2001-07-08
feeling kinda
what a fantastic day.
saturday morning, no alarms. it was a peaceful, sunny morning, and i woke up to hear robins and owls outside. i haven't had a morning like that in a long, long time.
we did have to hustle a bit to get down to the dock - some of his friends had invited The Boy to crew with them in a race. the traffic was just horrendous. what should have been a 15 minute ride took the better (or worse, depending on your perspective) part of an hour. and stopping to grab food might not have been such a great idea, since the speed of service appears to be inversely proportional to the number of people behind the counter. but we made it down there, just barely.
so, i went sailing for the first time. [small segue - i have been in a sailboat once before. he ran it into a rock. i was not impressed. i guess this was the first successful sail, then.] more accurately, i was taken sailing, because short of pulling a line or two and helping roll a sail, all i did was provide dead weight to balance the boat. which is important, in its own way, especially in this case.
i had the chance to learn a few things, tho. i learned not to be scared when the boat is nearly sideways, heeled over far enough that one edge is in the water. and i learned that i'm not prone to being seasick on smaller boats. there was a decent wind, and a few small waves, which is usually enough to send me over the edge. but there's something about a small boat that makes it easier to keep your bearings. and now i have the bug. i want to learn.
it was truly impressive to watch how the three of them handled the boat. every time i was sure we were going too fast to turn, they proved me wrong. i had read a little bit of theory, and watching them work, hearing what they were doing and watching how the boat and the sails responded... very cool. and it was a decently stiff wind, too. we tacked around the harbor (i know, i know, i'm getting it all wrong... just run with it), and tied up briefly to get lunch. how The Boy monkeyed his way up the pier, i'm not quite sure, as there wasn't a ladder right there. but he did, and came back with lobster rolls for all of us. tasty, and as i found out later, outrageously expensive. but i got my lobster. :)
his friends are sweet, funny people. i'm glad i had the chance to meet them. he has a wicked sense of humor, and she's a kind person, easy to talk to. he is involved with a few non profit organizations, and does fund raising for at least one of them. he's got the boat tricked out with a particularly ingenuous system of lines and loops that he can run with a hook on each of his wrist guards. there are hooks along the tiller, and a gyroscope looking thing to run the lines. very neat.
of course, i ended up with stupid tan lines. burn lines, really. but we prefer to call it an Irish tan. ;) i had forgotten to pack any sunscreen (don't you always forget something?), and i'm not sure they had any on the boat. with a sweatshirt on most of the time, i ended up burnt from the elbows down. see? i am the Queen of Stupid Tan Lines. altho i have to say this isn't as bad as the time i was reading on the beach, and my stomach ended up looking like a strawberry vanilla swirl.
i had forgotten how tired just being out in the sun can make you. i mean, i didn't *do* anything much. but being out on the water for a few hours wiped me out. got a bit of a nap after that, for which i was grateful. then The Boy got in touch with a few friends, and we headed out to meet up with them for dinner.
oh, someone should have had a video cam... he convinced me that it would be possible to ride the bike in an ankle length dress. yes, it is in fact possible. it's a bit... cool. and someone got a good show, for sure, when i got off the bike. here's hoping it made their night. ;)
we tooled around a bit before getting to the restaurant. he showed me another part of town, and i kept drooling at the houses. not that they were all that showy, altho they were nice, but because they were all older houses, registered with the historic commission. made me winge a bit, because i keep thinking that i really should have pursued my degree (American Civ and Anthro, with a thesis on material culture). but that whole winge is another story about careers and plans and what we actually do with our lives. mostly, i just enjoyed looking around at a part of town i hadn't seen before. we went by a park on the way, and i had to laugh. there was a little small there, who had clearly just discovered his feet. it's so cool how kids discover their feet before they discover gravity - they run along at this perpetual forward tilt, looking like they're about to slam into the ground face first at any minute, and loving it.
when we got to the cafe, turned out that we were meeting up with Phone Guy, whom i had met in the office the other day, as well as his girlfriend and her sister. great group of people - Phone Guy is this funny, wound up little spring of a guy, who for some reason found my stories very amusing. and the girls were a lot of fun to talk to - one of them had very funny stories about trying to get down here the last few days. (yes, people, i can call them girls. i have 10 years on them. no disrespect - i'm old, and they're girls.) we managed to get a table outside, and the weather was just perfect for it. wine, and food, and good company. what more could a girl ask for?
all in all, a wonderful day. and a great weekend. i actually had a weekend where i didn't know what time it was - and didn't care. no watch, no computer, no phone, no way for people to find me, no need to make decisions. such a change for me, and a welcome one. i was able to step out of my usual role of control freak/decision maven, and let the weekend happen all around me. i just watched, and soaked it all in. being on someone else's turf makes that a little easier, i think. whatever the reason, i was grateful for the gift of letting go and letting things be.
