I decided to go sailing,
to crew on someone else’s boat, to take a trip both free and freeing, so I went
online and found a website for crew and boats and chose a boat and
sent out a wave.
Suddenly I was down in the city meeting HS, the captain of my
chosen boat. Our plan was to do lunch and then go for a walk. Could it really
be this easy?
Apparently so.
It was an amazing day in very much
the way that first dates are amazing, you know, the sun shining and the birds singing in the trees... I had just arrived at the agreed upon
meeting spot when he swooped by in his BMW convertible and waved at me. (How
did he recognize me?) (He is quite overweight.) (Wow, what a car.) Jump in he
said and we will look for a parking spot. Finding a spot was not an easy task
downtown at lunchtime but find one we did, and then, before I knew it, we were
meandering up the street talking as we went, chatting easily about all manner
of things, laughing companionably. We arrived effortlessly in a courtyard that
held several little European-looking restaurants with patio furniture and large
umbrellas and a few trees scattered about and picked a table in dappled
sunlight. The waitress brought us menus and water and later came back to take our
order but we had been too busy talking to each other. I told him of my limited
sailing experiences and he was genuinely interested in where I had been and of
the boats. He told me of storms he had been in and disasters his friends had
met at sea. (There is a space between two of his teeth and his hair is too long
but he is not as old as I had feared he would be.) I ask about his upcoming
itinerary and am slightly disappointed to learn that he would be at sea over
Christmas. (It had not occurred to me that I would not be home to spend
Christmas with my kids. Could I even contemplate such a thing?) Our restaurant,
when we looked at the menus, turned out to be Italian, all pastas and pizzas
and such. I ordered a Mediterranean dish that arrived filled with artichoke and
eggplant and olives and goat cheese. It was heavenly. His tortellini was plain
and bland and not at all what he had been expecting. I hoped our respective
meals were not representative of our relative first impressions of each other.
We ate, we talked, an hour passed and we were late for his parking meter so we
paid the bill and rushed back to avoid a ticket.
Let’s go somewhere else, he said, to
walk and talk, and we got in his car and drove about the city looking for the
perfect place zooming out to the lake and then back towards the city and then
on to the small marina where he had first got on his boat with his wife. I am
not looking for a date, he said, my wife was the woman of my dreams, has been
dead several years, but is still the woman of my dreams. I am married, I said, though on a break, my life plan is to sail for as long as I like and then go
home and put my marriage back together. I don’t even know if I will actually like to
sail, I add, I have been dreaming of it for so long I fear my expectations are more
myth than reality. We talk of our kids (we both have boys in their 20’s), of
how the river here is different from those in Europe, of parks we have visited,
of the pros and cons of books and kindles. He makes me laugh, I make him laugh,
the sun is shining and it is lovely out. (If it were a first date we would be
holding hands by now, stopping in the shady spots to hug each other.) And I am
suddenly so happy that it is not a first date. There is no stress, there will
be no romantic entanglement to mess things up, I would be, if he chose to take
me on, merely crew. It will be open, and safe, and easy. All I will have to do
is clean and cook and stand watch beneath the stars, marvelling at the dolphins
and the flying fish, drinking in the beauty of the sunrise, and looking forward
to a glass of wine at the next port. I will be crew, just crew, and I will be SO
happy in that role.
He told me that he was a bit gun shy,
had had three disastrous crew in a row, one who was a vegetarian and one who
wanted to wear make-up and one who just didn’t have any opinions on anything. I
think, I told him, I might fit into that last category, might just not know
enough. And it is a real fear, that I am simply too ignorant to converse
intelligently about anything. I don’t know if I could do it. I worry I might
not be suitable companionship. He can sail by himself. What good am I to him?
As he drops me off I tell him that I
have already found someone to housesit my house, that I am going to go sailing
in the fall, that he is my first choice but that if he doesn’t choose me I will
go with someone else. I want him to know I am serious about setting off. He tells me he will let me know in
a couple of days his decision. I am in awe. I will await his answer.
Later, driving home with my son, I tell him everything, how wonderful the day was, how fantastic the man was. I was
afraid he was going to be too old, I say, but instead he was too rich, too
famous, too intelligent, too successful… way out of my league. So if you were
to look for a different more compatible captain it would be someone poorer and
less intelligent, my son queries, now how stupid is that.
