by Mary South
I know-it all sounds very screwed up. But what's at the base of it all, our friendship, is not screwed up. We have been each other's favorite person on the planet, and no amount of icky drama (which I will spare you) has managed to ruin that.
I used to feel that someday we might get back together over the last few years Leslie has grown so much-she's much more secure, less eager to please, capable of intimacy with both friends and lovers. I'm happy for her and proud of her, but it's also painful for me to see: she's becoming someone that I might have spent my life with. We always agree: at a different time maybe we could have been the right people for each other.
And for a long while, I felt positively haunted by my love for her. Stalked, even. There's no doubt it was a big part of why I ran away to sea.
Now I was doing something with my life that Leslie would never have done-and I wouldn't have done it if I'd been with her. Leslie hated boats; she always got seasick. But I was feeling completely blissful while underway aboard the Bossanova, and I realized one day that I had stopped pining. I just was.
That sensation was unbelievably freeing. I accepted, at last, that I would always love Leslie, even though we were over. I began to believe that there were other people I would one day love as much, but differently. I got comfortable with my grief and acknowledged that I might always have to lug it around, but that its weight made me stronger. I even suspected that one day, it would feel as light as a feather.
And it was this sense of liberation that made me understand what my journey was really all about. Someone once suggested that I was redefining myself, but that wasn't true.
In fact, I was undefining myself. It was as though I'd made a list of "Everything I know about me" and was just erasing each item, one by one.
What would I do when the page was blank?
WE MADE CHINCOTEAGUE INLET in the late afternoon.
The ride up the channel to the town dock seemed endless. We tied up behind a long, red, slightly rusty fishing vessel, rigged with bright lights for working on deck at night. A policeman on a mountain bike came to the boat to collect the dockage fee: $40 for a piling to tie to-there was no bathroom, no laundry, no fuel facility, no other boats, no real slip, absolutely nothing. The small town looked a little worn-down, quieter than you'd expect given the endless number of store windows that hawked merchandise celebrating the swimming Chincoteague ponies. It had that "If we build the T-shirt stores, they will come" feeling, a kind of desperate optimism in the face of failure. Because of this, its authentic charm hadn't yet been subsumed by fake charm and I liked it there.
We had a fun meal that night at a bar on the water. Two old-timers sat next to us, drinking Amstel Light and reviewing recent movies.
They looked like doppelgangers for Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in Dirty Old Men, but they talked Hollywood like they were at the Ivy with Bob Evans.
The bartender was busy with the waitresses' orders, so we sat for at least twenty minutes before he remembered the parched people at the bar. I made the mistake of risking a margarita on the rocks, then watched with horror as he used Rose's lime juice.
When the place quieted down a bit John struck up a conversation with our barkeep. He was good-looking in a cheesy kind of way-tight jeans that were faded beyond the point of fashionable, a surfer necklace and a blue short-sleeve shirt that was no doubt carefully chosen to play up his eyes. Since I expected him to pull a comb out of his back pocket at any moment and do a little primping, I wasn't surprised when he confessed his goal of moving to New York City to become (gasp!) an actor. I resisted the urge to ask him to try Method-acting a good bartender. (I'm always a wee bit irritable after the senseless slaughter of an innocent margarita.)
We were off bright and early the next morning. Shortly after we reentered the Atlantic, we heard a communication from a 90-foot fishing vessel that was 30 miles offshore. They reported 54 inches of water in their engine room and rising. A high-speed Coast Guard rigid inflatable boat went flying by us, and we heard a navy warship announce it was altering course to assist. A Coast Guard helicopter was also dispatched to drop a pump and possibly remove the crew.
Later that day, we heard another Coast Guard call seeking information on a vessel that disappeared after issuing a Mayday. This kind of message went out several times over the course of our voyage, and it was always chilling to wonder what had happened. A Mayday is the most serious of distress calls-even the fishing vessel on its way to sinking used the urgent but less dire Pan-Pan signal (pronounced "pon-pon"), as did the pleasure boat off the Frying Pan Shoals. A Mayday (from the French, m'aider, "help me") is to be used only when your life is at immediate risk. So a vessel that issued one and then disappeared was obvious cause for concern.
