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2001-06-25 / 10:02 p.m. ~Bonus Entry!!! (Sailing, and diary disappearance fears)~
This is my first time writing more than one entry in a day! Whoo, and hoo too! I felt compelled all day to write about sailing, and didn't want to let it slip away, even though I've just finished reading Not-a-Finger's ENTIRE diary and ENTIRE guestbook, and I went from intense envy (as any writer would) to chuckling, to just plain exhaustion, so now I'm ready. But, I come back to the members' page and there's a little note about getting that Gold Membership (which makes me think of the Gold Club and their Court case - no, no prostitution here, no mobsters here!), and how it might help insure the site doesn't disappear, and I'm thinking of Themestream, and how they had "technical difficulties", then they went belly-up, and I'm wondering if all our writings will soon disappear........ So, anyway. When I was 11 my father bought a sailboat. I had the great honor of christening it, "I christen thee 'Kin A Well Told, and may the wind be always at your back!", crack of champagne bottle against bow 'railing' thingie, and everyone looks down to see the blood pouring out of me, I say, Huh?, and look down myself to see I'd cut a huge and gaping wound in between my thumb and forefinger. AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I screamed. Or did I? I merely remember being quite upset, then later afraid of what my mother would say when she found out. My father's girlfriend was there, a nurse, and she bandaged me up extremely well, an extreme bandage that is. I knew my mother would think that my father and his girlfriend were irresponsible, and she did. And of course I wondered what the hell 'Kin A Well Told' was, and my father and brother looked at each other and laughed and pretended it was something I could never know, wouldn't understand, just couldn't 'get'. Fucking-A Well Told. Like, "Fucking-A, man!", whatever that means. Like "Right on!" or something. This was, after all, 1972. That was the beginning of sailing, for me. Of course it was a father/son thing, and I was a daughter, so I didn't attend the classes, the sailing classes, no, I did the father/daughter symphony and dinner activities, the more gentile father/daughter things, and he, the brother, got to learn the way to be a sailing captain. I simply lay on the bow to get a tan. I was into the whole tanning thing, pre-tattoo, per-skin-cancer-warnings, pre-sunscreen, pre-SPF, etc. 1972, you'll remember. No, I was heading into a deep, and very intense adolescence, filled with much in the way of sex and drugs and rock and roll, and tanning was very important in the summer. And the summers came and went, and there was finally a bigger boat, 27 feet, or was it 24?, still, it was small, as sailboats go, but this was only a lake, a large lake, a sprawling and very huge man-made lake, but only a lake, and the boat was big enough. It was still a father/son/daughter thing, an activity to be shared, a familial kind of thing to do with the 'other' parental unit, until those times when we wanted to cut loose, we didn't want any supervision, even if said supervision allowed us to drink and smoke pot and make out with boyfriends/girlfriends. We wanted to be free, unfettered and alive. Eventually, it was just the brother, his girlfriend, and whatever boy I was seeing, or maybe one of the brother's friends, which invariably became the boys I saw. ? Much consumption of alcohol, back in the days before 'drunk boating' was an issue. Much smoking of cannabis.....back in the day. This was the '70s, I was older than 11 by now, I was a teen, I was reckless, and the brother encouraged it all. We had fun. Until the brother decided his captainhood precluded any real fun. Soon we had to obey, we had to knuckle down and 'come about' with the appropriate subserviant and awestruck behavior. We had to kowtow, and I am horrible at kowtowing, and we finally gave it up, probably 10 years total. I finally said, Brother, it is no longer a joy to take to the high seas of the Lake with you. You are no longer a Captain under which I desire to serve. I never did want to serve you, only make you happy so you would be fun to sail with, but serve you.....no. Alas, I have years of memories of sailing on that lake. Every year when the weather would turn warm, the leaves bursting on the trees, Spring springing up everywhere, we would wait for the wind, always watching the leaves at the tops of the trees, and when it was perfect, we would spontaneously make the drive, the 40 miles or so north, in great anticipation the whole way. Later in the summer, when we'd arrive at the dock, the first thing I saw were the yellow daylillies, and I would anxiously run down the steps to the boat, toss my bag on board, take off my clothes, revealing my suit underneath. As we would leave the dock, under motor power, we'd all be readying sails, hoisting jibs or whatever, and I'd know just enough to be useful, but out of the way - I knew to duck the boom, I knew where to sit, when I could stand.....and when the motor would die.......waiting for that first puff of air, that first strong wind to blow us across the lake......it was magic. Summer days now I see the leaves moving at the tops of the trees, and I think today would be a good day...... And I remember winter sailing too, remember the pictures I have of me in my hat and scarf and wool sweater, the smile on my face, how it was so cold, but we loved every minute of it. And I remember the time I went sailing with the brother and his friend, the one I hardly knew, but we were on some drug or another and I lay across the bow, feeling the wind blow across my mostly naked body, my eyes closed, a perfect balance there, being one with that boat, wishing he, Philip would be there to kiss me, the friend, and he was, and he did, and it was erotic fulfillment and we made out in the back seat of the brother's car all the way home. And I remember the day we took acid and sailed, and Arthur was going to leave for the summer, but he loved me so much, and he held me and told me how much he was going to miss me, and the brother took a picture of that moment, and I still have it, it's a color slide, and we stayed at the lake, late, and saw shooting stars, but thought it was just the acid.......but it wasn't. So many memories, I could go on and on, and sometimes I do, in my own head, not written down anywhere, just thinking, just remembering, when there is no present nor future, only the past that I know for sure, and I think I wish we could do it again, I wish we could make the drive, listen to music, loud, the B-52s or the Beatles, all the way there, stop in one of those old country stores for sodas, get some food, and don't forget the beer.....only it's not Michelob or Lowenbrau now, now it's Bass Ale......and I don't take drugs anymore, but let's bring some pot anyway, and let's set out for the farthest point, let's stop at that island over there, we can have a picnic, and I can take off my clothes, have my suit underneath and lie across the bow again, by myself, until Philip, or someone else, wakes me from my dreaming, with a kiss. The boat, last I knew, sits in the brother's driveway, for so many years, dry-docked there, the sister-in-law promising to fix it up and sell it, so long that I no longer saw it the last time I was there. The father is dead and gone, the mother too, and the brother and sister don't need to fight about captaining and serving, no cowtowing anymore. But I miss it.....summers and breezes making me think, "This, this is a perfect sailing day!". Cost of the War in Iraq
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