Tag: Mexico
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Love is Love
I was sixty. He was thirty-two. I liked his kindness and swagger, but at first I didn’t even recognize him from day to day. It took me months to figure out that he was interested in a non-platonic relationship. But then… He was doing something in the bow of his boat, leaning over away from…
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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…
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Pura Vida
Oh, metallic blue paint at the office supply store! Oh, canvases and silver hue! I hold my sunglasses in my teeth, the better to pile art supplies into my arms. Was hard to leave the quality paints behind on Kaua’i. Back aboard Habibi, these treasures now take up three shoeboxes and a cubby and a half. Satisfaction.…
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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…
essays by shé 