Sea Wife Page 2

  January 23. 10:15 a.m. LOG OF YACHT ‘JULIET.’ Cayos Limones. A.M. rain followed by clear skies. NOTES AND REMARKS: You know how folks out here define sailing? Sailing is repairing a boat in exotic places. First time I heard that one, I laughed. Not so funny anymore! This morning I opened up the electrical panel because a couple of the lamps were blinking & saw that half the wires were jiggled loose. Shocked that we have any lights. I’ve got my Twelve Bolt Bible here & my heat-shrink tubing & while seabirds cross the cloudless sky, I’m giving myself a tutorial on crimp fitting.

  Doodle is sitting here next to me looking thoughtful.

  Crimper, I say.

  He passes me a Lego.

  Tubing, I say.

  He passes me a crayon.

  But just when you’re starting to hate on your boat, something oppositely beautiful happens. The water beside us ripples as a pod of stingrays wash their wings in our lee.

  * * *

  —

  I do know a lot of poems—from all those hours in my carrel at Boston College, trying to write my dissertation, before we moved out to the Land of Steady Habits.

  Ironically, one reason I gave up on studying poetry is that it seemed brutally impractical compared to the urgencies of two children. But these days, inside my closet, poetry is as real to me as an ax. I need it more than food.

  Lines come and go in my mind. I don’t even remember who wrote them.

  Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

  I eat very little, mostly just dinner with the kids, and I lap from the bathroom tap when I’m thirsty. During the day, when I have to leave the closet, I push open the bifold doors and cross our carpeted bedroom in my socks. The body creaks. The bladder longs. I avoid the bathroom mirror. When I return to our bedroom, sometimes I linger by the front windows, where birds mob our blighted apple tree. I spy on them, just as the occasional curious neighbor spies on me. Our plain white house is now a point of interest. It’s been on the news. I see the way people walking past our house slow down, and how, if in pairs in the evening, they exchange a somber look.

  Vivas to those who have fail’d!

  And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!

  And to those themselves who sank in the sea!

  It’s true—history is written by the victors. That’s why we need poets.

  To sing of the defeats.

  January 25. 11 p.m. LOG OF YACHT ‘JULIET.’ Cayos Limones. Brisk NE winds. Clear weather. NOTES AND REMARKS: Will sail east in 2 days. Maybe finally get off the beaten path. Sky tonight amazing. A bowl of stars. I love it on deck at night. Sometimes after Juliet falls asleep, I come up here & crawl into the sail cover. You don’t even need a headlamp to write by, the moon is so bright. Like a spotlight. Like the sun of a black & white world. You can see every frond of every palm on the island, thrashing in the trade winds. The sand bright as snow. The surf rolling up & down the beach.

  If I had it my way we’d be circumnavigating the globe. If I was by myself I’d be halfway to the Marquesas. 3 weeks out of sight of land. Then I’d have me a real night watch!! Instead, in order to reassure Juliet, we’ve plotted a course that clings to the coast of Central & South America. Panama City, Cartagena, Caracas. From there I am hoping she will sign off on a crossing. We could go anywhere across this huge sea.

  Monserrat? Punta Cana? Havana?

  But for now, it’s just me, my Captain’s log & a couple curassows I can see when their roosting tree blows a certain way. Somebody forgot to secure their halyard the next boat over. I have half a mind to swim over there & fix it. Funny how the more alone you get out here, the aloner you want to be. You want to find an anchorage with nobody in it at all. Just you and the stars, stars, stars. Stars get you thinking.

  We’re just a hyphen between our parents and our kids. That’s what you learn in middle age. Mostly this is something a mature person can live with. But every once in a while you just want to send up a flare. I too am here! Everybody is sympathetic until you try and make your minuscule life interesting and then they’re like, What’s wrong with you? You think you’re special?

  You learn a lot about people when you tell them you’re going to sea w/ your kids. About 10% of them will say, Hey, that’s amazing, Godspeed, and the other 90% won’t hesitate to tell you why it’s impossible. Then they want you to spend a couple hours walking them back, explaining how you are going to get food, or take a shower, or keep up with the news.

