A letter to a friend, mensa and shy.
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Posted:Oct 13, 2007 6:13 pm
Last Updated:Mar 10, 2008 3:04 am
2475 Views
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"Hello ******,
I feel vastly complimented, humbled, thankful, something like that, for the confidences you share with me. And the reverse also holds. The word 'esteemed' comes to mind. I think this may be exactly the correct usage.
Each of us at times, it would seem, feels the grind of mediocrity catching at our heels, trying to capture and roll us down with the grist. But You certainly are not mediocre and I do not feel I am either. In point of fact, we are superior in so many ways. Yes, mostly between the ears. So is this something that should help us or just something that allows us to see what should or could be? If the latter, then cruel irony it is. ("Lady Latterly's Lover" I certainly have a sick mind to pun at a time like this.)
I can see. This is not always a good thing. The 'opiate of the masses' was designed for precisely the thought, the conception that flitted through my mind today. I , the true 'I', am something that can see myself independent of the atoms or molecules that are my vessel. These atoms will be here and incorporated in some other being after I am gone. I, at present, am using perhaps a million or a billion of the atoms that Shakespeare used, or Nero, or Leonardo. The same atoms recycled, reformatted time and time again. I, the true 'I' must then exist independently of those bits. They are not mine, only borrowed bits. And to contemplate the before 'I', or the after 'I', then becomes comprehensible. NOT desirable, just understandable. lol
The 'I can see.' statement then becomes a curse, a detriment to productivity.. I wish to excel at the physical, the artistic. The smooth floor finish today supports my being, but I have to look past the futility of a polished floor, so that I can feed me and mine.
And as to confidences,,,, as I sit here,,, I truthfully can't think of another mind on the planet that I can express this thought to. You and I are each a bit reticent in a new company of people, but we should not be, ever.
I have learned through much and hard won experience to garner my thoughts. I believe, and this belief may be very incorrect, that the combination of physical presence, strength, workings of my mind, frightens people on so many levels. I sometimes feel like they are contemplating the pitchforks, torches and a reinforcing mob to rid them of the monster. It is probably some other foible of mine, something other I just cannot see, but it seems to me that the combination of bearings has kept me segregated almost all of my life. I hate it. I hate that I can see the why and have no recourse, no cure. And the recent confirmation is that with the advancing years and graying of beard and temples, I am somehow softened, more acceptable.
You begin from an enviable ground, and you should exploit it. lol Yes, the new eyebrows are not ... quite what I would have chosen for you. (Kick me a swift one when next we meet.) But you are of unthreatening size, attractive, I would even go so far as to say sweet. (Heaven help the man that ever underestimates you though.) The power of the seat from which you speak is not immediately evident.
There are few your equal. Don't you ever, ever doubt it. You will always be able to hold your own, converse intelligently, with ANYONE, on any subject you so choose. Save the denim and the plaid for me, I think it is cute. (Yeah, I know, I'm a sicko.) Put on the demure frock, insinuate yourself into the physical position to engage in the discussion and then don't hold back a bit. Give them both barrels, they'll never know what hit them.
Hahahahahaha I just imagined,,, at some distant time in the future, the two of us together at such a thing... Their defenses would be up for me and it would be you picking them off of the fence top one after the other. Funny thought.
I tell you truly. You have the tools to stand in the arena and spar with any of them. Believe it, and that is the confidence.
Dean"
The letter ended here.
I think that I did it again. Like the post 'Peeling back the layers of the onion',,,,, I have heard a resounding ten day silence. I will wait another ten days,,, and beyond that as well.
I pull my punches, you know that don't you? I should not. I have been writing letters, building experience upon experience slowly accumulating the knowlege to find 'her'. I actually had three dates this summer. I have nothing but praise and high regard for all three. Two were close to a fit, but no magic. One very special, but as we came to know each other I learned that she already had what I have always hoped for myself. So she has become a friend, 'esteemed', yes, and valued.
I have flaws, lol, many. But chief among those flaws is a mind that does crosswords and sudoku in ink, loves to learn a music passionately, and nuclear reactor tech, the new found ability to write, and the flow and feel of wind on a sail.
Couple that with all of my other flaws and I am nigh unmatchable.It was an exceptional day. Five direct rejections. But to each give them their due respect, each would have been a right foot wearing a left shoe.