For the Bossanova, though, it was another banner day. After a week in North Carolina, we felt like veritable speed demons as we left Virginia behind and breezed past Maryland and Delaware on our way to Cape May at speeds reaching close to 10 miles per hour. Wwwwwhhhheeeeeeeee! This was one of the loveliest days of our trip. It was clear and sunny and we were treated to a constantly changing display of aquatic life.
Midmorning, we saw two giant sea turtles mating. Several miles off the coast, there they were, gettin' it on in the middle of nowhere. Get a room, I shouted to them.
We saw a solitary shark, too. The casual but relentless back and forth of its dark fin against the sea made me shiver in sympathy for its prey. It was good to be standing in 30 tons of steel.
There were countless stingrays and millions of jellyfish. Their small, nearly invisible bodies created an enormous gelatinous river that coursed through the ocean for miles. We'd seen dolphins the whole way up the East Coast, but they were most plentiful and most playful in the South.
They frolicked in Florida, leaping out of the water in small, synchronized groups. The farther north we went, the less abundant and more lethargic they appeared, their arched backs clearing the surface but not much else. Still, they were always exciting to see and we kept a close lookout for them wherever we went. They felt lucky to me-and months later I read that dolphins swimming with a ship are, in fact, always considered a sign of good luck, according to sailors' lore. (On the other hand, women onboard a ship supposedly make the sea angry. But a naked woman on board will calm the sea, so I supposed that my excellent personal hygiene was evening things out.)
Today, we were treated to a big dolphin revival. They were probably drawn by the slick of transparent delectables we motored through. At one point, we counted as many as eighteen dolphins together.
As we approached the unlikely Mecca that New Jersey had become, a quartet of dolphins peeled away from the larger pod, doubled back and got directly in front of us. It was thrilling to stand 10 feet above them on the bow and watch their subtle choreography, their perfect calibration, just beneath the water and a yard before my boat. There was something so beautiful and friendly in their spontaneous escort that it made my eyes water with happiness. The dolphins ran before us for about three minutes and then veered back toward their pod. It was hard not to feel we'd been honored.
At Cape May, we pulled into a large marina with a huge restaurant and small tiki bar. It was Friday night and the joint was jumping. I joined John for a drink, then left him chatting with a few guys and went back to the boat for a cold dinner with the boys and Anna Karenina.
I was finally making some progress with old Anna K., after a very slow start. Although I had read Tolstoy's masterpiece before, I couldn't remember a thing about it so I thought it would be a meaty choice for a long trip. One of the few advantages of a lousy memory is that you can reread all your favorite books, rewatch all your favorite movies and enjoy them as though it's the very first time. In theory, anyway. What I discovered is that my tastes had changed a lot in the twenty-eight years since I had last read Anna Karenina. Why a prepubescent girl would find the politics of prerevolutionary Russia more interesting (or at least less dull) than a 40-year-old woman disturbed me. Had I become dum
ber with time?
But as I forced myself onward, I was gripped by the intricate character portraits Tolstoy drew and by his understanding of human nature. Maybe this was what I had liked about the book the first time.
The last time I'd read the book was during "The Year of the Russians." I was 13, and we were living in Ireland at the time, at Walker's Lodge in Sligo. I was a reading maniac. We all were. There wasn't much else to do after we'd finished dinner in the kitchen, the only warm room, which was heated by a big coal range. Sometimes Dad would quiz us on current events or literature. Or we'd listen to Radio Luxembourg count down the top twenty hits and send out dedications while we did our homework at the kitchen table. But bed, with its promise of warmth and privacy, soon beckoned.
Armed with a hot-water bottle and a kerosene lantern or candle, off we'd rush to our imaginary worlds. The wind and rain rattled the windowpanes and made the low light flicker on the page. The smell of a struck match still makes me think of those nights in Ireland.
