I’m going between two places, a floating home, and a more permanent home. I’ve been struggling with navigating doing laundry and such at night in the permanent home since that requires going through a kitchen that is being remodeled as it is completely emptied and torn apart. Wires burst and hang sadly forth from open walls. It seems 1950’s wiring is not up to code. Who knew?
I feel like a spelunker when I put on my headlamp to navigate through the kitchen in the dark to the garage and the washer and dryer. Why am I not doing it during the day? Because it’s filled with men who know what they’re doing and I don’t. I stay away on a magical float, a houseboat complete with birds surrounding it in its up and down float.
Magic and living are doubled on the water – a nearby boatTwo of my companions and friendsOpen to the view
My grandson is three, and words like poop and poopie are very popular. When I read about the behavior of some people during Biden’s speech yesterday, I thought of how these people behave worse than three year olds because we teach our children kindness and cooperation as they test and tease.
I am beyond flabbergasted and I continue to try to put this in a container of oneness. Okay, I’m this and that, and yet, again, it doesn’t fit into my belief system of the basic goodness we are and share.
Here are some photos from yesterday to counteract the news. I don’t have photos of the seal that swam by the dock yesterday and peeked in, or the egrets in flight but I feel their movement, curiosity, and stability. I spread my arms like a bird opening wings, and open to air, lift, flight, and delight.
CirclingWalking along the waterfront, I turn my head and see a perching friendPlants line the dock as ropes intertwine below Honoring Entry
In Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche’s book, The Joy of Living, Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness, he writes of visiting the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower. He’s amazed at the beauty, creativity, connectivity, and vision that brought these buildings to rise. Then he is shocked to see the view blocked by barbed-wire fencing and patrolled by guards. He learns these are precautions to prevent suicides. What could lead to such despair?
His teachings are on opening the heart to Joy through appreciation and gratitude.
Today my abode is surrounded with ducks and coots. Their niche is high tide. They dive down leaving rippling circles and then pop up again. I’m reminded to go deeply within to renew and feed, and then pop up to air and share. There’s so many birds popping up and diving down, I can’t stop smiling. It’s hysterical. I’m surrounded with joy, as my head and heart bob up and down with their rhythm, and companionship.
Perhaps I make it seem as though the inhabitants simply sit and look at birds, and watch and feel the tides but it is a community. FedEx comes. A pizza arrives. Direct TV is installed for a neighbor. Food comes in. Trash, recycling,and compost go out. I now see that a bucket is a good way to carry compost when you have a fairly long walk depending where your boat is located along the dock. Just like for the birds, there is intake and outtake.
I read these words from Annie Murphy Paul in The Extended Mind, and think of how we’re connected and affected by each other and what we read and see.
Annie Murphy Paul:
When we listen to a story, our brains experience the action as if it were happening to us. Brain scanning studies show that when we hear about characters emoting, the emotional areas of our brains become active; when we hear about characters moving vigorously, the motor regions of our brains are roused.
I hear the engines of the seaplane rev up and wait for it to cruise out, turn, and rise. It is my story and I rouse and rise.
I look up and an egret is walking by my deck. He circles round the boat, slowly and carefully. I see him grab three fish.He or she leaves if I open the door so I take pictures through the glass.
Dinnertime or perhaps TeatimeNot full yet! I know there’s more here.Heading SouthAnd back around he or she comes4:10 in the afternoon – Mt. Tam on watch
My three-year-old grandson visited the houseboat yesterday. Though he had no idea what a houseboat was before he arrived, he had created one at home with chairs, a table, and a blanket. He’s definitely impressed with the “real thing”, as am I.
We’ve had rain and wind so it’s been interesting to be here, with the creaking rhythm of the dock adjusting to the tides, and the variety of birds who seem to handle the weather with such ease. I watch them, wanting to do the same.
Today the dock was so slippery with ice I felt I was ice-skating even though I was wearing rubber-soled shoes. I met a woman who had just fallen. Perhaps because of the weather, I rarely see anyone though I know from the number of cars that people are here.
The boat goes up and down and rocks as do I. I never realized how much the ducks bob down into the water and disappear and then pop back up in a new place. Perhaps I do the same. For now, a gentle rocking as I balance land and sea, doing and being, in and out.
At Cavallo Point yesterday outside the Bay Area Discovery MuseumView of the city Sunday morning from Cavallo PointI hear a cheep and look down to see a little bird serenading the day – Cavallo PointDucks come to the dock to check me out – then float gently away when I appear to take a picture.And there’s home with the acacia in bloom and the ridge turning green from all the rain.
