Over The Wine-Dark Sea

July 9th, 2008

I am home. My toenails are painted blue like the sea. I feel as if I've never left, and yet know it can't be possible. Were that the case, how did I incur this plethora of new and exciting injuries? Rainbows of bruises, swollen knuckles from dislocated fingers, gentle scrapes, peeling sunburn -- most importantly, the deep ebb and flood of yearning for my home on the water and the salty, wildmad lovers I left therein.

Suddenly I speak a foreign language in a native tongue. People stare at me, perplexed, as I run through complex explanations to supplement jokes about bilge pumps and bulkheads. My idiom is fast becoming obsolete and so I furiously tread water, writing letters and burning promised mix CD's for shipmates. Trying to recall the smell of salt on my skin and wind in my hair.


Normal service to resume shortly.

Thanks For The Cheer

This Blog arrives courtesy of: My mother, for reminding me that it exists, and Philip Hansel, for bolstering my ego and persuading me that it might be a good idea to update once in a while.

So: Cambridge says "Hello," as do I.

The wind keeps blowing from across the Atlantic, the sky keeps trying to put on a good display when the sun hits the horizon around 3:45pm, the rest of the time it rains, and the chickens instinctively cruise the yard in separate factions, black and white, and I write more letters than I know what to do with, sometimes I eat crumpets for breakfast, most days it's tea and nothing more, I think about sailing, I jump on the trampoline and get very wet, I get sick, and then get better, I play Scrabble with my Godfather, I remember that somewhere in the world it's still sunny, I think of how quickly the last few years have flown by, I knit, I knit some more, I open the drapes, I close the drapes, I take the bus and read coffeetable tomes on tall ships and oceanic navigation, I dream about trying to moor longboats around luxury yachts with prehistoric alligators who are supposedly no longer hungry for the taste of sailors as my Captain spontaneously combusts for no apparent reason and doesn't seem too concerned.

See, it wasn't too wierd until that last one. I swaer it seemed perfectly logical while I was asleep. My dreams have been vivid and hectic these last few weeks, leaving me strangely satisfied when I wake up, knowing that I've seen my shipmates and my friends and the children I learned my ABC's with in some capacity at least. It staves off the feeling of being cut off. Some days are fabulous because I hear from someone on break in Ojai, someone traveling to the mountains in Australia, someone weathering the winter in France, dealing with potential in-laws in Washington, navigating the 5 down to Los Angeles, waiting for the weather to clear, studying for finals, taking a photo a day, heading off on a New Year retreat...Anything beyond the fire in the grate and the the rain relentlessly flowing down the gutters outside. Anything that reminds me of the family I've built up over the years. They're an amazing crowd of beautiful, lively, intelligent, silly people and I love them all dearly, perhaps I don't tell them enough. Driving me to write and tell them now from 8,000 miles away.

Alysia wins first prize for writing back to me on this leg of the journey. Her postcard and letter arrived today, carefully forwarded from home, full of sunny Australian news, making me dream of Sespe backpacking and Mount Brewer in the snow. But now is the time for some practicality. I begin work on Tuesday at Borders bookstore, earning minimum wage here, which sneakily translates to $10 an hour at home. Thank you, failing economy. With the money I earn I'll be able to finish my trip with cash to spare for a ticket North when the time comes to rejoin my precious sailorly contingent and live it up away from the hard for a change. I get to wear a shiny red Borders shirt and spend eight hours a day in the company of books. Lots of books. I should mention that the particular Borders I am employed at is the largest in Europe. Oh yes. Lots of books for me.

This is probably all the sensical writing I can manage for today. Slacking off on journaling for the sake of letter-writing leads to a surplus of nostalgic rambling, which unfortunately must be emptied before I reach critical mass and go super nova.

