In the last chapter of my 2018 memoir, Uncharted Waters, I wrote:
The sun, once a fist above the shore, is dissolving into the golden streaks of sunset. I reach across the cockpit for his hand and squeeze it gently. Someday with misty eyes and a sad heart, I will help him hang a “For Sale” sign over the stern rail of Balance. For he, too, must be safe. Together we will climb on and off dozens of boats, looking for our next piece of waterfront property. Most likely, it will be a newer sailboat or trawler with push buttons for anchoring, bow thrusters for docking, something easier to maneuver and ideal for those with gray hairs and wrinkly, scarred skin.
Someday the stern of our boat will read, The Inevitable II.
But that day is not today.
However, four years later, it is today. It is with heavy heart that we say goodbye to Balance, a sailboat that was my residence in Illinois for three years, our waterfront property for another twenty-two. Our holiday photograph is of our last adventure on Balance, sailing out the White Lake channel into Lake Michigan. This month, we purchase a 2018 Catalina sailboat with all the features needed for us to continue to sail safely into our seventies. It was inevitable. Rubin is as excited as I’ve seen him in decades. I’m getting there. Remember that white Maxima I drove with delight for twenty-two years, the one about which I wrote a poem?! It’s always been difficult for me to let go.
2008 in Old Orchard State Park
The White Maxima
If it’s just a means
of getting from point A
to point B
as I’ve insisted
to the car zealot
for years,
why,
when he sold it
after 22 years
to the day
and 125,000 miles,
do I feel
as if there is
a small hole
in my heart
the size
of the one
I never noticed
until
he pointed to it
as the reason
it was time
I let go?
Written in October, 2020
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