The place is abuzz with sipping, slurping, green straws,
computer keypads, tall chai caramel latte decaf macchiato flat white black
Americano….
It’s our last day in America.
It only seems appropriate to spend an inappropriate amount
of it in a Starbucks.
Tomorrow we set sail for Bimini, sailor’s gateway to the
Bahamas. Only 45 miles into a different world completely.
We change worlds from time to time. The day or two before
that magic sail between worlds is strange. I see things in a yellowish hue.
Reality vibrates and bends.
I can’t help but look around me at the people, living their
lives, driving along, calling their friends, sipping their coffees. They become
part of a static thing. They are America. They will be left here, carrying on
with all this when we are gone. When for us there are no more traffic lights
and Best Buys and Walmarts and Starbucks. When for us there are only desolate
beaches and understocked shacks/stores and shallow waters and showers off the
back step. When the sky and the sea take up our days with their omnipotence,
back here they will be the backdrop to civilization. They will remain outside
the honking cars, the bright lights of the shops and the clanking glasses on
the restaurant patios.
I stand in the line and try to memorize my order – must
remember the words – not small, tall. Not medium, Grande! Meanwhile there’s a
double blended skinny caramel Frappucino up. Names are written on cups, green
aprons flitter about behind the counter. I feel inadequate. A novice, an
outsider. How do they keep this stuff in their heads? There are no skinny whip
cream vanilla bean crèmes in the other world. You’re lucky if you find coffee.
At all.
But you will find yourself. More raw, less busy, more
mindful. No yoga classes, just your feet on grainy sand, plodding along,
feeling the pull in your thighs of the muscles as you sink ever so slightly
with each step. You will sink down, sweating under the sun drenched sky. You
will sit for long periods at the edge of the water, feeling it’s undulating
warm surface with the palms of your hand. It’s magical in the way that no
shopping mall can recreate. It’s all in slow motion in that other world.
The thing is that the worlds remain, whether we come back
again or not. Next year I may find myself on the reverse journey. Arriving into
this world, anticipating the availability of everything with giddy anxiety in
the core of my being.
Or we might sail on to a different world again entirely. New
immigration offices, new smells, new walks, new adventures.
It’s a life of uncertainty. I’ve learned something curious
about that. Life changing. Straightforward in it’s simplicity. You can only
open yourself to new worlds when you expand your tolerance for the uncertainty
of everything. What will the sail across be like? Will we have good weather?
Will we meet storms? Will we find a place to anchor? Will they be friendly at
the Immigration office?
A day or two after arrival in a new world, there are more
uncertainties. Where will we sail next? What will that island be like? Will we
find a protected anchorage? Will there be storms? Will the boat drag toward the
rocks at 2am in a massive wind? Where will we do our laundry? Will our boat
freezer die, leaving us with rotten, smelling sopping food and no chance to
replace it all?
But none of these unknowns can put us off the adventure
quest.
It’s the life of the maritime squatter. And it’s time to
move on.
As the air-conditioning and ice coffee shooters closes
behind me with the door, and we head out into the warmth of a Miami afternoon,
I’ve moved on to the journey. Legally and mentally we’ve left this world and
there are only a few things left to do. Fill the diesel and water tanks and
anchor way out, on the edge of America, ready for tomorrow morning’s nautical
flight to new lands.