She MUST be of extraordinary mental agility. Mensa candidate is probably a bare minimum. Lithe or athletic, gentle or even shy, BUT strong, flexible carbon fiber strong. I want my equal, no more, I want my better.
And then an artist's soul and a lion's courage,,, oh yes, and nipples that are exotically sensitive and get hard, diamond hard. And that she would want me as a friend.
The cruelty of being able to see, and arms that are not long enough. "Please pass the carrots. Oh, and that brunette over there too. No not that one. The one with lights in her eyes. Yes, that one."
Dean
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The Mighty Mac
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Posted:Sep 1, 2007 10:15 pm
Last Updated:Sep 30, 2007 9:27 pm
2568 Views
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Michigan is linked, Upper Peninsula to Lower Peninsula, by the great Mackinac Bridge, The Mighty Mac. I won't enter the fray of biggest or longest (We hear too much of that on this site.) BRIDGE, I said bridge. The Straits of Mackinac are nearly five miles across. Five miles of deep cold fresh water linking the Great Lakes of Huron and Michigan.
Someone thought to build a bridge across the straits. Several tries and they did it. It opened for traffic in the late Fifties and on that opening day a tradition was born.
Each Labor Day, at 7AM, the Governor of the State of Michigan shall walk across that bridge. And ALL that decide to go for a stroll may walk over the bridge as well. From extreme end to end, 5 miles. Add to that the requisite walking through town and about the north end of the bridge and you have, oh,,, 7 to 8 miles to walk. A stroll over two hundred feet in the air, above the water, looking down through the steel grating roadway, across a center span of 3,800 feet, total cable supported span of more than 8,000 feet, and all for fun.
I, with , will join that walk again this year. My company will be about 100,000 other happy, self selected people.
You are out there in the late summer chill, 55F, stars still out and usually a planet or two, and the sun rises about the time you start out and over your left shoulder. I have done it in rain, and with the wind blowing stoutly, but most years the gods must like what we do and the weather is mild and a following breeze. I hope so.
IF you ever have the chance, IF you can ever make the time, you really should go for that stroll over the currently third longest in the world, and longest suspension bridge in North America.
You absolutely will be glad you did. And this being an International forum, the longer bridges are in Japan and Denmark(?),if they don't already, they should be doing the same thing. I think that one day a year traffic can run a little slower. Maybe we can get them each to walk theirs on the same day.
Dean
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Words
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Posted:Aug 29, 2007 11:31 pm
Last Updated:Nov 2, 2008 8:25 pm
2497 Views
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Every person should be judged only on the qualities of their being, the passion of their attempts, the grace of accepting their successes and failings.
Dean
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Hurricane Dean
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Posted:Aug 15, 2007 9:48 pm
Last Updated:Aug 30, 2007 10:52 pm
2546 Views
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So nice of the Hurricane Center to name the fourth named storm of 2007 after me.
Hahahahahaha After all the letters and emails to them, Colorado and Minnesota, (Other hurricane research offices),,,,, they just might have!
Not only that, but the environment or environments that this tropical depression has formed in and will be passing and developing in are not usual.
Hey, march to the beat of a distant drummer.
Duck Texas.
Dean
(Hurricane Dean)
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Aww, that ain't nothin'!
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Posted:Aug 14, 2007 11:10 pm
Last Updated:Dec 10, 2008 9:23 pm
2768 Views
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No shit! I thought I was gonna die!
There I was at twenty two thousand feet above southern Illinois with a 35 mm Camera duct taped to my wrist, in a C-130, tail door open, and being hustled out into that blue and white sky.........
No! No! That's not the story to tell tonight.
What I meant to say was...
Sound asleep on a VERY cold winter's night. Snuggled down into a warm bed. So good. The only sounds the occasional auto passing, chink or clank of the rails shrinking in the extreme cold on the railroad tracks outside the windows.
Read until drowsy, lights out. Ahhhhh.
And some sharp metallic noise awoke me. Hmmm Must just have been the rails 'talking' in the cold. And Ahhhhh, back to sleep.
But somewhere in that semi conscious mind I identified the noise. It was a car jack. Ursine grunt, rising inflection. Urernt!
My secretary had left her car overnight because she could not start it at quitting time. HER car was out there and that was a car jack!
Now to make this understandable, I digress.
