Bay CrossingsJournal

WHERE LOVES GOES

By bill coolidge

I’d like to tell you that the seasons of my life have been stable, rooted. Oh sure I can point to childhood, 18 years in one house, and then in my thirties and forties, homesteading for 15 years. But mostly no, 5 years here and there. I’m 58 and my truck is packed, the green canoe, going on 15 years old, is on top. Once again I’m going where love goes. My partner Karen has completed her degree, finished her internship, now it’s time to move on.

What could I tell you about the other moves? Like a bell ringing, a dream in the night, a painting that moves the heart, a wooden boat that waters my soul. Life is like a forefinger, pointing, then curving, up and down, up and down, beckoning me forward. I call it ‘gut instinct.’ The heart falls in love, wants me to follow. My dad never understood me, this changing of jobs, houses, boats. He worked for one company his entire lifetime. Built and stayed in my childhood home for almost 50 years. He wanted to die there and he did. "Son, what’s got into you?" He’d always say that on the occasion of my visit, when I was in-between jobs or houses, countries. He gave up at the end of his life when I was in-between mates. Didn’t want to know I guess, and I didn’t have an answer.

Could I offer an answer, the best of an awkward articulation, "I have a hunger for wet, a yearning to be swayed by water, a gulping for mystery when life becomes tame." My dad, what would he think I was saying? I often wish my life was more rational, confined, rooted. That’s when I am worrying what other people are thinking of me or I am unable to describe to myself the path which my life seems to be taking.

My father died eight years ago and I’m lugging a box of photographs, of him, my mother and family outings, up the boat ramp to the back of my pick-up truck. We’re crossing the country to the ‘other coast,’ a job awaits her in the fall. All of our belongings can fit into the bed of my Nissan. Living on a sailboat for three years has taught us about the essentials of life. Our treasures include an LL Bean comforter, some good c.d.’s and books, a pasta maker, plenty of candles, a french press coffee maker, a couple of sweaters, some rain gear, we lived abundantly.

Yesterday I sailed out the estuary with the tide, aiming at the Golden Gate Bridge. Friends and dockmates would often ask me, "Did you go out the gate?’ I’d shrug, most often say "No." It wasn’t the bridge that attracted my attention, it was what lay beyond. Where the faded blue led into a horizon without boundary lines. Most days I’d sail by the ‘gate,’ circle Angel Island and return home on the lee side of Yerba Buena. I’d gotten what I needed. I believe a glimpse of what lies beyond landforms works on me. No more footholds, just gazing out beyond ‘one mile rock’ would satisfy some inner yearning to become absorbed in the unfathomable.

My dad grew up along a weedy fishing lake in northern Wisconsin. He married a woman who grew up in Duluth, along the shores of Lake Superior. He brought me up on a beautiful northern Michigan lake named Higgins. Everyone of those expanses yielded the sight of land, three miles distant.

I don’t want to get into the truck. I don’t want to leave the water, the Bele Chere, my tilting home for twelve seasons nor my trusty Old Town canoe which ferried me across to Coast Guard Island. I don’t want to face 880, nor the white winged egret shaped windmills. I’m already parched.

"What’s wrong with you?" I’m halfway up the ramp with the last box, staring at the family of barn swallows staring back at me. They have their home underneath this swinging nest site. Now they are waiting for me to walk up and leave them be.

"Nothing, just watching the swallows." It’s a lie, inertia is setting in. I’m unable to make it to the top. "Want some help?" She offers a tender smile. I remind myself that I am ‘the man,’ and slog up the rest of the way.

Love leads then follows. I’ve been incessantly humming a Peter, Paul and Mary, "I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know if..." My bags are packed, I’m ready to go..." Now I’m slinking low down in the driver’s seat pretending to stare at the map but I’m tracing San Francisco with my fingertips. Unlike my dad’s often judgmental questions, Karen keens her way into my heart, through silence, a touch of her hand. She sits unperturbed, not anxious about the 2500 miles ahead of us. She’s already laid some stones, shells and a feather from Coyote Hills on the indentation of our dashboard.

We have promised each other that we will have a place by the sea when we make the crossing. I start the truck and slowly ebb my way out of Grand Marina. It’s like I’m being wound backward, across a continent. It’s a sluggish call, a mixture of grief and anticipation. I hear the least tern and the brown pelican are not on the endangered species list over there. I’m also wondering about the ibis, the osprey and the wimbrel. As I cross over Park Street bridge, I glimpse my small world, Coast Guard Island and the estuary going out into the bay and there into the sea.

My dad would start cleaning his 12 and 16 gauge shotguns in September. He’d practice his ‘duck calls’ on our English Setter, Rip to see if he was up to steam calling in the mallards and the occasional goose migrating south toward his duck blind on Stuart Lake. By October we would have to break the ice to paddle our ‘duckboat’ across the lake before dawn to sit and freeze and wait for the faint call of goose. Rip would tremble, my dad would also pass his right forefinger across his lips. A silence full and endearing.

My dad is with me on this trip. Maybe it’s because I looked at all those pictures last night. Those images of water, cabins, boats, a younger dad whispering back to me, "Son, don’t stray too far from the water."

His love had a smaller circumference than mine. Six miles to Stuart or Lyon Lake for fishing and hunting, three and half hours north to ‘the lake.’ In 1977, I sailed a 19’ dinghy off the Atlantic coast near Edisto Island, Charleston. The sea’s sway held me, the sensuousness of the movement caressed my fearful stomach, my soul heaved up an exclamation of surprise, ‘Oh yes.’

880 is 880, always close quartered, rapid. Karen takes my right hand and begins to press lightly, keeping up with my heartbeat. Going where loves goes, being led by a resounding impulse, trusting the crossing over. Maybe not words my dad would have used. But maybe after telling him this romantic piece, I’d add, " Do you remember when we walked old Mr. Turner’s cornfield, up the hill from Stuart Lake and the pheasants cropped up in front of that afternoon dusky sun? And Rip was too confused to point? So we walked to the lake, sat for a spell, wondering how soon the lake would freeze over, how many decoys we would need?" He’d get this lopsided grin on his face, twist the forefinger of his left hand in his ear, and swallow, big and long, his adam’s apple pleasuring in the swift flow of moisture, up and down, up and down.

I love these white windmills arching up and over the ridgeline. They tell me which way the wind is blowing, I wonder how many tacks it would take me to get underneath the Bay Bridge. Quickly we make the final hill and head down into the wide, wide valley. I bring the bottle of water to my mouth and almost drain it. "Another passage," I tell myself. Each of us stares out into the long vacant silence.