There have only been a handful of times I've been stranded in my life, meaning my sole means of transportation has broken down while living on limited funds. There are times I might have been stuck due to other assorted circumstances, but for the sake of this post I'm talking about trying to get somewhere physically. Don't get me wrong, I've generally had the resources to get what I need in life (sometimes sheer cunning will get you pretty far) but being independent, I frequently struggled on my own without asking for help. Mostly I'm recalling that sense of being left high and dry, the idea that the world was carrying on while I was simply waiting...at a gas station, a mechanics shop, along a busy highway, or once waiting for an even-numbered day when I could buy gas during the oil crisis in the 70's. I remember more than once unsuccessfully battling impatience when the streets weren't cleared fast enough and I had an urgency to get somewhere after a storm. In the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo the roads in Charlotte were blocked for days, the city shut down without electricity and gas pumps either closed or inoperable. It was the last time I let my car run on empty without cash in my pockets; I was young and broke, newly separated from my husband and cut off from the world. My life was standing still while it went on around me. I was trapped in my home, desperate to be somewhere else. I have no idea now where I needed to be, but I do remember resigning myself to sitting still and then, to my surprise, writing several short stories about the storm and the unraveling of my marriage. Who knew being stranded could produce such fertile ground?

I'm not really talking about the kind of quiet desperation that comes from being trapped by one's drastic circumstances. I'm talking about all the times my transportation failed, the time I blew a head gasket in my ridiculously horrid red Vega GT, or when a commuter train out of NYC ran over a poor soul on the tracks leaving all the passengers stranded in the sweltering summer heat. We all remember traffic jams without end and know of people marooned in blizzards without heat or blankets or gas in their engines waiting on the highway for something to change. Once while a college student I was stranded with a group of other students in NJ while my new boyfriend was back in MA pissed I had abandoned him to go party with strangers. That was the time I couldn't purchase gas for my running-on-empty car because of the oil shortage. I was marooned. I really wanted to get back to MA and mend fences but couldn't. Looking back, it's pretty minor but at the time, I remember being shocked that I truly couldn't leave, as if coming and going at will was my inherent right. A few years prior to that I set off in my parents car for a massive 3-day outdoor rock festival in NY State with three of my long-haired male friends. The car broke down on the highway 6 hours from home. I remember waiting on the side of the road wondering if anyone would stop to offer assistance. After a long wait a state trooper pulled over but instead of asking what kind of help we needed, he asked if we were carrying drugs. Drugs? What does that have to do with our broken down car? The next question was for me in particular. "How old are you and did you run away from home?" he asked. Oh come on, I'm trying to get to this awesome concert with my buddies in my parents borrowed car and you ask me if I'm a runaway on drugs? Talk about being stranded! We did get to the concert eventually and I don't remember much else.

Today we sit on Skylark stranded at an expensive marina, no working engine, no parts delivered as promised, no way out if the engine does get fixed due to a nasty cold front that might stymie us. We have a discounted rental car this weekend and that helps our spirits considerably, except that we go shopping for "much-needed" items and get poorer by the minute. And Luna? She is happy to have a stick she carries everywhere, doesn't feel the least bit stranded and thinks marina life is almost as good as living in a house with a yard. Maybe Ed and I need to find our own sticks.