Hull Inspector

The other morning I was working at home and heard someone talking close by, possibly outside on our pod. Sometimes tourists come down our ramp. It's a little like someone coming onto your porch, though I'm not sure they always realize that! Turns out it was a marine inspector examining the hull next door and dictating his report - hence the voice. I hadn’t seen such an inspection before (and frankly always wondered whether it was possible to walk on the bottom of the channel without sinking). Inspecting the hull is like examining the foundation of a house. When we first moved here, the concept of a concrete hull flummoxed me (how does concrete float anyway . . .??? - Displacement).  When the inspector finished and climbed back onto the dock in his suit of rubber overalls, he explained how he works at very low tide and often wears  snowshoes to keep from sinking in the mud, which requires extreme care as they have small spikes and some rubber hoses that run from the dock to the houseboat, house electrical wires inside - yikes! Sometimes he sports long wooden shoes, like skateboards or small skis, curved up at one end, a design of his own creation. . . And how was the hull?  I wanted to know. "Excellent," he replied, looking at his watch. "But now I must go - there are many hulls to inspect,  and low tide waits for no one!"

 

Farmer's Market Poet

At the small Friday Farmer's Market in nearby Mill Valley, a Greek woman sells produce from her family's farm in San Juan Bautista. I admire the Hearts of Romaine and she explains how she and her husband try to avoid bread and make their sandwiches with romaine, instead. Their 11 yr. old son has decided he wants to eat his sandwiches that way, as well. And now his friends at school eat their's that way, too . And I think, what wonderful parents and teachers. So natural. No insistence. The light falls on those who rise. Others notice, or don't. I look at the bin of summer squash, delicious looking and sweet. One is half yellow/half green. 'Ah,' she says, 'that one was kissed by a zucchini!'  She's a poet. I mention this. She says, 'I never write anything down.'    And I think, not all poets are writers, & not all poems are written down.

Sunday Morning

writing on the dock of the bay

I love low tide in the early morning. It has a certain wabi sabi beauty where you can see to the muddy bottom of the channel all the things that are stuck there - remnants of broken pilings, half buried shells, a floating board that broke free but didn't get far. This morning as I sip my coffee, Dancing Water from Philz, I see a beautiful heron patiently waiting for breakfast. The ceramic pink flamingo in the window has a velveteen rabbit moment as she joins me in my watch, while the sculpture next door breathes Om . . . and our cyclamen waves yo ho! to the pirate's pansies  across the pod. A curious coffee klatch. And I refill my cup.

"Good Morning," said the Water

 "The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book - a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as dearly as if it uttered them with a voic…

 

"The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book - a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as dearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell everyday."                                                           Mark Twain, Life on The Mississippi

We've Got All Night

Adele

Photo by Lovise Mills


   We were at a dinner party, 5 of us at our neighbor Adele's house. We settled in around 6:00, eating appetizers and having drinks and waiting for dinner to be ready, meanwhile catching up, but also all of us getting to know one another. We had no other plans that evening, just a pleasant time with friends over fine food and drink on Adele's pleasant houseboat that’s filled with art - each piece created by a friend, each with a story behind it.
   At one point, early on, the oven timer interrupted the telling of a story and Adele, said, 'Well, we have all night'.  Not sure we ever got back to that story, but stories flowed - and that line - 'we've got all night' - seemed so easy and gentle and generous and magnanimous, much like the evening itself.
   No hurry. No agenda. This simple evening, this time, these friends, this pork tenderloin to pull out of the oven, this bottle of Dewar's to pour, and oh yes, the story behind the cutting board that looked like a fish, made by Roger, the cutting board a simple but engaging fish design - its surface smooth after all the bread and fruit and cheese and life so thinly sliced . . . we had all night.
   And when we don't then we don't. But we don't wait or worry or hurry that time to come. We give it the benefit - take out the doubt - just give it the benefit, the way we would like it to be given to us, which makes it easier to give to others - whom we have no say or sway over anyway. It's how we conduct ourselves, how we live - generously and freely, how we pour - loosely and with a smile, how we enjoy the company of others, and give & take and join the flow, the flow of the moment, the flow on the water, the flow of good company, enjoying the benefits, as we relax into now . . . in no hurry, with no doubt . . . because we've got all night.   

gb, 2013
 

Somewhere Between A Dock and B

Writing On The Dock Of The Bay

You  find yourself sitting on a bench along the waterfront, swinging your legs. You look down and see a face in the rocks. You wonder how that face got there, and maybe how you got there too. And you think, I couldn’t have done it any better if I’d tried to make a face on that rock myself. You think of all the times you’ve tried and failed or messed things up. And then, all the times you let it flow. As the tide goes out you think about the bittersweet melancholy of loss but don’t dwell, and you look at the girl sitting next to you on that bench and you are flooded with feeling for her. And you realize as you both swing your legs on that bench along the rocky shore by the docks, that you are lucky to have her, lucky to appreciate what you have this very moment and not dwell on the things you don’t, lucky to have seen that rock with the face  today, smiling at you like someone wise from your past, with a view now, from the other side.