I lived in my shop. I built a very comfortable studio apartment above the offices. I'm a builder. In those days, twenty five years ago, my small company was building cabinets. Ten or so employees, sometimes more sometimes less and I did share a house with my sister. But time changes things and I found myself living in a house by myself. My sister, with boyfriend, moved to California. And I wasn't home very much. Self employed frequently means long hours, and when not working, I was away skiing, away skydiving, away at a rehearsal, away, away, away. I gave the keys back to the landlord and moved into the damned shop. I need a night watchman anyway. Rough neighborhood, rough being a perfect word here.
I owned a police riot shotgun, a Winchester Defender. I hate guns. Oh well, you do what you have to do.
Again
In my sleep I suddenly knew what the sound was and what it meant. I snapped awake! I had no idea, none, whether I had slept a few seconds or a few hours since the previous awakening. Up out of bed, slide the gun out from under the bed, check the safety, check the loads, and slip into my shoes. No lights on. I want to alert no one. Last evenings dress shoes were right there, they will work just fine. No noise. Down the two flights of stairs. Point your toes so that there are no heel strike noises going down the stairs or through the huge darkened warehouse. Cross to the doors, huge wooden, hinged barn type doors. Each 14 feet tall and six feet wide. They used to squeak and groan like an old horror movie when they were opened. BUT, that night in the extreme cold they made not a sound, I unlatched the cross bar and the door swung back about two feet silently.
I stepped sideways through the gap and there in front of me, not twenty feet away, in 5 below weather and a clear sky, were two young men. One on the jack at the front bumper and one loosening the lug nuts at the tire. One tire was already off, they were going for two. And they had no idea at all, at all, that I was standing there.
Pump action 12 gauge shot guns have a VERY distinctive sound.....you either know it or have heard it in the movies, it is actually much louder in real life. Ka-CHUNK I racked it hard and brought the first round into the chamber.
Holy Smoke! Talk about instant respect! The guy at the jack froze harder than a marble statue. The guy crouched down with the lug wrench, shot his hands out to full length one way and his feet out the other way and bounced when he hit face down and fully prone. Bounced like he was made of hard rubber and his feet and hands never touched the ground at all.
They looked over to me and started to laugh. That PISSED me off. I racked the shot gun a second time and let a fully loaded shell heavily thunk into the ground at my feet. And I said, "That first shell was bird shot, a noise maker. Everything else under it is double ought buck." Said? Growled might be more accurate.
For you see.... I was standing in a very cold, very dark night, who knows what single digit of the AM, wearing black leather dress shoes and a police riot shot gun. Absolutely not another stitch on.
I might have laughed too. In fact, I am sure that I would have.
Dean
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Mother Nature in the Burbs
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Posted:Aug 3, 2007 7:51 pm
Last Updated:Oct 26, 2007 10:55 pm
2682 Views
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There was a deer outside the window this afternoon. When I was younger, and I grew up just a few miles west of here, there were no deer. Or maybe just so few and so canny from being hunted for meat that a noisy , even one who spent all of his summers in the woods, never saw a deer and only rarely saw a track or spoor.
There were farms where and when I grew. Corn across the street, cows at Carner's, horses at the Brown's, and just about one of everything for a while at the rented house, the Shatroe's farm up the street. But no deer.
These days the only natural enemy of deer are speeding automobiles here in suburbia. Hunting in all of it's forms, gun, bow, muzzle loader is illegal where the houses grow as close together as the corn once did. The deer know this and have become somewhat brazen. Vegetable gardens are nearly impossible to protect, flower gardens fare little better, decorative greenery and shrubs from around the country and world are merely flashing neon signs for the deer, yelling, "Diner", and, "Eat at Joe's". Flowering and fruit trees need to grow taller than eight feet before they grow into a safety zone too high to be consumed.
And in the backyard, as I stood at the kitchen counter peeling vegetables for the evening salad, a doe grazed in full view and I in her full view, 15 feet apart. You must understand, that when I built the house, the kitchen was supposed to have a total of ten windows, five casements wide and each with a transom window above. (Build your own house and you can have it any damned way you wish.) But the day that I was to finish the rough framing for the openings I cleared all of the temporary framing from the opening before beginning the task of cutting and installing the rhythm of five pair of windows in a row.
