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| An Ingrid interior--a boat on the boat list |
Traveling again, this time for my
parents' fortieth wedding anniversary (believe it or not) and a
three-day camping trip with Sonia and her two beautiful boys. We
pulled into a campground I'd chosen on the internet, sight unseen,
with thunder roaring and lightning cracking directly overhead, rain
flooding the ranger station, at ten at night—me coming directly
from the airport and two awake children in the car. Luckily the kind
ranger allowed us the use of a cabin for one night, because when we
pitched the tent in the morning, we discovered we had no poles. Not
to worry. The 1920s army tent we'd brought as a playplace for the
children pitched just fine. Another victory for the brave,
foolhardy, impulsive travelers who do not plan.
As is this one: K. is currently in the
middle of the Atlantic, racing to Bermuda. Check here. He is on the
little pink boat, Elusive, almost dead last. It's okay. It's a
rookie boat, class C, and although we'd had our names on the crew
list since last year, it was only when we took the brave and
foolhardy step of waltzing through the yacht club doors to handwrite
our names on the bulletin board that we got a call. So he gets to
cross (or half-cross—let's call a spade a spade) the Atlantic
before I do.
I'm not jealous. Really, I'm not.
Okay, I am. Desperately jealous, but
also so immensely thrilled and pleased for him. His first real ocean
race, his first experience with a structured watch list, and five
blessed days in blue water under sail.
He'll come back either ready to settle
down and farm again, or even hungrier for one of the steel ketches
he's been surfing online, the ones with built-in woodstoves that we
could sail to Iceland or Greenland or through the Northwest Passage.
Casting Off has been metaphorical for a time now, but it's a good
reminder that it could always become literal. Again.
And tonight we dined on kale and beets
and local fennel sausage in downtown Grand Rapids, a town which has
suddenly, and without my noticing, become hip. I used to say, when I
visited my family here, that it was like stepping back in time to
1952. But now it feels the opposite—like stepping forward to, say,
2020—a place where all cafes have their own greenhouses, and art
galleries host their own deejays, and every bar stocks
jalapeno-infused local vodka. One can only hope.
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