Musings On The Boat That Didn’t Sail

We spent the long weekend with friends on their Catalina 42. Friday morning we left their berth at Marina Del Rey, sailed to Catalina and spent the weekend with those who had made a choice we had rejected.

We enjoyed wine and cheese on the outdoor patio of the Banning House, overlooking Cat Harbor, visiting with a couple who had spent eight years circumnavigating the globe. We listened to their stories of adventure, Christmas with the harbor master in Mexico, superb care in a hospital in Bangkok, getting caught in an eight mile wide fishing net and twenty six days crossing the Atlantic on their way home.

I felt envy rise in my breast. I wanted a boat. I wanted to sail around the world, or at least down to Mexico, Central America and through the canal. The cruising couple told us it needn’t be terribly expensive, that people cruise on lots of different budgets, some for as little as $200 a month. When they made the decision to go, they sold their house, kept only one car and didn’t buy anything for two years as they prepared for their trip.

“Let’s do it,” I thought.

Perhaps because he has done more sailing than I, my husband was more realistic,

“Sailing is a lot of work,” he said. “I have no interest in buying a boat.”

He thought differently thirty years ago. When we married we thought we would buy a sail boat and sail up and down the Pacific coast. We even talked about sailing around the world. Both of our fathers had sail boats. His father had a 29 foot Ericson sloop docked just blocks from their house in San Francisco. We crewed for him on day sails to Sausalito for lunch or to Angel Island for a picnic. My father had a bigger boat, a 42 foot sail boat he and my mother sailed to Alaska and talked about sailing around the globe. Eventually both fathers sold their boats. When my father-in-law sold his boat my husband thought about buying it. But responsibilities and limitations said no.

We could do it now. It’s not too late. But we won’t. Even as temptation rose inside, I knew it was not a choice we would make. I’d have to give up too many choices I’ve already made, I’d have to give up my weekly time with my grandchildren, my volunteer work with hospice patients. I’d have to give up my house, my sewing room, my office, my garden and my mother’s cats.

I didn’t know I was choosing not to sail around the world when I decided not to join my father-in-law in a Sunday afternoon sail around the bay years ago. I was only deciding to spend the afternoon doing something else. And somehow that decision that day joined with many others and today I’m not setting sail.

It is not regret I feel. My life is good and I’m grateful for my husband, my children and my grandchildren. They are my greatest satisfaction. I’m grateful for the career I had, the volunteer work I do that contribute to a sense of purpose in my life. I’m grateful for my friends and my hobbies that daily affirm me. No, it’s not regret I feel.

What I’m feeling is an awareness of my ever more limited choices. Forty years ago my life was all possibility with no limitation. I believed I had forever to do whatever I chose to do. And the possibilities were endless. I could study Russian or biology or English. I could go to law school or teach or be a flight attendant. I could marry or not, have children or not. I had no sense of limitation.

I’ve never been one to dither about my choices, to engage in paralyzing analysis about whether to do this or do that. I just go blithely forward with the choice made. Sometimes I’m not even conscious of the choice or its consequences when I make it. But today I am aware of limitation, aware that taking one choice precludes another, that time spent one way today cannot be spent another way tomorrow, and that each choice I make today affects the choices available to me tomorrow. I’m increasingly aware of my mortality.