what we do for love

the honeymoon phase. you can’t stop us.

bath time

ok. update. i'm not sure what is indeed charming about owning a sailboat in maine in the winter. let’s be real, having a boat attached to your deck is something like the coolest fort ever and the biggest metaphorical poke in the side every time you glance out the window. feed me, your time your love and all your money.

but we wanted to. right.

it was mild that december day we gave gracie a bath. say in the 40’s and pouring rain and as you can (or can’t) see, dark, so we set up the spotlights. i see now the Edison bulbs upstairs give the photo a gentle, festive air. aha. nope. and the power washer, so loud. and the smell, think abandoned fish market. and the mud.

this was perhaps still the honeymoon phase.

and then we pulled her diesel engine off. yep. best night of the honeymoon.

but it was, ok maybe not the best night, but we were determined. you can in fact walk right from our deck onto gracie (super rad); you can’t see her in her full glory because we built her a house. yes her very own house. i’m pretty sure mother nature has been trying to rip it down since we finished it on a frigid january day around 9pm. no ma’am. you can’t stop us.

but. we do love our boat. her bathing needs, her no engine, her house, and perhaps most of all,

her potential.

admittedly we haven’t been working on her as much lately. cold will ruin any honeymoon. then again, sometimes you just need a little sunshine, and our electric propulsion system arrived on monday! that’s right,

gracie’s going solar

so yea, for real. . . it’s expensive, time consuming and often overwhelming. but it’s also what we do for love. with determination, grace, goodwill and compassion. what we do is our future. our potential. . . our evolution, if just one part.

and maybe one dream, one boat, won’t make a difference. but i love this fragile life, this fragile earth, and

. our house is still standing .

change

the . new . girl

revolution . evolution

get . drunk . bear . down

benjamin

if found please call 207 . . . . . . . 

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benjamin

the dingy to the left in this snapshot at sunrise in september. a plaque on his stern has his name and phone number in case he is found at sea alone. area code 207 plus another 7 will get benjamin home.

i'm not one to disclose much and i won't tell you where benjamin lives. sorry. it's just too sweet of a spot. and it is public.

I have shared this blog with a few people. what and why are the first questions. others ask what the hell. yea. i know. i'm a bit brief. curse of a poet and a short attention span. 

what? stories. poetry. snapshots. life.

why? because if i don't write i go crazy and people ask a lot of questions. consolidated answers.

what the hell? benjamin made me smile. he is a story of an impeccable sunrise in an exquisite place. a life simplified with nova. waking up to the sun. not the noise and wondering what number should be on my stern in case mother nature wins the battle. he also stirs up memories of my childhood. 

my grandfather was a sailor. an aviator. a philosopher. a father. my role model. yea there's more. my mother and I secretly bought back his dingy from a boat yard in maine. after he passed away my grandmother put it up for sale.

alleluia.

you should have seen her face when we told her.

life is. well. short. 

getdrunkbeardownandfindbenjamin