I'm not sure why I chose to obsess over the Russians that year, but I've always considered it a miracle that I'm neither blind nor severely medicated. Maybe nightly sleigh rides through the bitter cold of St. Petersburg and hard time in the permafrost gulag helped make cold, damp Sligo a cheerier reality by comparison. Maybe this was the beginning of my habit of reckless optimism and deep denial.
The next morning, John and I chugged up the Jersey shore, past Avalon, Sea Isle City, Ocean City and Atlantic City. We stopped for the night at Point Pleasant Beach, just south of Spring Lake. We had run as far as we could before dark, and Garden State Marina was the only place we could find with a slip for us. It was a summer Saturday night on the Jersey shore, so that made sense. Sometimes we completely lost track of what day it was while we were underway.
The marina was closed when we arrived, but we'd already paid and been told which slip to use. Unfortunately, it was a slip for a 60-foot boat and the pilings were spaced far apart; a stiff breeze pushing us to port made it difficult to tie up.
When we finished, we were treated to a delightful welcoming committee. A swarthy guy with a big scowl on his face came down and said, "Does Richard know you're docking here? Did he say you could dock here?"
"Hi. How you doing?" I asked pointedly. What a rude jerk.
"Yes, he certainly does." What I wanted to say was, "We're paying $120 to stay in this crap hole, so why don't you at least be civil, if friendly is too much for you to manage?"
I was in a bad mood as I walked the dogs at dusk around the small blacktop parking area that Garden State called a marina. John had gone to find us a dinner spot, but I wasn't hopeful. I could see a line of fast-food joints on either side of busy Route 35 South. But I should have had more faith-not in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, but in John. He called me with elaborate directions to some place called Stretch's, about ten minutes away. I had to walk across the highway, down several blocks to a restaurant called Tesauro's, cut through their parking lot and keep walking down a road near the water. John warned me that it was a dark and kind of a dubious-looking neighborhood, but when I had passed the easy chair someone had dragged to the curb, I'd know I was almost there.
When I arrived, John was in seventh heaven. He was halfway through a dish of giambotta, a dish he ate frequently back in Chicago. "Oh, Mare. You gotta try this. It is out of this world." I had a forkful-it was delicious and, except for the addition of sausages, a lot like ratatouille. I knew if I told John that his beloved Chicago dish was reminiscent of one of my beloved French dishes, it would just ruin his appetite.
The French were one of our verboten subjects-John would flash me a dirty look if I had a glass of red wine.
Stretch's was a great find. It was an unpretentious place with a great menu and a homey atmosphere. Best of all, there was a jazz duet playing-one guy on keyboards and one on guitar. I asked them if they could play "Wave" and they looked thrilled that someone was actually listening. I got "Wave" and then I got two or three other Brazilian classics without asking. Point Pleasant beach was saved. I'd even go back in a car, if I had to.
John was happy, too. He hadn't eaten this well since his last trip home. The Windy City has never had a finer ambassador than John, who makes it sound like an exotic gourmet paradise. He was always getting misty-eyed about Italian beef, or giardiniara. During the long, uneventful hours we spent underway, John would often tell me stories about his friends back home and the places they hung out. By the time we made it to Sag Harbor, I knew I'd miss John and many of his favorite dishes, not to mention Skychair Bob, Red, Voges and all the rest of his gang of "knuckleheads." (This endearment of John's was both a dig and a huge sign of affection. When I overheard John one morning greeting Heck and Samba with a "Good morning, you two knuckleheads," I knew they were pals.)
It continued to amaze me that John and I got along as wonderfully as we did. We joked about sending our Chapman colleagues an e-mail to let them know that after three weeks together nonstop, I had become a Chicago Cubs fan and ardent Republican and John was listening to NPR and reading Anna Karenina.
"Nah, Mare," he said. "That's going a little too far. No one would ever believe I'd listen to NPR."
