Underway

I pushed off my departure a few days. (Does it appear that I am stalling?) During the boat inspection, it was discovered that the paint, newly-applied prior to listing, had blistered. Rapport went back to the yard to be sanded and repainted. As planned, Kent flew to Los Angeles, met with Sylvia at her boyfriend Connor’s home, and the three of them drove to Seattle. They settled into an Air BNB to await my Friday arrival and occupied their days with some 18-mile hikes. Kent visited Rapport, did an electronics walkthrough with the previous owner, and waited for the paint to dry—and then, it blistered, again. She sits, out of water, in the boat yard.
 
Meanwhile back on the farm, I had ‘the list’ to complete before my now Monday departure. I ticked through my items: cutting and freezing Brussel sprouts (a first), putting outside furniture into basement crawl space, clearing my mail pile, and laundry, laundry, laundry.  It turns out when the children left home to return to college and move to new city for job, they left their dirty laundry behind.
 
By Friday, the house was tidy, and work was steadily proceeding in others’ capable hands. Over the weekend, I relished the order, and the season. With dogs underfoot, I travelled on trails thick with orange, yellow, and brown leaves. I rode my horses. I considered the blistering paint. I watched a video clip on twitter of the Orcas attacking a sailboat. I had to stop watching the swells and bobbing whales because I started feeling seasick. I could stay another couple days.
 
Delay is a deep breath, a pause waiting for something to happen. A moment to re-evaluate. Delay is a void, a space waiting to be filled.
 
When Kent was in the Navy, delay was a loss of control. It was also a constant. Kent would leave home for two to four weeks at a time, then return home for a couple weeks. I would arrange my gallery work schedule to align with his two-weeks at home before he departed again for Fallon, for El Centro, or the carrier. Then his schedule would change. I would ask to adapt mine, but I was messing too much with everyone else’s schedule. In his few days home, we saw little of each other.
 
The erratic schedule persisted on deployment. I planned to meet him for a month to travel in Australia. I gave notice at my job. I found a friend to take my dogs. Then came the uncertainty, mostly conveyed by letters, occasional phone call, but mostly the chain of command. The CO’s wife would call the phone tree: they are diverted to Somalia; Australia is delayed; Australia is cancelled.  We will know in a week. Get a refundable ticket. It’s on. It’s off. I wanted certainty and commitment. I wanted a plan. I cancelled my trip; they did go to Australia.
 
Uncertainly was the plan. When we got engaged in August, we set a May wedding date before his June deployment. My dream was a ceremony surrounded by lilacs. My experience told me this was risky. We moved the ceremony to November, a ceremony surrounded by falling leaves and early snowflakes, when family was already home during Thanksgiving. Pregnant, I think was on most people’s mind. Navy, was on mine. In April he shipped out. The cruise date moved up seven weeks due to the invasion of Kuwait.
 
Delay then was anger.  Delay was time spent re-reading Co-dependent No More. Delay then felt like I couldn’t make plans, my life on hold, or that I was insignificant. Delay now is reprieve. It’s opportunity. Delay is the place of transition. It is a moment of gathering before the shift unfurls; it is the lever between awareness and action. I like to rush transitions. I am impatient. I want to move forward, but the most stable changes occur more organically—as opposed to a flip-flop that might not last. Delay allows the assimilation, and the lasting change.
 
Here is what I notice about how I operate: First I make a Commitment. I say yes to a goal, such as a big horse competition or moving the business to a new location.  Or a sailboat. Then there is a step by step plan to achieve that goal. Forge a plan and forge ahead. Inevitably there is a setback, and what comes next is wild second guessing (possibly panic). This stage may derail the entire operation.  Maybe I better stay put. Then there is re-evaluation to create more manageable expectations, followed by re-commitment, and finally persistence.
 
I have been through these stages many times in pursuit of business goals and horse goals. Each time I set a course to move out of my comfort zone, I doubt, I persist, and I fret over a drawn-out timeline. Yet the time I said yes to skydiving, I went through these stages at warp speed.
 
