”

A wise man I know also would tell me in times of hardship I have three choices—“suck it up, change it, or quit.”

Crosby, Stills, and Nash would sing, “Rejoice, we have no choice, we’ve got to carry on.”

I think I’ll do all of those things, because there is no starting over, no new beginnings, time does race on. I must keep going, look straight out on the road I’m on. I will change it. I have no choice. I must carry on.

In celebration of all of these roads less travelled I bought my own 22ft sailboat last week.

I’ve never sailed alone in my life, but I’m going to learn and learn quickly.

I am as determined as the worker ant that carries 100 times its own body weight up hill in a hurricane. Trust me. I know myself very well. I may have a soft shell sometimes, but my core is as solid as they come.

Gratitude abounds. I have been given a silver lining I would otherwise have never known.

I’ve always believed in a Power greater than myself and I pray often to this Power for strength, clarity, wisdom, and often for the courage to accept the things I cannot change.

I also believe one of the greatest gifts of the Universe is free will. Nothing happens until I decide. 

I am mine. I am my own.

“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.”

And now, I’m a sailboat captain.