Monster Media 1993 #2/Image.iso/magazine/s_m0693.zip/S&M-00

Text File | 1993-05-30 | 7KB | 123 lines

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 ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░A New England Sailor's Winter Lament░░░░by Steve Myrick
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               It happened the first time well into winter, one of
      those New England days when the morning sunlight bounces off
      the ice in a frenzied dance, yet still reflects some
      unrefined promise of spring.  Since that day it has marched
      with maddening impulse back through the calendar.  It has no
      regard for me, no sympathy or remorse for its irregular
      torment.
               I am not the first to realize that we are both
      blessed and cursed to live in this place, where the winters
      can seem so harsh, and the summers so short.  But I have
      mostly failed to learn how to adapt to winter's allure.  It
      is true that winter's icy edges make the summer that much
      sweeter.   But that seems inadequate compensation.  It is
      like saying you feel great, once you stop banging your head
      against the wall.  Still, the thought of living elsewhere
      makes me cringe.
               The first time was easy.  With a minimum of
      distress, relative warmth arrived.  The tenuous climb of the
      thermometer, and the noticeable lengthening of light
      justified the spring rituals of sanding and scraping.  The
      smell of their ceremonial oils and paints eased the chill
      from the air. The sound of boatyard chatter, punctuated by
      power sanders, quickened the pulse.
               Soon we were greeting each weekend with a laugh and
      a tack through the freshening breeze.
               It was not given another thought, not even yet
      recognized as a phenomenon.  But the next time, it was not
      yet late winter, and it was not so easy to dismiss.  It came
      on one of those New England days when there is no light, and
      precious little assurance that we are not on the brink of a
      surprise ice age.
               The mind invents a thousand phony defenses, and
      each one is doomed to failure from the start.  You can not
      lie to yourself about these things.  Watching golf on TV
      from some sunny clime is like a temporary narcotic.  You
      know in your heart that soon those images will vanish and
      you will step back into a very real, very frozen world.
               The next year it came earlier, and earlier still
      the next, until the year it arrived with the Christmas
      season, bringing all of its bothersome urgency to intrude on
      the holiday cheer.  Christmas at Mystic Seaport and a good
      sailing book from Santa tempered the strain.
               It qualified as a sort of fuzzy discomfort by then,
      an annoying trespasser.   The sensation defined itself with
      each passing year, its edges growing sharper, its focus
      clearer.   It is only a thought really, nothing more than a
      maddening biological spark.  Its mystery is in its surprise.
      Each winter season, it elbows through frosty synapses,
      bursting hotly into consciousness without so much as a
      cursory introduction.  It sets up residency in the crevices
      of my mind until it is cured.
               "These winters build character," our grandfathers
      always said.   Through an annual test of fidelity, we are
      hardened by the season.  Most of us emerge in spring with
      our devotion unshaken.  But it does not get easier as we go
      along.
               The year it came before the first snow was tough.
      By then it was a distinct phenomenon.  I drove by the harbor
      and saw a boat sailing out toward the bay. That made it
      tougher.  It was one of those fall days when you hear people
      saying "It's warmer now than some of those days in June."
               In my youthful exuberance, I was always perplexed
      when people complained about winter.  There never seemed a
      dark or dreary day then, only fast weeks filled with
      carnivals and ski trips and high school basketball.   I
      still find plenty to do in winter, but I realize now that
      those who groused about the snow and ice had lived through
      many more seasons than me.
               Last year it jumped from an irksome phenomenon to a
      genuine affliction.  It crossed a seemingly impossible
      threshold, and I do not know quite how to handle it. It
      caught me unaware, as always. It was a sunny day. Calling it
      summer would barely stretch the truth.  I was lazing away an
      afternoon aboard, perfectly comfortable, when it hit me with
      all the subtlety of a keel grinding up on a rock ledge.
      Suddenly my head was filled with thoughts of that first
      glorious sail of the season.  We were not even out of the
      water yet, would not be for weeks, yet I was thinking about
      a spring launch date, and a split second later, dreading the
      long wait.
               With those thoughts biting into the senses, winter
      can be a cruel season, and this winter has been the most
      cruel of all.  Each week brought a new storm, with news of
      some demented meteorological record broken.  The television
      weather forecasters grin with little boy glee as the cloud
      maps document another approaching storm.
               The first cruise of the season has become a
      tradition in our family, an overnight shakedown voyage to
      Quisset Harbor.   Adrenaline racing, grins welded onto our
      faces, we tighten and tune as we go.  There will be longer
      sails, and more exotic ports to explore, but there will not
      be a rush like this again.   It is at once a victory over
      the long winter, and a lunge into the summer ahead.  And
      that day will arrive again.  It will.
               But now the affliction overlaps its cure, and since
      it jumped into this new dimension, there has been no peace
      in my thoughts.  Every triangle is a sail, every circle a
      wheel.  Every clod of dirt a sandy shoal, every splash of
      water an ocean.
               I am a young man, but I am not immortal, and my
      summers are not infinite.  What was once an occasional
      troubling thought has evolved into a ponderous question.
      The mind's impulse is to flee these frightful puzzles, to
      defend the soul from unknown horrors which might lurk in the
      answers.   That is what I will do, in summer at least. In
      winter I may sail these treacherous waters, and try to chart
      the hazards.  But I will not spend my summers searching for
      answers I might not like to know. I will take solace in
      simple pleasures.  A building southwest breeze. The steady
      insistence of a weather helm.  Oysters at sunset in a quiet
      harbor.  An artful turn of phrase in an old book. And the
      gentle waves rocking me to sleep in my berth.

                                  -end-
                       Copyright (c) 1993 Steve Myrick
     Steve Myrick is a Freelance Writer living in Boston, MA.  Contact
     him through Pen and Brush BBS at [phone] (modem)