  Whenever we told people that we were going to sail as a family, they’d fixate on different things. Some folks worried about whether it’d be good for me & Juliet’s marriage. Wouldn’t it be tough to live 24/7 in a 44-foot floating capsule?

  (A fair question, one that I’m still mulling over.)

  Everyone was worried about the kids. How could you do this w/ kids? they asked. Aren’t you worried about their safety? What if they fall overboard? What if they miss home? Why not wait until they’re 18? Why not wait until you’re retired?

  First of all (I wanted to say to these people but didn’t), some of you won’t even let your kid climb a tree w/out first taking a tree-climbing class & wearing a harness. So I’m just not going to listen to you.

  Secondly, I think there’s something wrong with the line of thought that it’s reasonable to defer your modest dream for several decades. What are we, characters in a Greek myth? Waiting for the eagle who comes to eat our liver every day because in a Greek myth, that’s normal?

  I knew my mom and my sister would miss us while we were gone. I get that. It’s a lot to ask. But there were other people who hardly knew us, strangers who wouldn’t miss us at all, who seemed offended by our decision to try out life at sea. It’s like they were thinking, What’s wrong w/ highways & parking lots & elbow pads & Christmas caroling? What’s wrong w/ us?

  * * *

  —

  On Michael’s side of the bed: a framed photo of Sybil. Age three, crooked pigtails, ambrosial. Even in my dark days, during my worst blues, I loved studying my daughter’s face. Even now, I never tire of staring. Look at that nose, I often think—so damned cute, so wee. Sybil’s face is heart-shaped, wide at the temples, with a small, emphatic chin. The truth is, it’s her father’s face. Distantly Finnish, midwestern, wide open and friendly. You can almost sense the ball fields and the Coca-Cola and the square dances that it took to produce that kind of a face.

  Me, I’m the dun-eyed child of upstate New York, a plain split-level house and a messy divorce, as well as a couple other things I’d rather not talk about. My father’s people—a tribe of hard-bitten Irish depressives—culled their numbers with committed lifelong cigarette smoking. My mother’s mother was a tyrannical lady from San Juan by whom I was awed the few times I saw her. My mother used to say that she was treated like a human clothespin as a child: Stand there, hold that.

  In short, when Sybil was born, I was relieved that she took after Michael’s side of the family. I was relieved that she didn’t look like me.

  It’s sad, though, I realize, to be relieved that your kid doesn’t look like you.

  Listen, sometimes I don’t know whether something is “sad” or not.

  I mean, sad poems or songs make me feel better. I think—yes, that is precisely how I feel. Then I feel better.

  But others seem dispirited by the news sad poems deliver.

  I used to have to check with Michael.

  Was that a “sad” movie? I would ask him, leaving the theater. Is this a “sad” song? I mean, according to you.

  Yes! he’d say, laughing. According to anybody.

  If ever there was a method for squaring dreams w/ reality, it’s buying a boat. Especially a boat you’ve never seen. But what a boat! She’s a 1988 CSY 44 Walkover. Center cockpit. Two berths & a saloon. Larger-than-king-size bed in the aft master cabin. Perfect split berth for the kids forward. Huge fridge, three-burner stove. Very roomy. Fiberglass, mostly. No wood laminate, just wood for the bulkheads and the interior furniture. A horizon-pointing bowsprit for me, wood carvings in the bulkheads for my poet wife. We had to buy her w/out seeing her. Of course we would have preferred to buy something nearby. But the fact that she was in Panama made her 20 grand cheaper. I had already scoured the marinas from Westport to Larchmont. We don’t have that kind of $$. I paid for her outright. 60 grand. The payout from Dad’s life insurance. Our nest egg. (Talk about poetry.) OK, technically I didn’t have the full amount. But I solved that, w/ just a little creativity.

  We got down here in September, but after 2 weeks in Bocas del Toro, she still wasn’t even in the water. Her hull needed a scraping, followed by 3 new coats of paint. Juliet spent days hanging out with the kids outside of the supermini eating fried yucca, waiting to practice her Spanish w/ someone. Eventually she got sick of this & took the kids to sit at the marina bar & let them inhale bowlfuls of ice cream.

