Happy birthday from another world

My bum is numb. Most of my outer layers of skin have lost feeling, but for the random involuntary shivers. This hockey rink is freezing. Despite my efforts to stay warm – donning a full body sleeping bag/coat, thick stodgy Uggs, and matching teddy bear hat and mittens, complete with bulbous knitted nose and ears. Very chic.

I sip at my flask of pretend coffee, wiping the deep red wine stains from my lips after each little swig. I’m trying to fit in here and hoping my teeth aren’t noticeably purple/grey.

The parents in the stands jump and shout after each play. “Noah! Rebound control buddy!!!” It’s all very aggressive and serious. The players out there are 7 and 8 years old. The smallest one is my nephew.

It is our last day in Canada – unless the winter storm warning in effect delays us by a day. We’ve been here, visiting the house I grew up in, for over two months. At once I am sucked back into the rhythm of suburban winter life, and also repelled and alienated by the contrast to the life I’ve led for the past 21 years away.

My captain – so far out of his ocean realm, sits beside me on the stands, enthralled by the fast paced game on the ice below. His new cozy winter toque, pulled down over his ears, he blows into his bright red, dry and freezing hands in the futile attempt to warm them. I’ve dragged him here, into my family, my past, my people. And despite hockey’s foreign rules and cultural intricacies, he has fit right in.

Hot chocolate, egg nog, minus 21 temps. He’s shoveled snow, used the snow blower, poured warm water on our frozen car doors to get them open. Welcome to Canada baby!

I cannot believe it’s been 4 months since we left Shiloh and our sailing life behind – left her to face hurricane Matthew alone while we visited potato festivals in West Virginia and sampled Moose pie in Newfoundland. We 'oohed' and 'aahed' at the colours of the Cabot trail in Cape Breton, and marvelled at the 40 ft tidal swing at the Bay of Funday. We walked the red sand beaches of Prince Edward Island and sampled the world's best scallops in digby Nova Scotia.... Luckily Shiloh and her boatyard friends all weathered the storm without a scratch.

It’s been months since I had to steer the 15 ton boat up to a fuel dock, weather a storm, navigate a port entry… All my life stresses have been replaced by GPS driving stresses, finding motels, and finally juggling all the family and friend visits over the holidays.

Everything about life is in flux. Within a few days we will evolve from our hats and scarves to capris and flip flops.

Everything has been in flux – we’ve visited over 80 cities, towns, villages, islands in 2016. We are lucky. And yet the worst tragedy to befall a mother is my reality.

There is the matter of my six year old son, who today would be eighteen.

There are things I can reconcile – weather, financial strains, family differences, friends who disappoint.

But my baby boy – the one who coveted his can of red Pringles, who cuddled all the girls and declared that food is not food without rice! My Shiloh – who loved Power Rangers and Bob the Builder and Spiderman. My little guy, with stubby brown fingers and a soft blond peach fuzz on his silky little neck…  that he was born 18 years ago today. I cannot reconcile this in my feeble mommy brain. My mommy heart has missed the years between 6 and 18 where my boy would have grown, but where instead there was a void. A void within my heart, a place where the world stopped spinning and simply sat, dumbfounded by a loss so great.

 

So today, as I watch my little nephew barreling down the ice, caught up in the spirit of the game, I decide there is no reconciling the things that happen in this life.

We simply find ourselves in places in time and we must soak them in. We must exist in the here and now – all the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘could haves’ held at bay. Life is in this moment. This right here. The smell of warm chocolate contrasted by the bitter cold air and the cry of the overbearing parent.  The sour kick of red wine with the metallic aftertaste of the flask. My boy is gone but this boy is here, and he is life – all new and hopeful. And there is love that transcends. It holds families together, it holds us all together across time and space. But all we have really is what is in front of us right now.

I have memory, and love and family and the frivolous concept of plans. Adventures await.

For now, happy birthday my angel boy and Go Adam! Our boy of the day.

Seven Days at Sea

In households around the western world, eggs were painted in pastels and hidden, cheap chocolate animals in foil were unwrapped and stuffed into the mouths of babes, and the great bunny’s name was evoked. In churches globally, the sermons were doled out, same as last year and the year before…  the institution of Easter was being observed.