In the early morning dark, I sit on the houseboat Little Lux, facing north to Mt. Tam. I feel the mountain’s roots nestle below. Rain continues its pour.
I think of the sun, radiating, giving, the mountain, the oneness of connection like a rainbow, so many colors in one light. The waves come gently this morning, and the tide is high.
The boat next door that sits on mud at low tide is floating now. It’s amazing to feel the change as day comes to shades of gray.
Early morning as Friday commuter traffic lights blur to oneTide coming in Tide risingA neighbor’s boat goes from sitting on mud to ready to power out Water lifts the kayak’s dock up to the deck
I wake in the night. What is that sound? I’m on a houseboat so there are many new sounds but this sound is rhythmic – rain. What a gift to be in a tiny houseboat with three skylights. I rise with the sound – fluidity – cleansing – renewal.
Last night I read in the book Houseboats: Aquatic Architecture of Sausalito, that Richardson Bay, where I am, a part of San Francisco Bay, is host to 55 species of fish and a number of others migrate through including striped bass and steelhead trout. “Bait fish like herring, anchovy, and smelt attract mammals, such as harbor seals, and birds. Even whales have been seen entering the bay.” We older folk remember Humphrey, a Humpback whale, who, in 1985, swam into San Francisco Bay and then up the Sacramento River towards Rio Vista, Ca. He returned in 1990.The Marine Mammal Center, U.S. Coast Guard, and volunteers helped guide him back to the ocean.
I’m here on the water because we’re remodeling our kitchen and I felt inspired to seek a respite. The woman in charge of the project said couples often divorce with remodeling, and I thought why not turn it into something special, rather than risk conflict, and here I am, entranced with the magic, with the gift of tides, and now rain on the roof.
I open Frank Bruni’s book The Beauty of Dusk, to words I wrote in my own book, Breast Strokes. Not “Why me?” but “Why not me?” I made that discovery as I went through surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, or as my acupuncturist called it, being cut, poisoned, and burned, and yet, I was entranced, like others I met, with the gifts. Frank Bruni came to the same realization in his journey to possible blindness. What do we learn in this journey we share? How do we meet what comes our way, what floats in and out with the tides?
Bruni goes on to share that we’re all dealing with something, with even more than we may let others know or see. He writes about the retirement from football of Andrew Luck, the star quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. Why did Luck retire at the top of what others perceived of as “success”?
He said: “For the last four years or so, I’ve been in this cycle of injury, pain, rehab, injury, pain, rehab, and it’s been unceasing.” Bruni then lists the injuries this man had endured and would continue to endure as these injuries don’t go away.
Many of us enjoy watching football, but like Bruni, I, too, have to step away from watching, and now again my focus goes to the sound of rain pounding down. Fluidity.
Two quotes came my way yesterday.
Norman Lear:
Two little words I don’t think we can pay enough attention to: over and next. When something is over, it is over, and next is next. And there’s a hammock in the middle. That is the best description, that I know of, of living in the moment.
Michelle Obama: The unknown is where possibility glitters.
And of course, I must again include Charlotte Selver:
If you have these two things – the willingness to change, and the acceptance of everything as it comes, you will have all you need to work with.
Yes, the houseboat has a fireplace to make it even more cozy and warm at nightLooking out at the bay at 3 in the morning with rain pouring downThree kayaks rest on the dock in rain, two single, one double, as we each pause and receive.
I knew the wee houseboat would enchant the senses. I expected it to be about seeing since the motion of water and birds is continuous. It’s also about hearing. There’s birds and water murmuring and churning, and there’s also the ropes as they tighten, loosen and strain with the movement of tides, and the sound of the dock as it adjusts up and down.
I’m reading Frank Bruni’s book The Beauty of Dusk. He’s struggling with his eyesight, and in that medical exploration, thinks about which is more important, seeing or hearing. He gives arguments for both, and sitting here, I wonder, which would I give up? At this moment, all senses are stimulated and awake with gratitude as oars of awareness paddle and connect inner and outer tides.
Morning ContemplationMorning Stillness Reflects Different TypesConnectingLow TideMt. Tam overlooks a high tide
I’m in/on a houseboat, a little one, dwarfed perhaps by the big guys, but as the owner says that means I’m right by the water, literally. It’s lapping at the deck. It’s mesmerizing. I wish I could capture the movement, and the changes from low tide last night to high this morning. Such a gift!
My Boat, Little LuxA Neighbor boat at evening low tideGreat Blue Heron off my deck at low tide yesterday late afternoon My kayaks float on their little dock off my deck and outside the window where I type this. Heaven – Here! Hide Tide and Low and In-between!
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