(HS is way out of my league. But
maybe that doesn’t matter.)
Before I hear from him I am all in a
tizzy. What if he says yes? Could I go? Would I be able to do it? What about
the fact that I am so very ignorant? Would I rise to the challenge? What if he
says no? Well, that’s easy, actually, I look for another boat with a younger
captain and a more congenial itinerary. But what if he says yes? I walk round
and round town with Shelley and stop in and talk on and on to Catherine. What
if he says yes? Would I go? Could I? Dare I?
I don' t hove to wait long. He says yes. I say yes. It is done. YES!!
I fear for a few days that it is HS himself who captivated me. I am so caught up in the exoticness (to me) of the trip that I try to daydream about seducing him. But it just doesn’t ring true. And then I realize what has happened here. It didn't matter, really, what he was like. I wanted to go before I met him. I longed to go long before I met him, positively ached to in fact. (It's true, I did.) No, it is something different altogether; it is The Boat who has ensnared me. I am not going for the itinerary; weeks on end at sea and not even home for Christmas. I am not going for the captain; he seems a pretty nice guy if a bit full of himself. No, it is The Boat I am going for.
The Boat. Even her name sends shivers down my spine. How much more perfect could things get than that? I dream about her (she is, literally, the boat of my dreams). I dream about meeting her for the first time and leaning over and kissing her gently, opening my arms wide and giving her a hug, whispering softly to her that I will look after her if she looks after me. I dream about lying face down on her deck, my limbs spread, fingers splayed even, maximizing our skin contact. And these dreams do ring true.
She, she is the one who has been singing to my soul, like a whale who sings to her partner across miles of open water, she has sung to me from the other side of the ocean, from the other side of time almost, and I have heard her call, and soon, soon I will be going to her, drawn there like magic.
I can't wait. I can't wait to meet her, get introduced, learn about her quirks.
I am sometimes slow and I hope HS will take the time to let me get to know her properly, that he will introduce us gently, show me three times how to flush her head and start her stove. I want to learn everything about her, so that, God forbid, something happened to him, we, she and I, just the two of us on our own, would be able to take him to safety. I am worried about the huge imbalance that there will be to start with; he will know everything and I nothing. I am worried that I will not learn fast enough, not cook well enough, not have enough to talk to about with him, and that he will kick me off.
Yes, I am looking forward to getting to know him, HS, the captain, but, I think, smiling even now to myself, not as much as I am looking forward to getting to know her.
She is the one I want to talk to.
She is the one I want to open up too.
She is the one I want to share my soul with.
I can see us already, the boat and I, talking quietly together for hours, on one of those perfect night shifts when everyone else in the world is sound asleep and the two of us are alone together in the universe sailing serenely beneath the endless stars, the world spinning slowly beneath us. I can see us already, the boat and I, having choppy and clipped conversations, throwing panicky questions back and forth to each other, trying to get things right, on those days when the wind is strong but fluky and gusts keep catching us both unawares.
I have known of her for a long time but we were not able to meet. I heard a rumour that she was up for sale once, a decade ago, and I imagined buying her, but it was not to be. The various men in my life, Andre, slowly dying, and Geoff, slowly growing away, and my kids, even more slowing growing into men, all conspired as if to keep us apart. But Andre finally died (I am sorry dear man that this happened to you) and Geoff finally left (despite the fact I fought body and soul to keep him with me) and the kids finally grew up (as the seasons inexorably turned) and so now, the men in my life dealt with, I am free to go to her.
It is odd that there will be yet another man there, attached to us both. HS. It feels like it may be a love triangle. I hope he is not too jealous. And suddenly I realize that he loves her too, has loved her for years, has loved her passionately and deeply for the decade I have known and merely dreamed of her, and longer even than that. He met her when my kids were only babies and now they are men. He knows her, already, in ways I can only hope to. He has been inside her, not once, but a thousand times. He has lived with her, knows her intimately, and kept her with him through thick and thin. And I remember that I will just be crew, and before I have even met her I feel I don’t want to have to leave, and I realize it will be I who will likely be the jealous one.
And yet I know I want to go. If even only for a brief visit.
I do, I want to go.
(I hope I like it.)