Yet we missed it. We were on this planet in an entirely different realm for the past week. Land and society and all it’s rules and celebrations, comforts and conveniences were a distant memory. Left on a shore as we pulled out of the bay for our longest ocean passage to date.

Day 1: Between the squalls that pile up in the sky in so many shades of black and grey and cobalt, there are the other colours. We are between sky and ocean, and the colours are everything. Periwinkle, robin’s egg blue, muted royal blue, true turquoise, ice mint, and indigo sea below. Sunset splashes the sky with peach and fuschia and finally a rich purple before dipping us all into complete darkness.

Day 2: I’ve watched the sunrise on an indigo abyss. Our crew is getting into the groove of a moving home, sleeping, sitting watch, sleeping, sitting watch… our huge rainbow spinnaker is all puffed up, proudly pulling us along. It’s midday and we’re all awake and taking it in. The ocean lies around us, undulating and powerful, and then it happened. Three sets of eyes behold the beauty of a whale, breaching. Her massive body completely airborne. A mammoth ballet. It was a secret viewing, one of nature’s gifts. My heart sang. Sailing is amazing and this is why. 

Day 4: I’m bracing myself aboard, the thrashing seas lifting and dropping Shiloh, though her chain and anchor somehow manage to keep us in one place, against the 30 knot gale that has blown incessantly since we arrived at the first sight of land, this tiny desolate mound of rock and sand, two days ago. I pick at the crusty weeping salt scars that cover the boat and squint over at the little island, so close yet so far away. My legs long to walk, to stretch, to feel that warm sand but we cannot get into the dinghy in the waves, and ashore the surf is building and crashing violently. No chance. Haven’t been able to cook in days, each step aboard is an exercise in balance and strategic grabbing of walls and surfaces… yet still, I am bruised. It’s been rough. It’s still rough. We settle down to watch a movie as the ferocious elements bash us from all angles…

Day 5: Trudging through deep soft sand, my legs ache and burn and it’s a sweet pain. Awoke in the morning to a glass surface. Mother nature’s anger is gone and in it’s place a breathtaking beauty and an invitation to the beach.

Our flotilla, like insects in a jar in the grubby hands of a curious child, we’d been plucked up and tossed around for days, falling about each other in a tiny container, and then we were dumped out on land. We scattered. Running, kicking, exploring our new surroundings and spreading out. Bliss.

We walked most of the island that day. Dodging little cacti, picking up shells, kicking up the sad signs of civilization – plastic bottles and single shoes, washed ashore, leaving their stories with far off people. We climbed the hill and listened to the fish eagle’s sermon atop his broken lighthouse perch. 

Day 7: We are in a 65 mile wide shallow swimming pool. It is flat and as clear as the air, with a turquoise hue. We sailed the deep channel across to tiny Fish Cay at the edge of the main Caicos bank of the Turks & Caicos. After one night we decided to set off into the middle of the shallows and drop anchor. The closest land is at least 20 miles away but the water below us, no deeper than the deep end of a suburban pool. It glistens and shines under the sun. And we are awoken by dolphins. This is as close as our world can get to perfection. Beauty. The smile becomes internal. You glow. You haven’t seen other people or a building or a wifi signal for a week. And it doesn’t matter. It is nothing. 

And we begin the last leg of this passage – we head toward relative civilization, toward immigration formalities and stores and restaurants and bars and other people. To the Internet. But not before we soak in these last few hours on the bow of the boat. Legs swinging over the edge, sun on our shoulders, Shiloh’s hulls cutting through the serenity. Orange starfish dotting the vast sandy bottom, sting ray, nurse shark, all greeting us on this surreal trip.

With extreme caution we use the age old method of eyeball navigation through the coral bommies and patches of reef, and make our way into Southside Marina anchorage. Our depth metre reads zero and we are practically aground it’s so shallow. But now we must turn to earthly concerns. This part of the journey is over.

On shore, the immigration and customs officers are called and the flotilla crews are buried in ipads and laptops. We complete check-in around a picnic table in the gazebo and bid farewell to the officers, who’ve recommended tomorrow’s fish fry and a visit to Boogaloo’s while we’re here. In the evening there is a cruiser potluck and so it begins - the overly friendly interaction characteristic of sailors who know the other side, the world out there with no one else. No passports or paperwork, no crowded malls or Google references. A world of wind and waves, a world without Easter.