I’m not sure why the simplest joys in my life, some very present and others in memory, are what I am reflecting on today, perhaps because there is so much that is complex and troubling to read and think about in the wider world right now. I often write of balancing thoughts and feelings—like connecting with gratitude for my personal and professional life, while acknowledging deep concern, even terror, for what is churning worldwide. And though these joys may be simple ones, some are, or were, not at all easy to come by. Feeling able to savor them is, indeed, a gift.
So here’s a partial list of simple joys I woke feeling the urge to scribble down this morning:
The love of the best dogs (well, they were MY best dogs)
Gazing upon the Sandia Mountains each morning the moment I open my eyes
All the time I get to spend in nature
Waking up healthy, if a bit more creaky than in my younger years, and still being able to touch my toes
Having a sturdy brace that allows me to continue backpacking despite a torn-up left knee
Birds (especially those that grace me with their presence, and songs, here in the desert and on the boat)
Swirling in self-doubt for a day, instead of a month or a year (thanks to insightful therapists)
Family who are friends and friends who are (chosen) family
Love, period
On this complicated day, what are some of your simple joys?
For this writer, the last leg of the long journey to getting my first novel into readers’ hands has begun. NO MORE EMPTY SPACES will be published by She Writes Press on April 9, 2024. Pretty exciting!
What’s also exciting is that it’s available NOW for pre-order wherever fine books are sold. As a staunch supporter of local independent booksellers, I encourage you to pre-order yours from your favorite indie bookstore.
Here’s a link to NO MORE EMPTY SPACES at Bookworks, my favorite indie bookstore (it’s been my favorite for decades, and I liked it so much that I went from a bookseller there to a partner in 2023). If you don’t happen to live in Albuquerque, no worries, they can ship it anywhere in the U.S.
If you prefer, you can also order it through Bookshop, an online shopping platform that supports local independent bookstores across the U.S. Don’t forget to “Choose a Bookstore” when you order.
About NO MORE EMPTY SPACES:
New Jersey, 1973, and Will Ross discovers that his three children are not being cared for by his ex-wife, whose escalating alcoholism has rendered her unable to parent. He’s just landed an exciting new job in Turkey; he’ll work as a geologist on the troubled construction of a dam in the remote, rugged, and beautiful Anatolian mountain region. Determined to get to Turkey, yet also protect his children, Will takes the kids along for what they think is their customary two-week stint of shared custody. He doesn’t share that he has no plans to send them home.
So begins this novel—part-adventure, part-geological tale, part-travelogue, part-family saga—a gripping, heart-rending story about the forces we can control, and those we can’t.
It was 2:52 a.m. and I was lying awake, orchestrating the next three days and seven hours (roughly the time between then and when we would pull into the ferry line). I was planning, hour by hour, the time I had to finish getting my sailboat, Kagán, put to bed for her winter slumber. Since it’s dewy in the mornings, I would clean the fridge and do laundry until the cockpit enclosure dried the next day, at which point we would take it down. The day after, pack suitcases until the boat dried out, then put the cover on. The minute-by-minute organizing felt like quite the contrast to going with the flow, as we did so much of this sailing season.
This life in two places is a balancing act. It gets pretty tippy at the transitions from one place to the other. Like now. And it all seems to go better with a good plan.
It was also a balancing act, that night—let go and sleep, snuggled and warm in Kagán’s v-berth or switch the light on, pull a sweatshirt over my head, and grab a pen and notebook in order to not lose the words that had started forming these very sentences (knowing they would elude me in the morning, if I didn’t)?
Plan or play? Consistency or spontaneity? I am so fortunate, and grateful, that these are the balancing acts I get to live these days.
Speaking of consistency, since August, I have been posting my ramblings on the 10th and 25th of the month. Two months is not a long run, I know, but being consistent starts somewhere. The plan is to continue, and I feel determined.
As I also discovered in the wee hours that morning, when the words come spontaneously, I should capture them, even if it would be easier to turn over and tug the covers up to my chin. By 3:20 a.m. that late summer night, I decided I had scribbled enough. It was time to turn the light out and let Kagán’s gentle motion rock me back to sleep.
When I woke the next day, plan in hand, I let myself savor a steaming cup of green tea before clicking my (metaphorical) stopwatch on with its countdown to the ferry. After all, there are pluses and minuses to both planning and playing, consistency and spontaneity. I’d like to maximize the plus side of my ongoing balancing act.
It seems that each summer, one creature or another comes to us in a way that defines the sailing season. That the wind and weather, the landscapes and seascapes, and their inhabitants distinguish one day from another aboard delights me. I remember—2007 was the summer of mama Mergansers with their myriad ducklings, Pacific white-sided dolphins claimed 2011 in a most amazing way, and in 2019 it was the season for seeing Humpback whales. Other years our totems were Bald eagles, Harbor seals, Marbled murrelets, Orca, Great Blue herons, Harbor porpoises, and Rhinoceros auklets. From the small to the mighty, they fill my mind with wonder and my heart with joy. This summer has been the season of Purple martins in all their iridescent splendor.
The first morning aboard Kagán, I woke to their melodies. Seems they nest atop the pilings in our new home port of Friday Harbor. Each day of recommissioning the boat began with their serenades. I admit to grumbling at some of those early wake-up calls—at this latitude, the days dawn well before five as the summer solstice nears. And there’s no snooze button when your alarm clock is singing the day in from the rigging. But, oh the stunning sunrises I would’ve slept through without them.
And each time back and forth—as I went to the shower room or laundry or a coffee shop for a latte or just to take a walk—they scolded me for passing beneath their territory. Maybe it was my imagination, but as the days went by, their chattering lessened as they got used to my comings and goings. I became a neighbor, rather than an intruder.
Though in past years, I had seen the occasional Purple martin, throughout this season they crossed our paths. I’d catch the trilling—so familiar to me from Friday Harbor—sometimes at distant docks, sometimes at anchor, often to start the day at dawn or to end it as the sun sank. While on the hook in Gig Harbor, a flock of them fluttered in and out of Kagán’s rigging—clinging to the shrouds, perched upon the radar dome, and even settling onto the boom just feet above our heads while we watched and listened from the cockpit.
So, for me, this is the summer of Purple martins, and their songs will bring memories to my mind of this particular sailing season. I feel so grateful that nature, and my neighbors in it, define my days.
I love when a fellow sailor pauses on the dock to tell me what a beautiful boat we have. Kagán, however, is not only beautiful, she is also a great sailing, and liveaboard, vessel. But that doesn’t happen without a lot of work behind the scenes. The last few weeks have been filled with those tasks.
We’re at the end of a long haul-out in which we’ve done some work ourselves (like polishing and waxing the hull and oiling the interior woodwork) and hired experts for even more (like stripping and refinishing the brightwork, and complex work on the engine and marine drive system). Kagán is 22 years old now, and it was time for some deep diving into her engine for more than routine maintenance. This investment will pay off, I hope, with many sailing seasons aboard a safe and well-functioning vessel. And, of course, a beautiful one. But it has, at times, felt like barely managed chaos.
As I contemplated riding those waves of chaos with some semblance of calm, it occurred to me that this is not unlike writing for me. There is so much that goes on behind the, literal, scenes of a novel. All of which has to happen (and happen and happen, in the case of writing multiple drafts) for the final story to sail along.
Doing the work behind the scenes, sometimes for weeks and sometimes years, is what makes a boat, or a book, work. It’s what makes them beautiful.
Geologists study the earth and the processes that shape it. Writers study the human heart and the processes that shape it. The GeologistWriter builds a bridge between the two. Come across it with me!
Recent Comments