1997

Tuesday, May 6, 1997

Today was a good day. I'm getting kind of tired of sailing, of propping myself against wet wood when we're heeled over and I'm scared; of pulling ropes and cleating them and ... sheeting in and out constantly, grabbing the winch handle, coiling, stowing, getting, puttering. There's always something to do, be it dishes or a hike or navigation. I'm considering going on the Resolute tomorrow because I know all we'd do is motor. But I'd feel wimpy. But I could help with navigation. I just might.

Anyway today we woke up at Doe Island, late, around 10. Last night after the hot tubs I took some mushrooms. (I just realized I wrote this this morning). Anyway, I dreamed, but I can't remember about what. This morning I wrote. Then we had biscuits. I also had oatmeal w/pb&j and raisins. I've been filling out a lot lately from filling up on peanut butter but oh, the comforting salt sweet protein! The stickiness! The jelly! 

We had a seminar at 11 on China Men. I talked a lot. Literature is my comfort zone. I talked affective, effective, congenital (or is it cognitive?) Well, I talked it. I "talked story" as they say in Chinatown according to MHK, but not in the same sense of the word. We broke for an hour to reread 2 chapters. I sort of skimmed the one I read a long time ago earlier in the book, and napped in my bunk for 15 minutes, and had a pb&j. Huck and Lyman shroomed for seminar. Afterwards I walked alone & sang, then we left to sail. We sailed around the peapods by Orcas, over to Sinclair and down to Pelican Beach. We had a man overboard drill. We learned how to heave to. I was sort of unenthusiastic today; not unwilling, just not excited to be sheeting things in and flaking the sails and so on. Yesterday I was bummed because I did so badly at flaking the jib. 

So we farted around, looked at the seals. It rained for a while and then there was a beautiful rainbow between us and Lummi Island. It was like a religious postcard.

Yesterday Lyman was talking about nature and we were talking about man's connection to the earth, and the sun and how life began on earth. Huck said, "Thank God for the sun." I said, "You might just as well say, 'thank Sun, there's a god.'" I felt pretty clever.

We got to Pelican beach (we were here a few days ago; it's where we picked the mushrooms) at about 4:30. Scott & Huck had never been here. Meghan K is on the Resolute now. We drank a bunch and went ashore to hike and hunt "magic munchies." We made Tang with the rest of the tequila and I had 2 beers too. And as we hiked I had my last joint. It was soooooo good. We were all pretty tipsy. Huck tackled me. Meghan G held my hand for awhile. Lyman and I talked a bit. Everyone is so cool. I love all of us, them or us, it doesn't matter, I love be the good be love with us them me we you be loved. We found mushrooms and ate them. We would pick LBMs and show them to Lyman and ask if they were right. I lost my purple rag. I ate about 3 or 4 mushrooms. They gave us a weird metallic taste, on the sides of my tongue in the back, kind of unpleasant. But the flavor of the shrooms is good, like water and air. They are wet and not chewy; they break apart quickly in the mouth and go down smooth. Today I farted in the cockpit, a strong silent type, and Meghan G said, "who keeps farting?" No one said anything. I was embarrassed pretty badly though. It was a smelly one. I've been working to hold them in since then. Or I try to go downwind. Anyway. So, it was a good hike. A beautiful time. 3 boys, 3 girls. Sandi and me and Meghan G with Lyman, Huck and Scott. Huck said that he hates it when people recognize him and come up to him and say so. He plays trumpet for a band called Engine 54. Someone told him their sax player was sexy, why'd they get rid of him. Huck was like, are you listening to us at all or do you just look at us? But from the fact that he told the story I assume he likes being noticed. He said he closes his eyes when they play. Guys are all the same. They like girls' attention. I was so depressed about the sameness of guys to me the other day. A lack of one love. With Kyle I rarely noticed other guys' special quirks or beauties. I was content to please him as much as I could. Now that I try to please everyone I notice their differences more, my differences towards them, but more strongly I feel this dull emptiness towards all of them, towards everyone. Even at moments when I love them, I feel so cut off. I love the most; that is, my heart flutters and flips, when I get attention, like when Huck said, "There's a lot of things I'd like to do ..." Then I feel that thrill of anticipation, the chill of a kiss in the future, the chill. It's a great feeling but bad because it's like a stake in the heart, a fish hook, that to get out you have to poke all the way through, then snip the barb with wire cutters and take the hook back out again. Those flashes ... I know they'll hurt as soon as they happen.

I have had a song from Rubber Soul in my head all evening. "I've just seen a face." One line goes, "had it been another day I might have looked the other way but as it is [ -- on and on to] but other girls were never quite like this." I have hope that someday there'll be a guy and I'll be able to say he's different, that no other guy was ever quite like him. As it is, whenever I have a crush I inevitably think about telling our kids or something how we met. "Well he was from Colorado and we wound up in a class together at Evergreen and we fell in love on Lopez Island and from the moment he gave me a bluebell I knew he was the one." That's never happened. Close with Erik Mapes -- that Organic farm dirt! Kyle was the one for awhile but now they're all the same.