The cleared opening was breath taking. Arresting. I loved it instantly. I left it open. I bowed to the need for operable windows to the left and right sides, but the center space that was to have been for six separate windows..... all became one. I built a six foot high by nine foot long frame that runs from flush with the counter top to the ceiling and nearly nine feet wide behind the kitchen sink. When you stand peeling and washing salad fixings, you may as well BE in the back yard.
The deer was unimpressed.
We each worked at our dinners and some time during my work, I wasn't looking, she wandered off. Walked back into the four or five acres of undeveloped forest to the side and rear of the house. A wild thing in the midst of a city of 100,000 people. A wild thing that has adapted just enough to the modern demands of society. That hides in or visits the few wild acres that still exist and yet strolls brazenly, bravely through a modern urbia.
And with something of a grin, something of a small shock of recognition, the deer and I each on our own side of the glass, the deer just being more honest about her adaption and fears. I, lying to myself as to my successful acceptance of society.
I am every bit the brazen and timid individual of humans, as is that deer to its wild brethren.
As a I ran in the forests all summer long. Coming home breathless, sweaty, and filthy for lunch. Being called home by the blaring of the car horn for dinner or special times. I always ran, yards or miles, usually barefoot, arriving breathless and smiling, "Did you call?"
The more I think about it, the less difference I see between that doe and I.
Dean
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It was a great trip.
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Posted:Jul 26, 2007 10:11 pm
Last Updated:Jul 28, 2007 12:30 pm
2671 Views
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Near the end of the trip, still two hundred miles from home, I met several sailboats of friends from my marina,,, dare I say yacht club. Nah.
But good friends they are, and ever taking pity on the single guy traveling by himself, I was invited to dinner aboard their vessel. The first night, hot soup and dumplings to try and revive me from my wild sail and brush with the lightning. The next night I cleaned up a little and brought the sliced veggies and pickles. These people live aboard on their summer quests and let me tell you, they live well!
I have seen five different hor'dourves on a single tray AND the hostess apologizing because of the poor selection after being two weeks away from port.
Heck! I'm lucky to have crackers and beans at that point! Pan fried Spam is an anticipated treat!
And so we talked of weather and sailing and anchorages and ports.
And I told of the fantastic winds and wind directions that I had been blessed with. Even now, back home, I can honestly say that I never once had to tack to reach my goal, or resort to the engine because the wind was, as they say, right on the nose. I was BLESSED with generous winds and wonderful wind direction. My boat always seemed to be heeled over cutting along as fast as she could go. Heaven.
Sailboats cannot sail straight into the wind. On those days a sailor either tacks back and forth, zig zag fashion, getting closer on each tack, OR you turn the damned noisy iron genoa on and motor your way there. I had a storybook vacation of co-operative winds. In two weeks and a thousand miles of sailing, my engine burned 5 gallons of fuel.
They told of how horrible the winds had been. Wrong direction, too much wind, waves too tall, "You should have seen them! They were so big!" "We were so unlucky."
And as they told their stories and I told mine and some dates got slipped in amongst the places and names.
They were the same days.
Sailboats, mine in particular, are sometimes designed and built far better than their captain. I admit it freely. My boat is far better than her skipper.
On the way north I left for the 100 plus mile overnight trip up the lake when small craft warnings were posted and gale force winds were forecast for the morning. But a sailboat moving with a 15 knot wind only feels 7 or 8 knots blowing across the deck. 20 knot winds get the air moving across the deck at about the speed of a 12 year old's bike, 10 or 12 knots. You see, I am traveling WITH the wind on a magnificently engineered boat.
At seven AM, that previous week, that rainy Saturday morning, (My friends thought the rain horrible and chilling, hmmm),, I was standing, standing mind you, not holding on, sipping a fresh hot cup of instant coffee. (They have brewers, I do not.) And as I faced the stern, wind in my face, and watched the waves build and approach the next one was growing particularly large. It grew far taller than me standing in the cockpit,, my neck was tilting back,, It was probably 6 feet above my head and fifteen feet away. I turned to check that the hatch was closed behind me, it was. I turned back thinking, "Don't drop the coffee cup." And the stern just rose up so easily and sweetly and that wave passed beneath. Not a drop came on board.
Not only that, but I took a peek over the stern down into the next trough some 10 or 12 feet. At about the same time the wave gave me a push and she, my boat, took off down the hill helping me on my way. Surfing waves with 5 tons of sailboat is fun. Serious fun! A nearby sailboat later told me that his top recorded wind speed that AM was 33.5 knots. I finished my coffee and made another. It was a great day to be a sailor. Now please keep in mind that I would NOT want to be out there that morning trying to sail into those winds and waves.