I met Sylvia in Christ Church, New Zealand to join her for a short interlude during her gap year.  Again, like the sailboat, it was Sylvia’s dream to skydive. This was not my bucket list item; I don’t have a bucket list. Or if I do, I seem to be reverse engineering it.
 
Commitment: We ascended in a small plane with a clear plastic tarp for a door. I had a flight cap and goggles gripped in my hands and a guide named Rudolf strapped to my back. An oxygen tube hung in front of me, “You won’t need that,” he said, barely audible over the sound of the engine.
 
Second guessing: I looked at the lineup of travelers and guides pressed together. The medium age was closer to Sylvia, who was sitting across the aisle.  She was smiling.  Others glanced at me and I saw their thought-bubbles rise: if she can do it, so can I.  There wasn’t anyone I could look to for assurance. I thought of my 82-year old neighbor back in Vermont who went skydiving when she turned 80.
 
Panic: At 16,000 Rudolf tells me to take the oxygen. What?! I fumbled for the tube. I did my best to take little breaths and not hyperventilate, throw up, or pass out. Any one of those seemed very real options. Did I mention my fear of falling? Rudolf pats me on the head and tells me to put on my cap. We are last ones in the plane. Waiting. For what? he offered the chance to say no.
 
Awareness: I had no idea how I was going to react. I had lost my nerve enough through riding accidents and recovered enough to know fear is an irrational experience. I could be fine. I could lose my shit. I’ve done both. Manage expectations: I don’t have to love skydiving, but I dohave to decide if I am going to go. And once I was out the door there would be no mind-changing.
 
Re-commitment: My daughter was gone, out the door, falling through the sky, and that was a catalyst. Okay, I said. Rudi scooted and dropped me out the door so that he was sitting on the threshold and my legs were dangling in the sky. He put his hand on my forehead and pulled my head back. I pulled my legs back, under the fuselage, arced my back, and we fell.
 
Persistence: We spun away from the plane. My eyes closed. I expected this moment of loss of control. And I expected to stabilize. Then, we were floating. The ground was not racing up to meet me. I looked over to the lake and to the hills and all that was Queenstown, New Zealand. I wasn’t screaming. I would have smiled but my lips were stuck to my gums.
 
“The most dangerous thing on a boat is a schedule,” says Kent. “That’s when people leave the port in a storm.” I was increasingly reluctant to leave port at all. I am beginning to enjoy the delay. Delay is the moment of pure potential. I could love sailing. Or I could not. I could be wretchedly ill. Or not. I could feel the open spaces of the sea, or the claustrophobia of the cabin. I could feel the sea breeze or resent the tackiness of the salt air. I could roll with swells, or brace against. In the delay, I could imagine any outcome and I could envision only success.
 
Commitment: I am now in an Air BNB on Reservation Road in the Swinomish Tribal Community, down the road from the boatyard. We have bought comforters, frying pan, glasses, pillows, measuring cups, socket wrenches, plates, silverware, groceries, rubber boots with fish-patterned lining, fishing line, and nets. We have been to the CBD dispensary. The man there perplexed by my request for edibles to combat sea-sicknesses. I bought three bags.
 
Panic: “Wear a life jacket at all times,” is my mother’s response when I tell her I am going to combat sea sicknesses by getting high.  In Walgreens, I purchase every available sea sickness remedy. I decide ‘drowsy’ could be a smart choice.
 
Awareness: We can’t go to Juneau this fall because we cannot transit Canadian waters during the Pandemic. We change our course to sail in the San Juan Islands and return to Seattle. The boat is still out of the water, so we kayak. We revise and are not derailed. We manage our expectations. We cannot control the situation, but we can control our response to it. We adjust our course based on new information, and time. And this shakedown cruise does not have to define my whole future of sailing. I have to get the feel of life with a boat and this is all part of it. This is a journey after all—give it time.
 
This afternoon we climbed ladders and loaded the boat with our purchases.  We climbed down just as they were pulling out the scaffold. And they put her in the water. And there she floats. Tomorrow we set sail, at noon, when the tide is right for Deception Pass (which I mistakenly called Desperation Point).
​The delay is over.

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