There have been times throughout my life when everything crystallizes in a flash. No more fog. Total clarity.
It happened when my mother died. It happened when I became a single mom after Jim and I divorced. And it happened yesterday on the pier in Coffman Cove, Alaska.
I’d gone down to look in the boat for the very first time since last year. Everything was just like Mike and I left it. Except – it wasn’t.
Michael filled that boat with energy last year. She was his baby. He’d looked and looked for the perfect boat all the previous winter, and we bought her sight unseen out of Washington state. Ferried her to the island, and immediately started improving her.
He outfitted her accessories and her fishing gear – the biggest job. I outfitted her galley, berth and cabin. We had a blast putting her together, and we spent as much time on her last year as we could – but it was never enough for either of us.
We only got two overnight trips in her – and both, in true Powell fashion – resulted in funny stories for the memory books. Multiple stories, in fact – we crammed some adventures into those two short trips!
Mike never named her. The first owner had not, and he considered it bad luck to change a boat’s name. So she’s forever to us the C-Dory.
She is empty without Mike. I’ve found most of her pieces scattered throughout the shop and boat, so that I can recreate her set-up. But I can’t recreate that fishing hat, his ready grin and a lifetime of boating skills. I am once again, a total beginner at a brand-new skill.
I shut her door and climbed back on the dock. She was half mine before, and now, she’s solely my floating baby. I started slowly up the ramp, heading to the top of the harbor, and it hit me with total clarity.
I’m doing this. I’m here. In Alaska. In Arkansas. Living my life. The life I wanted, the life I chose, the life Mike and I built. Alone. Mike will forever be with me, but he will be pushing me to make my own mark on this. To take the lessons he taught me and build on them. To make my own twists, to incorporate my skills with his.
Mike can’t physically be here with me, although his spirit is here. He’s in my thoughts and in my heart – but I’m the one who has to make this work. I’m the one who has to learn so many new things. It’s exciting to me. It’s challenging. It gives me something to live for. And it’s what Mike and I set out to do.
He told me all last summer that most women would have been racing home to their mamas after looking at our renovation to-do list, but I’d kept up with him every step of the way. It was one of the best compliments he ever gave me, and he said it over and over.
And honestly, I had the time of my life doing it. Mike and I were exactly alike in so many ways, and this constant need for challenge and knowledge was key for both of us.
I stopped on the dock and looked out over the marsh. Low tide. Lots of sea creatures out of water for a few hours. Some of them make it, some of them don’t. But eventually, the tide comes back, and they’re home again. It’s real.
I’ve done real before. I will do it again…I AM doing it again…at 62.
At 62 