The wind across the deck would be the 30 knot and more wind speed PLUS the boat speed or as much as 45 MPH wind screaming across the deck. And the bow would probably have been butting through each wave face. Blue water shipped down the deck on every wave. I think I would wait in port an extra day.
It was a great sailing trip. The wind always seemed to help, not hinder. Plenty of it. The sails were very fast and lots of fun.
And all on the same days.
Dean
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The last boat in.
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Posted:Jul 24, 2007 7:25 pm
Last Updated:Nov 4, 2008 4:27 pm
2872 Views
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The wind roared upward yet another notch, buffeting the sailboat and heaping wave upon wave, the surface being stirred in a mad and mounting broth. The halyards, now secured, clanged madly against the mast, ringing steadily, faster and louder in the rising winds. The decks were nearly cleared, the foresail gripped and pealed down to the pitching foredeck, folded hastily and rolled and stowed below. The mainsail, I had just finished flaking and lashing to the boom and now I was trying to stretch and secure the sail cover over the main. Rain and magnificence of clouds and storm.
While the cover was still rolled I hitched the tail of it three times to the end of the boom and then began to unroll and stretch it out atop the main. The wind tore at and tested my fingers, the deck heaved and rolled sharpish, as I worked down the length of the boom. Balance is both precious and precarious walking from cockpit to rail to cabin top of a boat bouncing and twisting like the back of a rodeo bull.
The cover at full length and the wind succeeded and won the tussle. The cover torn, ripped, whipped from my fingers and flayed out long, astern and on the water. The hitches on the boom end held and the cover was pulled dripping back aboard to be struggled with again. Water soaked, heavy and limp, it was actually easier to deal with. Finally tied and cleated around the throat of the mast and cursory clips and lashings to hold it in place. The sails now furled, the engine on, and decks cleared of everything likely to be blown or swept over the side. Now to the endurance of standing and helming in the downpour and gales those last precious miles into safe harbor.
The day had started before sunrise fifty miles north, clear at sunrise, but radar showing an ominous red and purple bulls eye sweeping down from the northwest, targeted for the channel of Killarney. Prudence kept me at berth and even up in the lodge, coffee in hand, when the morning's thunderstorm broke upon us. A pleasure to be striding a log cabin's screened in deck, porch, instead of my own deck, with my coffee, watching it pass. The radar showed nothing in its wake save some clouds, a little drizzle and a fair wind to speed my passage to Tobermory.
The forecasts were for a stormy and windy night to follow the fair day so off on a downwind run I sped for Tobermory. The forecasts are updated over the VHF ship-to-shore frequently, but some four hours later, and half way there, it became apparent that the storms were going to arrive early. Very early. I sailed hard, trimmed closely, milked all the speed from my thirty footer that I could. A sailboat race between me and time, the darkening horizon. To the west, broad streamers of rain falling sideways like a beaded curtain swept the islands to the windward of me. The front held its place and distance though, advancing only slowly. And always beautiful, always changing.
The distant thunder began to boom up through the hull. Water carries sound far faster and better than air. The boat would occasionally sound like cannon balls rolling slowly about in the bilge. And then not so infrequently, the rolls coming closer on the heals of the last grumbles. The westward sky began to mount. Huge anvil topped clouds flung neck crick high, and formed in ranks across the west, nearly in a north to south line, nearly exactly parallel to my own course.
I held to, heeled over hard, with lee rail buried and cream streaming away in my wake. And the basso rumble of distant kettle drums grew in volume and became a continuous roll up through the water, an eerie rumble from beneath my feet.
Soon enough the lightning bolts became visible bolts from cloud top to cloud top, or cloud base to water all along the slowly advancing front. It was now that the distant thunder began to be heard on the air and the islands to the west began to disappear in the growing rain, lowering clouds, and ugly, vivid green wall cloud beginning to form a horizontal jelly roll, a wall cloud, in ahead of the front.
Maybe a hour to go to port, still hoping to slide in ahead of the maelstrom, and then not! The clouds and rain on the starboard bow, above the port and docks of Tobermory, broke from the north south wall of storms and cut off my course to harbor and docks. I was in for it. No option but to clear away and lash down, rain gear on and hat pulled low to shield glasses from wind and rain. And so I began the stowing of sails, covering and lashing.
