I was dragging myself out the door to go to Spanish class last night, ever so reluctantly (because I was tired, not because I don't like Spanish class), when the phone rang.
"What are you doing?" S. asked.
"I'm just leaving for Spanish class," I said, "unless there's something better going on."
Some people from her church were going sailing, she said, and I was invited.
I threw Spanish class out the window and went sailing.
I'm not sure I've ever actually gone sailing before. It's amazing how quickly the sound of the motors on other boats become a nuisance as you sail quietly along, your boat only producing the noise of water on the hull. We sailed away from the sunset and then back into it, the two canvas sheets rising above us. D. tried to explain the vacuum that sucks the boat into the wind. Physics class seemed ever so long ago.
Planes took off nearly overhead. I craned my neck back to look at them, because that's what I do. I cannot see a plane without watching it.
The wind got cold, and I wrapped myself in the cloth from Tanzania that has followed me around the world, thick enough to keep me warm, but thin enough to dry quickly. A., who grew up as a missionary kid in Nigeria, commented on it and asked where it was from. A. and D. reminded me that they've been to Liberia.
"We were there in 1988," they said, "a year before the war."
The world is so small.
It was dark when we arrived back at the marina, and a little duck, separated from his mother by our boat, peeped frantically until she came around the boat and rescued him. He arched his back out of the water in glee.
A blue heron stalked along the dock.
"What are you doing?" S. asked.
"I'm just leaving for Spanish class," I said, "unless there's something better going on."
Some people from her church were going sailing, she said, and I was invited.
I threw Spanish class out the window and went sailing.
I'm not sure I've ever actually gone sailing before. It's amazing how quickly the sound of the motors on other boats become a nuisance as you sail quietly along, your boat only producing the noise of water on the hull. We sailed away from the sunset and then back into it, the two canvas sheets rising above us. D. tried to explain the vacuum that sucks the boat into the wind. Physics class seemed ever so long ago.
Planes took off nearly overhead. I craned my neck back to look at them, because that's what I do. I cannot see a plane without watching it.
The wind got cold, and I wrapped myself in the cloth from Tanzania that has followed me around the world, thick enough to keep me warm, but thin enough to dry quickly. A., who grew up as a missionary kid in Nigeria, commented on it and asked where it was from. A. and D. reminded me that they've been to Liberia.
"We were there in 1988," they said, "a year before the war."
The world is so small.
It was dark when we arrived back at the marina, and a little duck, separated from his mother by our boat, peeped frantically until she came around the boat and rescued him. He arched his back out of the water in glee.
A blue heron stalked along the dock.
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