  I could see them from the boatyard. I had the pleasure of watching a whole U.N. of sailors flirting w/ my wife—Jamaicans, Australians, Panamanians—leaning on the bar drinking cold Stags. They didn’t seem to mind the toddler in her lap, & neither did she. Juliet has a very distinct laugh, you could hear it clear across the boatyard.

  * * *

  —

  The thing about depressed people is, once they feel a little better, they are prone to large, generous gestures they can’t really live up to.

  For months, throughout an entire winter, we argued about Michael’s proposal endlessly. It’s amazing how many good reasons I had for not taking the children to live on a sailboat, and also how none of those reasons were my real reason. I simply could not affo
rd another failure. I had already let down “my crew,” as it were. I already knew what that felt like.

  One night in early spring, we were sitting in bed. It was late. We’d made a habit out of arguing at night. I had a bowl of popcorn in my lap. Popcorn was a good mid-argument snack. Also easy to see in the dark. In the time-outs, we were friends. I fed him little handfuls.

  He was speaking about, among other things, how he felt he was being “called” by the sea. He wanted to learn from the sea. He wanted to have “confidence in the face of risk.” He believed that was part of his American heritage. Bravery built our nation, he said. I nodded, half listening.

  I want this so badly I can feel it in my loins, he said.

  Where are the “loins,” anyway? I asked idly, licking salt off my fingers. I mean, are they a real body part? I’ve always wondered.

  Michael sighed and rolled onto his back. Hand over his eyes. Getting ready for another Juliet-style wild-goose chase.

  Suddenly, I felt very bad for him.

  I loved him. Long ago, and then, I’m sure now.

  I don’t know what loins are, Juliet, he said, finally.

  I stared out the window, into the dark night sky, etched with branches.

  Well, whatever they are, I said, they sound delicious. If we come across any cannibals at sea, I bet they’ll eat our loins first.

  Michael took his hands from his eyes and looked at me. A husband’s eyes look so shiny and plaintive in the darkness.

  He threw off the covers and ran around to my side of the bed.

  He knelt down and clasped my hand.

  Juliet, he said. Is that a yes?

  Who was I to complain?

  This whole damned thing was my idea.

  * * *

  —

  We arrived in Panama right in the middle of rainy season. I’d never seen rain like that. Every hour or so, the air would go quiet, the streets would empty, and then, with absolutely no further warning, the sky would just tantrum. Rain drilled the corrugated roof of our little apartment above the boatyard so loudly that one had to shout to be heard. On the street, the rain pocked the dirt with hail-size divots, turning the streets to estuaries; as it drove into puddles, it bubbled and geysered, giving the impression that the rain was coming not only from above but from below. We were so clueless that we often left our laundry on the line, until we realized no one attempted to dry laundry outside during rainy season.

  The rain was only matched in passion by my own dumb tears. Those first couple of weeks in Bocas del Toro, I cried every night—I mean, hours of muffled, dehydrating bouts of crying, Michael sometimes rubbing my back, sometimes snoring into my neck.

  Then one day I said to myself, Stop your damned crying, Juliet. There’s too much water here already.

  The kitchen in our apartment in Bocas was just big enough to turn around in, tiled with big mislaid chunks and old grout, a printed curtain hanging from the countertop, one of those ancient two-burner stoves that needed to be lit with a match. The kids didn’t mind. The kids thought the whole thing was a party. Someone had given George a little FIFA skill ball and that’s about all he needed. He carried it around like a pet. At the supermini across the street they had these ice pops, called duros—thick, fresh-squeezed juice frozen in a plastic cup—and we’d sit there licking them like deer at salt. Sybil loved the cartoonish toot of the public bus, and she loved to sit outside the supermini licking her duro. Whenever a bus arrived, a whole new wave of people would fawn over her and tousle her hair, like it was her birthday on the hour.