As I rounded Flower Pot Island, the wind rising ever higher, the seas a confused frolic of peaks and spume, the very water level of the lake had risen a meter or more, pulled up by the extremes of low air pressure. Trails and limestone beach always exposed, now buried under the risen storm tide. As I rounded the final corner of the island the full force of the storm blew at me with a will. Rain flooded down, visibility dropped to near nothing, the island a hundred meters away disappeared in the downpour. The thunder roared continuously now muffled by the rain filled airs.
Too much lightning. I rigged as rapidly as rain slicked hands could, the anchor chain from the starboard cockpit locker. Around the rear stay and throw twenty or so feet of chain over the stern to trail and act as a ground against lightning strikes. Just drag chain through the water to protect hull and instruments, and me against a bolt. I've used the trick before and it works well. Steering with my back and butt as I worked on the floor of the cockpit, kneeling in two or three inches of water all trying to drain overboard at once.
I finished and came back to the tiller and my post beside the boom trying to hold a straight course absolutely blind, knowing that there is Middle Island yet to pass before the harbor, the final mark. I heard the waves ashore before I saw that last outpost and then the murky shadow like a haystack there on my right, exactly where it was supposed to be. And now counting seconds on each of the lightning strokes to know where the cell is. A flash and one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand,,,, to eight and the mating, massive boom and roll. A mile and a half away. Good. Another one. One one thousand, two one,,,,,,, to eleven. More than two miles away. Even better. Holding the hat brim down against the tearing wind, the brim flipping inverted, glasses wetted, pull the brim back down and tighten the chinstrap. A new flash! Counting,, six. Just over a mile. I can just make out the harbor's outer entrance through a lessening.
And SNAP! Brightness and ozone! No counting needed. Knees suddenly rubbery and I sat down with a thump. I've been hit! The right hand refusing to make a fist at first and then slow and then faster. Clench and unclench. Breath in gasps and then starts to steady.
I sat and collected my self for a moment, blinked hard to clear my eyes and brain, the rain still pouring on me, the boat still running under power into port, and I stood back up to take the tiller and peer forward for any small clues of position. I am not there yet. The final green channel marker I almost ran down, could not see it until it was under my bow and somewhat befuddled of brain. I turned to port and almost instantly the gale was shielded by the shore. A howl down from a roar. Half a mile and still a dock to make fast to. I pulled out the signal horn and blew one long blast, I don't know if anyone heard it, but round the last bend, there waited a dock hand to help hand lines and secure me. I reversed engines and brought the voyage to a halt, grabbed the stern lines and stepped ashore, knocked kneed and rubber legged to tie it off and set dock bumpers to cushion the hull to dock against the pounding seas in the harbor.
And then inside to stand and blink in office lights and questions and good humour abounding about being the last one into port in such a weather, on such a night. Hot coffee. Dripping on the floor and begin to shed layers of wet clothes and rain gear, hat, GPS. Friends had foretold about the when of my arrival, they were waiting for me. The last boat in and alive.
The gales blew all night long. I slept well, if sore, arising from time to time to check moorings for wear.
This is five days later and still sore but today better. Awe in quantity as the rain.
Dean
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Big shoes to fill
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Posted:Jul 16, 2007 5:23 am
Last Updated:Mar 11, 2008 8:01 pm
2757 Views
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Big shoes to fill
Lazing quiet in the harbor waiting for wind and tide.
Sounds of wind and day fill my ears
surf on sand beyond the quay
Wind in leaves upon the shore
waves breaking and showering the stones of the break wall
And on I sit and read
Thinking of my mother, ashes spread at sea
Bought the shoes drying on cabin sole
Big feet are not always easy to fit
A mother knows this
She surprised me last year having found
Shoes bigger than the usual box
Perfect for her 'little' one
The shoes I wore through the storm and rain last eve
filled with water, socks dripping
barely dryer this morning, new socks wetted
just as sure as those last night
I sit and read today
And sounds of the harbor surround, enfold
Hiss of sand and wave, rustle of leaf
Flying swallows high pitched smallest peeps
Wind in rigging, rubbing rail on wooden pile
The sounds surround today, abound
And my thoughts dift back to Her now gone
Save them? No. Use them well.
They were intended for that
My thoughts drift back to Her
Today she is missed, and will be.
