I’m sitting on my boat in what will likely be my final hours as it’s owner. It’s sad. This place has been my home and all the flotsum I’ve vacuumed up reminds me of something. There’s still some canary seeds here and there. Quite a few pieces of brass hardware from this or that repair project. Indistinguishable plastic pelletish things that feel familiar on a boat. Am I really nostalgic about my dirt?
There’s actually some dirt I’m rather proud of: All the the junk throughout the fuel lines that I cleaned out with Dad. Here it is, pretty impressive eh?
A perfectly good illustration of why boat ownership is not really the best option for me right now. It took 10 hours of very tight manuvering to get all that out, but the engine running really well now. I just don’t have the energy. And my jobs finishing. And I don’t know what I’m doing with myself.
So the Drifter’s likely to drift along here, headed to a new owner who plans to live aboard. I wish him the best and know that this little champ will treat him well.
I tried to take Federica out for a sail yesterday in a last ditch effort to get the boat out and impressing women as it is intended. No go. As the starter ground and my newly ripped shorts flapped in the ample breeze, I would not be defeated. I decided we would try to sail off the dock…..into the wind. Desperate measures only succeeded in rousing all the neighbors from their vessels to anxiously ask if “they could help” [me return to my slip like a sane person, I gathered] I was defeated.
Having Federica see my life for the last three weeks, including the delightfully exotic (hiking through tropical rainforest munching on strawberry guavas) and the painfully mundane (fretting over whether the Y will grant a FOURTH guest pass in its limited unlimited “special offer” plan, just wanting a damn shower) I have felt honored to have her see everything and apparently accept it all with a remarkable calm I couldn’t imagine mustering. How is it that some people are so collected, grasping the tiller firmly and staring down their future with a genuine smile? It may be that we’re all still just tied to the dock anyway, or that the mussels are slowly sinking us from the bottom up, but I just can’t help FRETTING all the time, whigging out over the tiniest things.
Last weekend she and I did two events about Israel and Palestine on Whidbey Island. People listened politely and asked good questions but I realized at the end of it all I feel so tired getting righteous about injustice these days. As I’ve bucked and tossed and rolled myself at the helm of some kind of vessel plodding through Israel and Palestine, I’ve burnt myself out. My starter’s gonna fail if I don’t watch it. I know very well why I don’t have the tireless energy of some or the uncanny good cheer of others. I’m just not yet running with everything full ahead yet. It’ll happen though, and man I’m hoping it’ll be impressive when it does.
Filed under: PEACE!, Quaker | Tags: ACLU, conscientious objection, Washington Post
My cousin Toby just filed suit today against the Selective Service System petitioning them to provide a space on the draft registration form for Conscientious Objectors to indicate their moral opposition to war. He is supported by the ACLU in this case and we are interested in spreading the word as much as possible to sympathetic people. Strategically speaking, the best possible outcome at this point is making this lawsuit as public and embarrassing for the SSS as possible, thereby drawing attention to the issue of opposition to war on religious grounds. So spread the word, my cousin is hoping that his action inspires folks to rethink this issue and make it their own.
Here is his statement about it in the context of an article posted today in the Washington Post. Check out his site, post your thoughts or support, let folks know!
Dear friend,
I filed a suit today at the DC federal court house, declaring that I should be allowed to register for the draft only if I can do so as a recognized conscientious objector to all war.
And I can prove it, here’s my article in the post along with a short but fascinating video of yours truly and my lawyer, Art.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/29/AR2009072902625.html
If you have the time, please forward this link on to anyone who you think would be interested. I’ve only sent it out to a handful of my friends, but it’s really an important part of this whole legal venture that word get spread– and especially to young people who’ll be facing draft registration in the near future.
Also perhaps relevant, my website, www.registerforpeace.org
Thank you so much for your time!
Best,
Toby
While I feel slightly guilty for considering a trip to Turkey old hat, I console myself in the adventure and curiosity I saw in Federica as she met it for the first time. Once she left and I got over the swine flu 
I had an opportunity to reconnect with my family there in a way I have been missing. Bickering over the morning olives, baking soda and vinegar rockets in the driveway, tea and cigarettes with Lütfiye, and even a rare bachelor night with Melih.
My girls are getting so big!
Lest I forget, we also had Mr.WW along too
So as I left my now-familiar family, biological and non, behind in the Republic I was ready for a new adventure. And it came, in the form of beautiful European countryside and a beautiful tour guide to match. I’ll post more about it as I’m inspired, but here she is in meadow of alpine flowers near the Faggioli family’s little house in the Parco Nazionale Foreste Casentinesi….. yeah. 
It even has a name (the house), Ca Mandrioli. Everything has a name; whether it appears to be much different than the cheese before it is insignificant. Chances are good the name’s been around long before the US of A was a suppressed twinkle in a Puritan eye. Hot.
