Sailing...something I have done and enjoyed my entire life having access to a sailboat of one kind or another since I was small, is, or was an activity that I used to find much joy. Since hurricane Sandy took a huge bite out of my family's home on the N.J. coast a couple of years ago taking our boat with it, I have not been on a boat at all. The longest stretch in my life as not one summer has gone by since I was two weeks old since I had not done so. It has been a deep void that I have missed dearly along with the peace it used to bring to my heart. When the sails are raised, filling them and the motor is turned off, leaving nothing but the wind to draw you, it is a very special feeling indeed...one of peace and quite...a contentment of sorts with the waves as you fine tune the sails...those that have sailed know what I mean.
For a time now, like our boat, life has been very difficult for me and those found around me. In part because of who I am and have become... me... which tremendously grieves me, but also because in the midst of it all, I have sadly sought to find refuge in the solitude, remembering past pains and how it helped mpve past them at he time. Now culminating with my recent surgery and the limited mobility and opportunities to get out and participate in the larger world, in this state I have become extremely lonely. As I rested alone at home, I yearned for steps at my door, a phone call or text, a hello with a smile, but it was... quiet. Activities I enjoyed and cherished were gone, people I love to be around...my dearest friends... became strangers and more and more I realized how little value somehow I was to them anymore. Those who said they care for or even love me, left me in need. Containing such deep sorrow and regret for words expressed... and not, and the pain caused to others and myself, became too much to bear and my heart was sinking. My world was slowly shutting down and with no ears around me to listen, was leaving this person full of expression to share, quietly empty like a pen gone dry, or our crippled boat... laid on land after being battered by that terrible storm.
Last night I took a bold step, a step against some promises I made to myself and tentatively stepped out into life once again... a life in place that I once held so dear and that was everything to me, one of joy found in little smiles, warm words and the peace of honest conversation. It was so hard to do. I found friends so familiar... now distant, faces once friendly in smile... strangers again, children who would have rushed to hug me with all of their being... keeping distance, only looking. There was some light fellowship, but still in this awful brace, mostly, I wasn't sure if I found fear or compassion, pity or no concern at all... and I felt immensely alone still, like an unwelcome intruder into a person I once was and world in which I used to really feel so alive. It is a terrible indictment on my soul and who I am to pensively confront. Reflecting now on this experience, I am forced to think about as to what is real for me now and what the future holds, whether I will ever find myself truly loved, or silently alone once again and the meanings of it...for I cannot live in the later... not really.
As summer approaches and repairs are completed, hopefully in the next few weeks we will have our boat once again, a Pearson 36.5 back in the the wet and under sail. I hope with it that perhaps I will find myself behind her wheel being guided through the water seemingly by the very Breath of God, but I really don't know yet, what this summer will bring for me and that fine vessel.
Likewise, I don't know what life will be moving forward either with any certainly...whether it will be a life that I have hope for...long for really... one of deep beauty and joy in community, spontaneous fun, creativity, smiles, emotional connection, the fulfillment of true relationships and honest love... or unendurable sequestered solitude again within myself. I honestly wonder what is even possible anymore, or even knowing what could be and I am hoping that the same winds that might once again guide our boat across the bay... this same breath of God...might somehow find me where I am and also drive my life into, the very peace of His arms.
This image I shot on a fun, sunny day many years ago while out on a historic Chesapeake Bay Skipjack for a magazine article about this relic of a craft in the Oyster industry. It was shot using a 35mm Polaroid slide film that was new and trendy at the time. For this post, I cleaned up any scan imperfections only, leaving the distinctive look of a on site processed image, complete with light spots and all.
