Sitting in the harbor on the Heron, I am staring out of the pilothouse windows at the boats moving back and forth between the docks. Summer is in high gear. The seiners are in town between salmon openings, and I am listening to the scream of hydraulics and the deep roar of the diesel-powered skiffs. Kids swing on a purse line over a pile of nets, but the actions of most people I see are purposeful and rapid. The season is short, and there is more to do than time to do it.
I feel like the grasshopper that sat and watched the ants putting away their winter stores. Foreboding lurks just under the surface. I remember that story did not end well. There is nothing I can do about it though. This summer charter season is slow. People are cutting back on spending. Vacations are expendable in an economy teetering on collapse.
I worry more about my attitude than the money. I have seen money come and go. Courage matters more. How do I find the flexibility to face changing circumstances with creativity and optimism? It was easier in my early twenties. I am fifty-two. I just want to take a nap.
The first years we had the Heron were much like this. We had no real income. The boat made little money. Everything was new. I was not confident of my ability as a cook or a guide. I worried constantly that we would not get enough trips, then I worried if we could make people happy, and keep them safe. The weight of fear made me ill.
Years later, when the business was successful, I was sorry to think of all the time and energy I wasted worrying. Yet here I am again, circling in the waters of uncertainty, and doubt is the undercurrent of my days. It takes a conscious and energetic effort to beat back fear.
I know so many friends in this predicament, some whose concerns are far more serious, waiting the outcome of a biopsy, praying for recovery, worrying how they will pay for college while deep in debt, trying to imagine how they will keep their house, or heat it next winter. Many sleepless people staring down the Night Hours these days.
Courage is what we need, and a hearty dose of joy. That is my focus these days. Looking for inspiration in the lives around me and in my past.
I think of my parents, whose disastrous personal finances coincided with a recession when they were my age. They dropped what they were doing and moved to Zaire in Central Africa. Dad started organizing labor unions for the AFL-CIO, something he had never had any experience with, and my Mom started teaching English as a second language. They completely reinvented their lives, and never looked back.
I don’t plan on anything so drastic, but it reminds me that it is possible to reinvent oneself, given enough imagination and heart.
I don’t have to measure my success by what I don’t have, or by what has been lost. I can choose to expand into the possibilities change is offering me or live in a crabbed and frightened corner of my life. The fullness of the present offers itself again and again if I have the courage to accept it.
It means I have to step off the well-worn path of the routines of summers past, and head off into unmarked territory. This is the challenge we all face at various points in our lives. What do you pack on that kind of journey?
An anchor is no use when you are drifting in deep water. The desire for the old life is useless. So I will try to scrounge up some humor, and leave complaining behind, along with fear. Try to slam the door on doubt, and catch up with Faith, which is strides ahead most days, just beyond my sight. See you on the road.