  Funny thing was, after living in Bocas for a month, it wasn’t too hard to get used to living aboard the boat. I found the small space of the boat immediately comforting, like being straitjacketed. No oversize Ethan Allen sectionals, no ottomans, no flat-screen TVs, no free weights, no full-length mirrors, no garment steamers, ironing boards, or vacuum cleaners, no talking, life-size Minnie Mouses or Barbie playhouses with elevators, no plastic Exersaucers or bouncers or strollers, no cake stands, casserole dishes, waffle makers, decanters, no heirlooms, antiques, or gewgaws, no framed certificates, no eight-by-ten photos, no coffee-table books, no takeout menus, or paperwork from the previous millennium, no glass, no vases, no valuables, no art, nothing that could break, shatter, or make you cry if you lost it, which gradually, of course, changed the relationship I had to things, basically dissolving it.

  Once we got her in the water, we discovered a laundry list of other necessary fixes, small & large. After an idle rainy season in the tropics, she smelled like a gym towel. The upholstery was a joke, as were the moldy life jackets. Her batteries were dead. The head pump didn’t work. I went back & forth on buying a new mainsail. After a shakedown cruise by myself in October, watching her heel, all sails set & drawing, I shelled out for a new mainsail. The engine worked perfectly. The dinghy was a tough little inflatable w/ an 8-horsepower outboard. Sybil named it ‘Oily Residue.’ The kids and I knocked around in ‘Oily Residue’ whenever Juliet needed some alone time. We circled the marina at Bocas, waving at all of Juliet’s boyfriends. I even taught Sybil how to steer the dinghy, and all the guys back on shore would pat her head and tell her what a fine sailor she was.

  3 weeks turned to 4. 4 weeks turned to 5.

  By the time you realize how over-budget you are, you’ve already fallen in love. I remember when I first saw her, sitting on stilts in the boatyard, her dirty keel exposed, while they blasted away at her with hoses. Took me a couple hours to believe she was real, & that we had done it, after so much doubt & back & forth & finally just the letting go.

  The next day they got down to it and painted the boat with two coats of brick-red antifouling. I felt jealous pangs watching the men at the boatyard stroke her hull w/ paint. It seemed kind of intimate. OK, I’d be lying if I denied having vaguely romantic feelings for the boat, a kind of chaste but thirsty love, not unlike the attraction I felt for Juliet when she was in her third trimester, w/ big, jaunty breasts, awesomely wide-beamed.

  (Please God, do not let Juliet ever find this log.)

  The double Juliets, that was my idea.

  Before the guys in the boatyard put her in the water, the last thing we did was scrape off the words on the transom and rename her.

  The lettering was on the schmaltzy side, a loopy, romantic script.

  Eventually there was my boat, just as I had imagined her:

  ‘Juliet.’

  * * *

  —

  As soon as we moved onto the boat, the differences in our skill level became clear. Michael was always doing something. Whenever we were at anchor, or if seas were calm, or the children were asleep, he could be found with a knife or shredding rope, or glaring at a broken shackle.

  Back in Connecticut, I’d never once seen him smooth a tablecloth or fluff a pillow. The home, the children, had been my sphere. Whether or not I had particular gifts in that area had not mattered. We divided everything up unconsciously along gender lines I’d thought had been consigned to the cultural ash heap. For a poet, I had a lamentable lack of imagination around my daily life—losing myself in laundry and small fascinations. And Michael was the kind of dad who, when left in charge, would send urgent texts asking questions I’d answered when he was not listening the day before, so that I’d spend half of my time away conducting remote assistance, like a NASCAR crew chief.

  Who says smiling isn’t important for men? He asked all his favors with remorseless good nature. He was confident in his actions, whether or not they were the right ones. Sybil would be hopping from foot to foot needing a toilet, but instead Michael would take forty-five minutes to lash a freshly cut Christmas tree to the car rack, as if we were going to drive home via the landing strip at Bradley airport.

  But aboard the boat, our spheres overlapped, ungendering us. Because the boat was not just a boat, it was our home. So he understood what it meant to take care of it. On deck, he coiled the lines in perfect chignons. He liked to buff the chain plates and grease the winches. I had to learn how to slop fish guts overboard and start a flooded outboard motor; it was patently ridiculous to wait for someone else to do these things.