Filed under: Frivolity
I’m about two weeks into another journey here, using a day with the flu as a good excuse to catch up. The last 24 hours aside, I’ve had a great time.
Most importantly, I’ve had a chance to share time with an absolutely excellent woman who graciously suffered through long bus rides, my snips at my mother and other inconveniences for the last 10 days. Federica is a beautiful fascinating woman and I love her. I’ll be leaving here in a few days to visit her farm in Italy briefly before returning to the US.
When the sun's not been in my eyes I've been smiling costantly
A fellow yelled at me from the Percival Landing Boardwalk the other day, saying his name was Chris and that I was on his boat.
He introduced himself and it turns out his father bought Drifter new in 1977 when she was still a sleek racer. He had recognized the lettering of her named on the transom which has stayed exactly the same for 32 years. This all jogged MY memory to the pile of papers I got when I picked up the boat from Jim. Amongst rotten manuals and yellow charts was a letter from the Canadian government dated sometime in 1978. It was a response from the Canucks to a certain Charlie Snyder who wanted to know about operating procedures for his brand new VHF marine radio in Canadian waters, where he hoped to travel with his brand new baby (Chris!) and wife. Trippy.
All these years later, Chris’ wife was also along for this venture and they’re expecting a baby of their own. Chris was super stoked to see the letter, his dad lives in town and I suggested he take it for show and tell.
And then he told me the coolest thing of all. In 1979 Sailing Magazine came to Olympia to cover the Toliva Shoal Race, an annual event still going on to this day at the mouth of Bud Bay and near reaches. (I won it like 8 times this year) It happens in February, the month I moved aboard. I’ll be straight with you, February 2009 was not a high point in this Skipper’s life. But February 1979 was when Drifter spread her sails and rocketed to international superstardom…… or just had her picture featured in a magazine. The stuff of legend, all cataloged on the Toliva Shoal office website to this day for your viewing pleasure.
“So I found meself in the Irish hardware store the other day and I overheard a conversation at the counter. A customer wanted to know if the store sold yellow paint.
‘Of course,’ said the man behind the counter ‘in the paint section on aisle 3. Are you looking for a particular shade?’
‘yeah, it ougtha be canary yellow. I need it to paint me bird.’
‘Oh?….. And why on God’s green earth would you need to do that?’
‘Well, y’see, he’s a budgie really but he’s got the voice of angels. I want to enterim in a canary singing competition, win meself a pint. He’s gotta be a canary’
‘You’ll kill’m by painting him!
‘Nah, I won’t’
‘A tenner says you will’
‘You’re on’
and the costumer strode off.
Week or so later I’m back in the store and sure enough, here’s the same lunatic with the budgie walking in.
‘Hey!’ says the keeper “What happened to your budgie?”
‘Aw, he died’
‘I bloody well told you! Where’s my tenner?’
‘Naw, twasn’t the paint that killed em,’ said the man “was the sanding between coats that didm in’
-Courtesy of Don Chalmers, immediately following my 6th defeat at racquetball. Penalty for threatening my birds: keel hauling, ( + the occaional loss at racquetball.)
Been doing a lot of writing these days but not much of it’s made it up here. Suddenly the internet doesn’t seem so private when people are reading and making comments. I’m just a bit more delicate these days. I’m packing up the emotional angst, demon wrangling and struggles with myself in the box “Fragile” and carrying it under my arm. It’s a shame you don’t live in Olympia because long distance postage is killer
Sometimes I think the constellation of my contacts here enjoy the honesty of the package, the fact I thought of them to share. We sent out 200 appeal letters from the foundation the other day and so far only 3 have come back undeliverable. It’s not that people aren’t able to recieve, it’s just their not always ready to do something about it. I’m certainly not, I don’t think it’s always as rosey as all that. My best packages arrive more carefully done far far away from here where I’m shielded from the immediate consequences.
Filed under: Art, Celebrations, Nature! | Tags: Procession of the Species Celebration
A Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) from the Carnivorous Plant Garden
The Paint Room
A snail for the Luminaria parade, Friday night
Filed under: Reflection
It’s been beautiful in Olympia. Splitting wood behind Rohan’s house, I could almost pretend that the drama had blown over with the clouds. It was not so. But I am more comfortable admitting my struggle is personal, individual, inexplicable. And the sunburn left over from yesterday’s sail with my lovely cousin beside me in the cockpit could not be diminished.
The weird neighbor who communicates mostly through a system of grunts and constantly wears a leather cowboy hat and jacket passed by the boat today with the familiar tops and shorts on the bottom. Jacket and hat untouched. I’m really really curious about what his boat looks like.
I also probably would not have worried about a earthquake in Italy 6 months ago. Now I do. I’m checking the maps and feeling silly for it. What does it matter whether I know the people being hurt around the world? What difference could it make? Am I really obligated to tell the Greek women on the phone intending to play Rachel in a play that I actually have absolutely no relation to the Corries? Am I?
