InTheStream


My column, InTheStream, was published in Classic Yacht online magazine from May 2012 to July 2014. The column followed my first year of cruising, pondering the lessons I learned along the way -- the hard way. The overall theme mirrors my book-in-progress about the life lessons of a 50-something woman navigating the perilous confluence of dreaming and reality.



I KNOW SQUAT (May '12)
"It was October 2010, and I was a five-day-old cruiser. I was in the midst of a hands-on lesson in windlass operation, and I was failing."


SUNSET AT SUNRISE (July '12)
"...why am I out here moving at this pace if not to experience each mile, to tune my senses to nature's voice, to plod, to gawk, to have no shame in feeling wonder?"


"BOOM! An eerie white ghost with gaping black eyes burst up out of the darkness, hovering 20 yards from my heart, which was now in my throat -- screaming."


FEAR AND PARADISE (Nov '12)
"Could it be that after years of frightening expectations I had made it across the Gulf Stream with no great sailing yarn to tell, nothing more exciting than a flock of flying fish, nothing more traumatic than yacking over the rail?"


THE REALITY OF DREAMING (Jan '13)
"We had reached the confluence of dreaming and reality and were about to discover the difference."



"It is Mother Ocean who weaves us together as our paths cross and diverge and cross again. She stretches out our hours like rubber bands, giving us wide open time to listen and be heard."


IN THE MOMENT (May '13)
"I check my watch and the wind speed. I wonder if we'll keep this pace, and if the wind will keep a constant breath, if that cloud far off to the east is headed our way... I am reminded of the things that matter and the ones that don't."



A PLACE TO HOPE (July '13)
"When I climbed this lighthouse the first time three years ago, I only had the vaguest notion about its inner workings and the labor involved in keeping it running. I had the same vague notion of the tedious work that lay ahead for us in the next few years as we arranged our lives to go sailing."



A LESSON IN SEAKINDLINESS (Sept '13)
"Cara Mia had paid the price for our mistakes, schooling us in the value of good seamanship -- and a new meaning of seakindliness that would serve us on land and sea."



 THE SIMPLEST REMINDER (Nov '13)
"This tiny island was proof that dreams are not granted based on gender or youth but rather on the tenacity of your spirit and the strength of your grasp."


THE WIZARD OF BONES (July '14)
"Willie's garden was a collection of common driftwood he had found on his own property... He was simply the seer, who looked into the washed-up bones of trees and saw their essence, a guide for those of us who lacked such vision."