Other things, like holly and the distinctive smell of tinsel and London and trains and dresses and just remembering to breathe every day. Taking anew the farmhouse I remember from age 6, sitting in a vortex of bubble bath and giggling, hot water bottles, a little more tar off the Turk's Head each day, playing with calligraphic pens, helping to decorate the village hall in tatty cellophane, stringing ornaments 25 feet up a ladder, flashbacks to countless light hangs in countless spaces, Shakespearean Festival nights and where are they now? All of those power tools, interns, flats, crusted rollers, wads of gaff tape, baseball caps, memorized lines, bad Italian accents, tambourines, innocent crushes. Standing still as the world flows on around me. It gives one a strange sort of perspective.

Haircut here, frostbite there, new top, old pants, replacing shoelaces, knitting handwarmers, new handwriting, same news, remembering to wash my hands, forgetting what sort of cake I had for my eighth birthday, listening to the same music, superimposing different connotations, running home in the five pm darkness, could be any time of night for all anyone can tell, understanding the meaning of perpetual summer, resisting the temptation to run home and jump on the Lady and sail away, to book the next flight to South Africa and regain feeling in my fingers again, knowing I should head to the kitchen and defrost, but deciding just a few more words, just a little more thought, saying goodbye and hello to all these different parts of myself.

This is what the world is all about: Hello and goodbye. Goodbye and hello.

Just keep breathing.

Long We Tossed On The Rolling Main

Friends, Romans, Countrymen...

I'm back in Glasgow! We left Stornoway by ferry at the ungodly hour of 6am this morning and drove and drove and drove through the centre of Scotland to return here, to home, and the chance to repack before I board a plane tomorrow morning for the Emerald Isle.

A few things I'll miss from my time in Stornoway:

1. The sheep!

They're everywhere! Mincing across the road as if they have no idea you're bearing down on them at 50 an hour. Better yet, not even bothering to get up from their afternoon siesta across the double yellow line. Lewis sheep look different from the normal countryside variety. They've got character. And My day will be that much greyer without them.

2. Sailing.

Stornoway is an ocean town. The island has so many seafaring connections it's unbelieveable. There are some seriously beautiful tall ships who come and set anchor here for a few months every year, the fishermen come home each day with the sea lions in their wake and the birds diving overhead, and the locals make amazing yard decor from old buoys and fishing net. A few days ago I had the pleasure of getting to temporarily play skipper aboard a 26' sailboat in the Minch. Several hours of pure bliss skimming before a stiff breeze up the craggy coast towards Harris.

3. The Sunsets.

That's all that needs to be said about them.

So I leave Lewis behind for my next stop, Dublin! Now, at last, after the madness of the Fringe Festival, I can settle down to being a budget traveler and spending as little as possible. But just when I thought it was safe to not go broke, I discover that the city of my destination has decided to host its own Fringe Festival in September.

Bastards!

I'm going to have a hell of a time restraining myself from seeing every show I can lay my grubby little mits on. Luckily I'm not staying long becaue of Laignee!

For Laignee's sake (You'd better still be keeping up with the blog, young lady. It was your idea in the first place.) I am roughing it by bus to the Southern countryside in search of a small bakery bearing her last name. Of course the national bus route to the place has just been cancelled, so I am on a quest to avoid walking the 50kn from Waterford on my own little tootsies by any means necessary. We'll see how that goes.

And then there's the matter of my European Union passport. I haven't been boring you all with the details of my family's trials and tribulations vis a vis the labyrinthine beurocracy inherent in any governmental department responsible for citizenship, because I wouldn't want to inflict that sort of torture on anyone voluntarily. However, the fight has been going on for about three years on and off, and now, when it matters most of all, we're at an impasse.

So some drastic steps have been taken, and some exciting plans have been laid. Like any surprise tactical maneuver, this one has daring advances to places nobody expects, long-lost reuinons with souls given up for lost, secretive documents which must be delivered safely to certain parties, and plenty of time doing battle with the Forces of Nature.

You are all in the dark for now for the sake of your own safety. Information will be dispensed on a need to know basis.

Remember: The codeword is "Badgers." We meet tonight at the sign of the Flummoxed Haggis!