Dean
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Killarney
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Posted:Jul 16, 2007 5:18 am
Last Updated:Aug 4, 2007 1:52 pm
2833 Views
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Canadian forests and peace for the next few days.
Once again, a borrowed terminal.
The winds have been designed for a sailor. Time and again the power boat, some quite large, have been nailed in port, whilst we, with lead slung deep below the waterline, have had the water as our personal playground. The sail north and across the lake to the Canadian side was a sixteen hour overnight joy.
Following winds and building seas through the night. The boat creamed a wake constantly. At one point, in the rain just after dawn, a VERY gray and dark morning, I was standing in the cockpit (I love that word. lol) with fresh coffee (instant) in hand, facing the rear. The waves were most impressive, 2 to 3 meters and at times maybe a touch more.
I stood there sipping with the wind in my face, the next wet roller would rise up behind, far higher than my head, the horizon covered from view, and then as sweetly as I could wish, the stern of my small ship would tilt and rise up that face, and the wave would shove me forward and pass smoothly under. With the boat poised atop and the sea crest creaming on either hand, the view down and down into the next abyss was impressive. The next face and a repeat just thirty feet away. Awe goes well with morning coffee.
The next day, sheltered from waves by the numerous islands of the Georgian Bay, the wind blew 10 to 15 and gave a most pleasant and sunny ride the fifty miles north to here, Killarney.
Now into the woods and a quiet anchorage to, as I said to a friend, eat bad food, read cheesy paperbacks, put my feet up and do nothing for a few.
Dean
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On the way
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Posted:Jul 11, 2007 2:54 pm
Last Updated:Jul 28, 2007 12:33 pm
2390 Views
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Storms and a following wind yesterday. From big sails, to smaller sails, to no sails, bare poles, and still moving fine. Wet and rainbows, rain sideways and beautiful. Ported and tied to a dock, being lazy awaiting following winds.
Tonight they should veer to that following wind and sea and tonight and tomorrow night I should have stars, lots of stars. I have stars to share, sunsets to share.
I'll write as I can borrow a terminal.
A good day.
Dean
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Away for a short while
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Posted:Jul 9, 2007 12:10 am
Last Updated:Aug 3, 2007 4:42 am
2529 Views
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I just returned from a nearly two week commitment as an assistant councilor at camp. Mostly that means, Dean, bring your tool kit, Mr. Fixit.
And I would have already left for the sailboat except,,,, I need to see my Doc. She will be in tomorrow and I am hoping she can figure this fever out, dose me and send me vacationing again.
I am supposed to spend the next two weeks sailing northern Lake Huron. I know that I have told you of it before, but in the three hundred or so air miles along the north and east shores, the glaciers left a fairyland. Canadian wilderness, logged off more than a century ago, now regrown, 12,000 miles of shoreline, and 50,000 islands. Fish, moose, bear, eagles, mosquitoes nearly as big, blueberries, beauty, peace, quiet, loons crying to you at night,and fortunately or un, by myself. Hehehehe I think the whole purpose of Local Adult Companion for me was to find someone to come along. Oh, well.
Computer terminals are difficult to find, so I will check in when I can.
So you have a good couple of weeks, and when you next happen to look at a sunset, think of me. Sunsets that far north are religious experiences. Each one, every minute, is different and more breath taking than the scene that went before. The whole process requires an hour or more and then the reward of a whole universe of stars, tens or hundreds of miles from the nearest outdoor lights, is incomparable.
Come along sometime.
Dean
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Answer to Patricia
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Posted:Jun 27, 2007 12:26 pm
Last Updated:Jul 7, 2007 8:53 pm
2580 Views
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to Patricia
The ground is newly wetted.
The thunder stills my thoughts, stirs my soul.
When shall the rows be planted?
When shall the flowers bloom?
When shall I travel to your garden,
when shall you visit mine?
I will sail, not deny myself the awe
The awe better shared, the hand in mine.
Moistened fertile soil, no longer crumbly brown
Begs the growth, the riches verdure.
When will the rows be planted,
When will the flowers bloom?
It is not just you. There are two others also that I could wish to go and see, go and do. But for you, you say when. Me there, you here, letters of pleasant banalities, you call the dance, cue the drummer. I have lived within some square feet too long, too alone. Two hundred square feet will suit me fine. It would feel larger if you were there.
Dean
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