windsend

Karma

Of course, as soon as I dream of summer, winter sends a little reminder in the form of 12" of new snow.  Light and fluffy, to be sure, but 12" none the less.

Summer Dreaming

A sunny but very cold day in February and my thoughts turn to summer.
Early morning sun on the lilacs at the back door,

clematis climbing the shed trellis,

and an evening rum and tonic on the twilit deck.

All pleasures to be appreciated more for their long winter absence.

Too many blogs soil the stoop

I have been neglecting this space.  Some of the energy I have available for blogging has been siphoned off by the dream blog and the business blog.

Yes, dreaming is me (or mostly me... if you have dreams you'd like to post there, email me.)  I was a little coy at first about admitting it, but my dreams turn out to be neither as scatological (fortunately) nor as prurient (unfortunately) as I feared.   So I put that link over in Murmurs and just welcome all comers into my dreamscape, poorly though it be conveyed. 

And my comments on life as a sailmaker and on sailors, except for the most unflattering ones, will now appear over at the Maine Sailing Partners blog.  I have help there from my co-workers, but, since the whole thing is my idea, I expect to have to do the lion's share of the posting.

So, I have been thinking about what that leaves for this space.  There are some things it's easy to eliminate.  I am not a diarist - I've tried a few times and petered out pretty quickly - never lasted anywhere near as long as I've been tending this space.  I am not a critic; you won't find me reviewing books, music, cinema, except to put in a plug for something I particularly like or pan something I particularly dislike.  I'm not a futurist, pundit, or polemicist.  I have no desire to search the web and point out stories or sites I find interesting - I don't have the time or the inclination for such research.

I could turn this site over exclusively to the hawking of anti-graffiti paint.   I could turn it into a photo blog.  I could just shut it down entirely.  But I don't think I will do any of those things.

So, where does that leave Windsend?  I'm not 100% sure I know.  I know I am not enough of a stylist that I can make the mundane fascinating, as a great writer can.  I will have to stick to describing events or making observations which I think are interesting on their own merit and which you, dear reader, are not likely to run across elsewhere. 

Or perhaps we can make this a little more of a conversation.  Let me know if there is something you would like to ask me about...

Prediction

E-mail from a summer loft worker:

How is it possible for Mark to be up to his neck in sharks if the tide is going out again?  Obviously there's a conflict of lunar and solar pull.
...
Tell C that one of my professors also feels a draft coming and is warning all of his male students.  That ought to get his heart rate up a little.  What does he have to worry about, though?  The draft will never catch up to him; he's too old!

What the hell am I talking about?  Ah, I'm rambling.  Anyway, Mark's not going to be rescued.  He'll make his own way off the oyster bar, probably on the back of a giant  snapping shrimp, then he'll thump Barracuda and bitch-slap Birdie.  The drug bust will resound throughout whatever fantasy land they're in and the song of Mark will be known in everyone's hearts for generations to come.
- Zam!

Delivery

Someone gave ML and me 6 months of NetFlix for Christmas.  One of the things we put on our Queue was the first season of Larry David's 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'.

Of course, like everyone, we were Seinfeld addicts for years.  We knew that Mr David's humor was a big part of that show's success.  So we were hopeful that this HBO series would include some of the same ambiance.  Well, I'm sorry to report that it doesn't. 

Unquestionably, Mr David has a wonderfully creative sense of humor.  But, while he can write the jokes, he can't deliver them.  He just isn't a funny man on the screen. 

I like to think I have the same problem - I have outrageously funny ideas I can't deliver.  Unlike Mr David, I have also managed to avoid riches and fame, so no one will be blogging about my lack of comic timing...

A Bad Day...Redeemed

Had a bad day recently?  Winter blah's, stuck in the snow, cold hands wet feet?  Nobody loves you?

How would you like to work like a dog preparing yourself and your boat to win the world's most difficult sailboat race, race your heart out for 87 days, pulling yourself back from a huge deficit to actually take the lead only to be set back by nagging equipment failure?  But wait, there's more: you keep fighting and amazingly are just about to finish on the podium after sailing 25,000 plus miles when only 50 miles from the finish...your keel falls off!

If you haven't tuned in to the amazing Vendee Globe race, and particularly to the trials and tribulations of Mike Golding, do yourself a favor and check it out.  His is only one of twenty amazing stories (one for each of the competitors) as they sail, alone, non-stop around the world.

Oh, and Mike made it the last 50 miles, nursing his boat along with water ballast and a tiny sail plan.  How was your day again?

Groundhog Day

On my way to my morning workout in predawn Pownal, my car's dashboard told me the outside temperature was -3, about the same as it has been for the last several days. 

Today is the day then Punxatawney Phil sees his shadow and predicts another six weeks of winter.  Up here only six weeks would be great.  I'm fairly sure spring is farther away than that. 

By the time I was done with my workout the sun was up.  There are some stately white pines on the Pineland campus that tower over the restored Georgian buildings.  There tops were bathed in golden light that hadn't quite made it to the ground. 

This is a quality of light I haven't seen since October.  There is no sense that the back of the cold has been broken, but this glow melted my heart just a little.