Saturday September 28 2013

Been a tough week. 

Started out with me lingering a little too long in one of my favorite bays.  There’s a feeling to the end of summer when the daytime temperatures still invite shorts but nightfall insists on a sweater.  In this part of the world a sweater is a particular kind of knitted garment, more like the British jumper.  The wool is thick and oily and tightly woven.  A good west coast sweater is as rain repellent as a slicker, and whether dry or wet it is as warm as any down jacket.

The qualities of a sweater set my week off on the wrong course.  Sitting on deck after a large steak and a bottle of red or two, I fell asleep.  Amazing!  The sleep was sound enough, apparently, to keep me from being roused by a gentle rain or by the accompanying gentle roll of the waters of the bay.  By the time I was roused I was wet and cold and Butkus, much more alert after his steak that I after mine, had retired to the warm dry floor of the cabin. 

Despite my ritual of diving into the Pacific every morning is neither as unpleasant nor as debilitating as waking unexpectedly, wet and cold.  The phrase “wet and cold” reminds me that the first installment of Evolene’s serialized story of her trek to get to Midden Harbour starts next week.  I’ve read the draft, and made some suggestions, but overall, it’s quite an epic journey.  Not in terms of time or length, but certainly in terms of struggle.  I’ll reprint it here once it comes out in The Shoreline.

But the “wet and cold” in my meandering prose today has to do with me getting drenched after falling into a deep, wine-induced sleep on deck in the rain.  By the time I was below, stripped and had poured a hot pot of tea into myself I realized that this was one of those times when only time was going to warm me up. 

As it turned out, I needed three days to get out of bed.  The weather, leaping headlong into fall, was a big part of the problem.  It rained and blew without letup through to Monday evening.  Given my tenuous condition, climbing out of my cozy bunk to fight with sails and a tiller hardly seemed appealing.  So I used my marine radio to contact the marina so they wouldn’t send out a rescue party, and stayed put. 

Funny how an experience like that effects different people differently.  Some might be frightened or even panicky.  Some might revel in the adventure.  I tend to sink into it and the writer in me takes note of as much of the event as possible.  As I lay there earlier this week, rolling in my bunk and trying desperately to get warm, I was reminded of a time when me and my childhood friend Norman decided it would be a good idea to hitchhike up to his parent’s summer cottage.  In February at 20 below. 

We took the city bus as far as it went, then stood on the side of the highway in the dark until a couple in a pickup stopped for us.  I am here to tell you that riding in the back of an open truck at those temperatures is not to be recommended.   By the time we got out of the truck and walked the three miles up the side road to Norman’s parent’s cottage, the only thing that prevented us from succumbing to hypothermia was our ignorance.  Then, with all the brilliance of 12 year old boys, we decided it would be a good idea to break a window to get in—because the rock under which the key was hidden was covered by several feet of snow and frozen to the ground.  There was, you will not be surprised to learn, no firewood in the house. So, wearing every piece of clothing we had brought, we climbed under every blanket we could find, and tried to sleep.  We failed.

The benefit of this sleeplessness was that we were at the ready when the sun, bright as a summer’s day and emitting less heat than a firefly, slid slivers of light into the room.  Elated that we could get out of our frozen cocoon, Norman and I scurried off to the small store that served full time residents,  and bought cans of beans.  These we heated up with a wood fire built of twigs in the cottage stove.

Well, that ate up some time.  Still haven’t gotten around to writing about my conversation with Mrs. Snow, or explaining why it sent me off for a quiet weekend to do some thinking.  Wasn’t as peaceful or promoting of careful consideration as I had hoped, but it gave me time away, and that helped.  One of those situations where there’s lots to think about but, fortunately or unfortunately, not much to be done.