Wow, it has been a long time...

A long time since I posted last (November 2013), and a long time since I cast off the lines in San Diego and initiated living aboard, boat transportation to LA, and shake-down cruise all in one day (not a highly recommended combination, for future reference).

But it also wasn't long ago at all - a yesterday ago filled with many years worth of experiences.

Time-wise, there is no debate - 365 days ago. Life-wise, it has easily been one of the most intense and laid back, empty and fulfilling, closing-in and expansive, letting go and retaining 365 days of my life. I am altered and renewed.

August 2, 2013 started the way every day should. The way I wish every day could. It was filled with joy, adventure, surprises, nature, connection, isolation, introspection, retrospection, exploration, aggravation, bravery, fear, and a sort of love that is hard to describe. And ended with shared friends, good food and wine, and exhaustion. In those ways, not much different from all the best of 365 days that followed.

I got to live aboard for for nearly 8 months with an amazing young woman. My daughter's gap year from college ended up being spent mainly aboard Windrunner. Her transition to adulthood, my transition to single man, and our shared transition to a relationship of two people much closer to equals. She's been one of my favorite people for years, and only grew more so this past year. I will cherish this year for many reasons, but none more than the time and interaction with Mo.

Others I must mention who have been very important this past year include my friends Michelle L and John O - I'm not sure what I'd have done without either of you this year. I love you both dearly. And there were also solid contributions from Heaney, Neruda, Don Casey, Keroac, Vedder, Bono, and wonderful welcome, friendship, advice and assistance from new neighbors Steve, Murray, Tom, Brida, Owen, Patty, John, and Dennis. I am a lucky person.

Then, in addition to those people and other wonderful friends, at some point a few weeks ago while considering the last year, Henry Kunitz was sent to me in the form of his poem The Layers. As most good poems, I needed time with it, but that was easy, as it drew me in with whispers and exhortations like the peaks and troughs of open ocean waves rolling toward a distant yet visible and approaching shore. A great epitaph to my first year aboard Windrunner.


The Layers
Stanley Kunitz, 1905 - 2006

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.