Monthly Archives: December 2012

Light and Love

I’m going to Bill’s class tomorrow. Here is what I wrote for my childhood best friend Marina, and what I’ll share in class if I have the nerve.

Marina asked how I felt after all these days of travelling. Before the trip, I thought I might find Stuart in the breeze, Bill’s “ruah,” the living breath. The breeze was too strong for me–hurricane Sandy drove me into a distress where I was going to quit and go join my Stuart on the other side. But then there was Dickie, and I could not quit on him.

I did not find Stuart in the breeze, but I found him in the light. In the gentle beauty of dawn; when water and sky still joined in the morning mist, start to seperate. This is where my Stuart lives now.

Water, sky and light are also the first elements of the Creation. Back in Atlanta, I looked it up: light is the first “good” thing God created. Before, the earth was formless and empty and the Spirit of God was “hovering” over the waters, which is rather spooky and not unlike how Hurricane Sandy felt. Then we get to the creation of light, and God finds it good, “and there was morning—the first day.” 

Ten months after his death, Stuart came in a dream and shared his transformation into a shining light. He had become transparent, infused with light, and he embraced me in the purest kind of love. Light and love: I’m not trying to make full sense of it. I’m just going to let light come to me a little closer than before, for the beauty it brings forth morning after morning, and its comforting, loving warmth. 

PS: Mokie remarked I wrote about what I cooked for dinners only once–hmm, my last entry may be about “dinners in the galley” after all. Just as important in its own way as the spiritual voyage. 

Peregrine’s home

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Peregrine arrived at her new home in SSI last night. Given the slip configuration, the wind was going to push her away from the dock, and combined with the strong tide, it was going to be the toughest docking of the trip. We waited for the tide to change, circling around until 5:30.

Oh, so much excitement. Would Peregrine’s momentum slowly move her away from the dock and I would reach out too much trying to loop the spring line around the dock cleat and fall in the water and Peregrine unattached would crash into the boat next to us?

As night was falling and tide changing, we sloooooowly made our way toward the dock, and passed a couple in their boat, and surely they looked at beautiful Peregrine, and he did the boater thing of coming to help us. Whew, no drowning or crashing. I have to report that Dickie brought Peregrine tightly to the dock in the most perfect manner, and I had time to loop the spring line around the cleat before handing the bowline to our kind helper.

And so we made it.

Diabolo

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Albin and Mokie joined us for dinner at the marina in Thunderbolt, close to Savannah. It will take Peregrine two more days to get to Saint-Simons Island—which normally takes a little over an hour by car. That is, if we get going this morning after our festive dinner. (An hour later: we did!)

Mokie and Albin looked so handsome. It took me by surprise: I’ve seen so much beauty in nature lately, but oh, they look just every bit as awesome. Mokie had brought a crusty baguette we judged to be as close to the real thing as you can get on this side of the ocean; mousse pâté with cognac and jelly (guess what we’ll have for lunch); triple cream Daphinois (our favorite cheese—we’ll keep it for dinner); and Sancerre wine (no leftover there). So delicious and how sweet! We have not been grocery shopping since Annapolis. We found out that we did not need as much dry food as we had packed. Vegetables we left in the open had a longer life expectancy, but it may be because Peregrine is often not much higher in temp than a fridge—so this may not be true in our next trip. We still have lettuce and tomatoes for our last meal tonight (our last meal!). Mokie asked if we were looking forward to going back to Atlanta. A question I could not answer. I found peace on the boat, and whether it’s something I can bring back home, I don’t know.

We also had shrimp for dinner we had bought at the dock in Georgetown (and peeled) especially for this occasion. Whether it was good, we’ll never know. I shook the red pepper bottle on it while cooking, but it did not have a plastic cover with holes on it. The shrimp was “diabolo” all right. Nothing a little Sancerre did not wash away.