A Single Brushstroke Down

Light dawns, and any talk of proof
resembles a blind man's cane at sunrise.

Remember the passage,
We are with you wherever you are.

Come back to that,
When did we ever leave it ?

No matter we're in prison of forgetting
or enjoying the banquet of wisdom,
we are always inside presence.

Drunkenly asleep, tenderly awake,
clouded with grief, laughing like lightning,
angry at war, quiet with gratitude,
we are nothing in this many-mooded
world of weather but a single brushstroke down,
speaking of presence.

Rumi, for January 2nd

It is almost inconceivable ! We have been in Charleston now for two weeks, and today, as we sit snug and warm on the boat a "bomb cyclone" is passing us by, moving north east along the coast. The entire east coast is in a winter storm watch, and here in Charleston we have freezing rain this morning and expecting snow this afternoon. Even deep south Florida is expecting record low temperatures as hurricane force winds bring the wind chill into the teens or lower. NOAA Surface Conditions (photo above) indicate gale force winds throughout the southern coast and the northern Bahamas. We are still hopeful that after all this nasty weather passes, we will be able to move south by early next week. In the interim, we stay warm rolling on swells, even in the marina, and as Rumi says, we are "nothing in this many-mooded world of weather but a single brushstroke down, speaking of presence."

Charleston is always fun, certainly one of our favorite places to stop. Not only is the City beautiful, with lots to do it has a great number of really wonderful restaurants. We have spent both Christmas and New Years here. We went into town for Christmas Eve dinner, mostly because it was near impossible to get a reservation at the 17 or so restaurants open on Christmas Day. We had our Christmas bow up on the bow, and our Christmas tree up in the Salon, Diana providing a wonderful Christmas dinner on board, and our boat neighbors came over for a drink and Christmas cheer afterward.

New Years, we again went into town, to a block party at Marion Square, walked the shops on King Street, had dinner at 5Church, (check it out in the photo gallery) a very unique restaurant in an old Church on Meeting Street, then to a Comedy-Mystery Theatre for "Sherlock Home's Other Brother by a Southern Mother". An absolutely awful play, but a riot of laughter with many in the audience playing parts in the production. It was a wonderful New Years, shared with others, although cold and we were home by 10 PM to welcome in the event.

So for now we sit comfortably on the boat, waiting.... seems we have been doing that a lot this year. We have both gone through a rack of books, made some boat repairs, watched the weather every minute, and both made one New Year resolution.... from now on, we get started earlier !