words & art by shé

bookshelf

Tag: Mazatlan

  • Hurricane John

    Some things you don’t get over. Death of an Irish twin is one. Hours of parallel play. Racing snails. Matching cabooses. Peanut butter on toast. Picking huckleberries. Tying towels around our necks after a bath and flying around singing the Batman theme. The flat track for our tiny cars, with the completely satisfying 3-D gas station…

  • No Sweat

    The enervating heat is breaking, the nights are longer and cooler. The body is more comfortable more often. I tried to acclimate, but a hundred degrees is a hundred degrees. Heatstroke happened, but only once. A more temperate climate beckons, with several months to sail there. New Zealand? A recent tropical storm dumped a bunch…

  • Connection

    When you connect with the Divine, you connect with All — the words appeared in my brain a few days ago. We’re always connected to the Divine, of course, but I’m not always aware of it. So I’ve been practicing. Soon after, a woman motors a catamaran into a nearby slip — calm, cool, and collected.…

  • Nourishment

    The frigate bird picks up garbage, hoping it is food. It never is, despite repeated attempts. I do this too, tempted by the supposed soft life of washing machines, easy food access, running water, and electricity. I haven’t left the marina since my aborted attempt more than a month ago. (See “Underpowered.”) I have a…

  • An Open Letter to Patronizers

    Help me, or don’t help me, but don’t assume you know better than I how to run my life. The decisions are not yours to make. They are mine. The mistakes are mine, the lessons are mine. I welcome your solicited advice and expertise. But Habibi is my boat. You are not allowed to board without my…

  • 2Loved2BUgly

    So, I shaved my head. I look like Steve McQueen. Or a monk. Not a curl in sight. It’s very soft, though, and quite comforting to pet. But Scorn visited quickly. “You are too ugly to be loved,” she said. Fortunately my inner Pollyanna piped up. “No, babe. You are too loved to be ugly,” which made…

  • Alarms

    Alarm cannot be hushed. So said Habibi’s smoke detector when I burned breakfast, along with Fire. I push the center button, but Alarm cannot be hushed. Pot in the cockpit, hatches open, fans on… finally, the alarm shuts off. I did this in the tiny house a few times too, before I disabled the alarm. Small spaces fill with smoke…

  • Underpowered

    “I need help!” I yell in Spanish, and throw a line to Enrique on the fuel dock. But Habibi’s motor craps out and we drift away toward the concrete sea wall. Men line the top of it, to help push her away from what I believe is a certain crash. I’d been trying to leave…

  • No Trouble

    Trouble’s gone. After a week anchored nearby, the blue-striped sailboat was gone when I got up this morning. Huzzah! (Boat names are sometimes quite direct. Best to pay attention.) I contacted another instructor when Anxiety refused to let me sail solo. “Knowing you can sail is different from hoping you can,” she pointed out in the wee…

  • Leap of Faith

    Three nights on the hook. Anchored. A lost security bracelet (gate key) prompts check out from the marina. Sign from god: no more access to hot showers and wifi. Oh no! Am I ready? But maybe I don’t have to feel ready. Maybe I just have to listen.  This has happened before. On Kaua’i, the 4Runner key…