essays by shé

bookshelf

Tag: makingfamily

  • Serious Joy

    Now out of the hurricane belt, I’m thinking of other belts. Specifically, those on the travel lift in the nearby boatyard. This week I made an appointment to haul-out Habibi during a morning high tide on August 16. One benefit to daily distance swimming is physical exhaustion—I don’t have the energy to freak out over…

  • Unfurling

    “Everything that makes me who I am is a gift.” —Tammie Jo Shults, jet captain, Nerves of Steel. The jib is tightly wound, and so am I. We both need to relax and unfurl. I loosened the lines holding the sail, and for me, I found a nearby swimming hole. On my fifth visit, someone stole…

  • Lagniappe

    The storm blew me past the busy port of Guaymas, where I’d intended to anchor and check out boatyards, and then San Carlos, several miles north. Next thing I knew I was passing an island in the dark, in high chop and higher winds—30 knots with stronger gusts. The navigational system shows tankers in the…

  • Amazing Grace

    It’s hard to be scared of a hurricane named Flossie. It brings to mind a docile cow, or a child’s dental hygiene tool. And sure enough, Flossie spun out and away over the Pacific, leaving behind much-needed rain. I am working on the memoir again, Diary of a Reluctant Traveler, wherein there are emotional hurricanes. It recounts…

  • Always Home

    I am not traveling. I am always Home. I put up a pretty purple curtain over the galley port. The color goes well with a nearby painting, Golden Years, attached to the bulkhead over the in-counter fridge. Homey, in a Shé way. I have always decorated abodes with art and design because it satisfies my soul.…

  • Juneteenth

    “It’s only a lightbulb,” said my mother. She was asking me to enter Jazz Hideaway’s bathroom and change the bulb, but when I opened the front door of the studio under her house, the scent of deep mold wafted out and I recoiled. The body remembered almost asphyxiating due to my ignorance of its mortal…

  • Ask

    “Ask for what you want, 100% of the time.” I read this in the Olympia newspaper, when I was stuck in a bog and didn’t know it, almost two decades ago. But first you have to know what you want, which isn’t always easy to figure out for a variety of reasons. The Thinking has talked me…

  • Full Throttle

    It happened suddenly. One moment Habibi’s depth-sounder read 19.2 feet, the next moment – at the same time I felt a bump – it read 4. Her draft is 5-6, though the sounder is at least a foot below the water line.  I wrenched the wheel to port and full throttled. After an excruciating half minute…

  • Damsels & Werewolves

    “That doesn’t make any sense,” I tell the director. It’s Budapest 1989, and we’re on the set of Howling V. This is director number two, and I don’t think he’s read the script. “I’m the werewolf,” I point out. He wants me to run screaming down a tunnel under the Danube River, and by this time,…

  • 400 Miles

    I heard them first, the dolphins, blowing out air like men swimming alongside Habibi. The moon wasn’t up yet, and I was motorsailing a cautious four knots while keeping an eye out for shrimpers, tankers, and fishing boats. The Big Dipper was clear above the mast, pointing out north. A dark dolphin shape leaps ten…