The to-do list governing my existence scrolls across multiple pages and I can barely breathe for the size and weight of the responsibilities. Scrunched in a heap in the corner of my life lie the unwritten longings of my heart. Abandoned.
In the distance, dawn kisses the whiteness of winter and a memory drifts across my mind like the tinges of pink tiptoeing across gray skies. I remember huddling in the corner of our sailboat’s main cabin, listening to the wind howling as it raced through the rigging overhead. Gusts shook the mast with such intensity the halyards clanged wildly, the sound reverberating throughout the cabin. A glass of water slid across the nearby table as the boat heeled in an unfamiliar transient slip.
Boats are not supposed to heel when tethered to a pier in a spider web of lines, even an old wooden pier. I quickly grabbed the glass to keep from being doused in water.
“Gale force winds,” the voice droned over the weather channel. “Gusts as strong as forty to sixty knots.”
Stinging pellets of rain peppered the fiberglass deck and I knew from peering through portholes that a blanket of blackness hovered over the harbor.
“Waves twelve to sixteen feet,” the voice continued.
I felt Lake Michigan rolling with unchecked fury through the narrow harbor entrance and into Pentwater Lake. The swells slammed against the stern, alternately lifting and dropping the boat as if determined to smash it to pieces.
The boat shuddered.
My to-do list was tucked inside the navigation station. Out of sight. Life felt too important. Instead, I picked up a pen and paper and wrote a story.
This morning, I did the same.
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