Plop Off My High-Horse

Clouds in View on Brevot Lake

While driving back through Canada from visiting my daughter and her family last week, I discovered something about myself. The realization came from thoughts of Dad.

I thought about summer and it’s inevitable ending. How much shorter it seems when the end days of August come along.

I thought about my childhood summers raised by the water. We always had a sailboat and we all swam. We had summer jobs when we became an age to get one.

After some reminiscing, I had thoughts of my dad’s summers, balancing work and play and realized I was picturing a story about him. My story.

I watched him put much of his efforts and energies for nine or ten months of the year into planning for a few select days he and mom could sail in the summer.

All the chart reading, knot tying and boat upkeep for the possibility of sailing in the short two months of summer (if that) up north. It might even be true sometimes to say two good days of sailing. Why was he so engrossed?

He wasn’t retired yet when I watched him year after year prepare for sailing. Sailing time had to coordinate with summer, his work schedule and his procrastination of turning in his police reports. 

Days and weeks continued to get chiseled off the summer for a myriad of reasons. He had few real optimal days for sailing. The hottest, buggiest days of summer dad was gambling with “Is today the day?” Mom’s days had to be considered too.

I thought, “Why? What motivated him to keep this mist of fantasy about being a sailor when in the scope of his summer life he sailed very little?”

Dad as a child on a sailboat

In the worse stormy, darkest days of winter he strategized. The coldest and windiest days of spring and fall promising self. 

Drawing a splice, always sketching, noting...

Let’s not forget May flies, mosquitoes, black flies, horseflies, water traffic from tourists, ferry boats, family begging for rides, launching, retrieving and storing the boat. And inconceivable interruptions to a well-intended set to sail.

There must have been a time when he knew his body was aging and he had to move slower, more deliberate to get on and off the boat, pull the lines, tug on the rudder and do the repairs needed to keep it seaworthy. And he spent six years building a new wood sailboat —-the optimal work time was in summer.

I was shocked when I realized how parallel his behavior is to my own. When the shock dissipated, I was ashamed of putting myself in the judge’s chair to weigh Dad’s motivations and priorities. 

Who was I to judge anyone actually? I don’t want to be that person. It feels horribly nauseous when I remember my pointing finger quickly points back at me like the snap of a rubber band. I dismounted from my high horse humbly. Apologetically.

I know moms and dads are easy targets for judgement. I’m use to being a spectator or the one holding the bow and arrow. Not the one tied to the target and pointing the arrow simultaneously. Holding the bow and arrow I immediately released its tension. 

I imagine snorkeling in the Great Lakes all year long! During the wildest snowstorm I can easily take my mind under water, with my mask on my face and snorkel in my mouth, scoping the bottom of whatever lake I put myself to be in.

My motivation is high to go to the YMCA to swim. If only for a short, open-window of summer. Sometimes a storm rolls in with the sun shining and I’ve already been snorkeling. I constantly have to gauge the wind, sky, wave height and my stamina. Then…face freeze isn’t always possible to endure.

What extreme measures we take to experience our happy place. Or are they really excessive? Something that can motivate us to work for nine or more months of the year to experience is hard to match. 

What is excessive? What is sufficient? Only we know what we need. Dad and my natures around summer are similarly obsessive. He isn’t alone in his focus. 

Countless times have I dusted off rocks and things I’ve found in the lake in my apartment. My thoughts float to being in the water. I pull out my maps of Lake Superior shores to dream I’ll swim them all.

Framed Finds of Mine

The perfect wind, perfect swim, perfect golf swing, best stir-fry, best garden, perfect quilted square, perfect hike, purest sound, perfect sentence, the perfect time. We endeavor, we predict, we strive for our ride on the fluffiest cloud.

Sorry, Dad for that lapse of Judge-Maggie. I’m also sorry I can’t ask you questions. I’d like to know so many things and you’re gone. It’s up to me to make up stories and remember they’re only as true as what I can verify with you. If some of our natures are similar then I don’t need to ask. I understand.

We all are as best as we are in being true to ourselves. Our fluffy cloud may not be as choice as what others judge for themselves. Great! Then that fluffy cloud isn’t too crowded. 

The joy we find in what we love is worth striving for. It stretches our happiness through our creativity to every season. 

We wait and those months of summer return. We hope for those tiny pieces of ecstasy we hope to capture under a rock, around a wave, behind an optimal wind. Maybe we obsess. 

Lake Superior -What a Monster!

At the same time we hang on to our fragile sanity—one month at a time. We watch for joy and are damn well going to capture it and in the meantime our memories of joys linger….even as the last yellow leaf flies off the birch tree and the ice freezes over the lake. We reach into our pocket and feel their warmth.

In all my plotting, my richest joys have been unexpected, un-orchestrated surprises. So I’ll put that in my pocket too. The hope, our hope to see it when it’s right in front of us and grab the happiness.