On Sunday morning, we had yet another lovely summer day before us. I had long harbored a fantasy of a triumphant New York City arrival, circling Manhattan in style, maybe inviting some people down to the dock to have cocktails aboard my little ship. But time was running out. We also had to scrap a plan of cutting through New York Harbor to Hell's Gate and then motoring up Long Island Sound. We knew the currents at Hell's Gate could be tricky and our passage should be timed to go with the tide. That would mean waiting around in the East River. Since John had a fight out of LaGuardia early Tuesday morning, it looked like we were going to be cutting it close no matter which route we chose.
I studied the charts. It seemed it would be both faster and less stressful to stay on the outside of Long Island and cut through the Shinnecock Canal. My own personal Circle Line tour was going to have to wait for another day.
After we'd run about 15 miles up the New Jersey coast, we decided to cut straight across to Long Island. It would put us roughly 15 miles offshore at one point-farther than we liked-but we'd be able to completely bypass busy New York Harbor that way, and at least make Fire Island before the end of the day.
One of the great moments of my life was standing at the helm of the Bossanova looking at Manhattan, home, just 10 miles off in the distance. The city looked as majestic as ever, though it would always be different without the twin towers.
Now, looking at the skyline was like seeing a smile that still dazzled even without front teeth. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.
Today, looking across the water at New York, I was dazzled by its verticality. (I once heard that if everyone in New York spilled out onto the sidewalks at the exact same time, the streets would be forty-three people deep!) I imagined the millions of different lives happening in that little space: people eating brunch, making love, watching TV, paying bills, walking dogs, fighting, jogging, reading the New York Times, shopping, biking, singing, dying-all at once, right over there. If you could take a cross section of the buildings and look down at it all, it would be exactly like an ant farm: teeming with intricate and pointless industry to a distant viewer, yet full of meaning and purpose to the ant.
It was a Sunday morning in New York, and I could imagine my friends Julie and Adam and 9-year-old Jackson in their apartment right now as vividly as if I was standing there with them. It felt good after the long trip, even if it was an illusion. I like to close my eyes and vividly picture myself in different places. I developed this habit of mentally projecting my physical self in Brazil when I was a 16-year-old exchange student. Whenever I felt really homesick, I would close my eyes and imagine what was happening in our kitchen back in upstate New York. I wasn't particularly attached to the house, where I had only lived for a year, and I didn't really like upstate New York. But d
espite my very nomadic childhood, I'd never been away from my family. And I suppose that I was more fiercely attached to them as a result of all that moving.
At home, All Things Considered would be on the radio, Mom and Dad would be having cocktail hour, leaning against the old refectory table while they fixed dinner. Sometimes I smelled hamburger and onions simmering in olive oil. And I would imagine myself touching that table, stirring the food in the pan, helping myself to a piece of cheese and a cracker, like a ghost wandering through the present. But this wasn't mere reminiscing, a nostalgic savoring of the details of home. It's hard to explain, but on these visits, I forced myself to understand that there was only a fineline between actually being there and being there in spirit. I would remind myself that I could actually be standing in that kitchen in less than 24 hours if necessary, and if I did that, it would then all seem so ordinary, so much as I pictured it, that there'd be no point actually being there. Visiting home in my imagination helped relieve the pressure of separation anxiety and let me feel like I could almost be in both places at once. It's a trick that comes in very handy now, whenever I'm away from the boat or landlocked for any amount of time.
I decided to give Adam and Julie a call from my cell, which was working. Un-friggin' believable. I didn't know whether to be glad or annoyed. Half the time you couldn't get a decent signal standing on top of a cell tower, and here I was 15 miles off the coast.
"Wooooooo-hooooooooo," I greeted them.
"Wooooooo-hooooooo-hooooo," they whooped back on speaker phone. "Where are you now?" they asked. They'd been checking in with me every few days to monitor my progress up the East Coast.
"Well, I called to tell you I'm passing New York right now and waving at you like a crazy person. We should make it to Sag Harbor by tomorrow night."
There was some more wooo-hoooing, with promises to see each other the next weekend, and then I hung up. As New York disappeared behind us, we realized we were making much better time than we'd anticipated and altered course slightly to aim farther up the coast of Long Island. Later, when we were sure we could make it, we altered course again and continued on to Shinnecock.