Category: Prose

How can I tell you what is happening, when-where our minds are turned off: the delicate dance of creation, the rhythmic unfolding and refolding of time, the waves flowing, and turning—turning—and turning.

Yes, that is something like it.

We haven’t understood what all of this is. How could we? I tried to write about it, in the way I thought you wanted to hear; with the words I thought you wanted me to use.

I couldn’t do it.

The thoughts at the tip of my mind can’t explain it; from that vantage, we don’t understand life, it seems. But only from someplace far deeper. Yes.

I think my brain was damaged, from the pain of trying to be; and of making myself for you—proving that I am someone I am not.

All of that can be over now. We have gone nowhere, and have arrived no further than when we started. And we have lost nothing. What has always been, still is; and what we were, we also are, and can remain.

I’m sorry if you don’t understand. The important things are not to be read online, or discovered from a spreadsheet—no textbook will teach it—and we cannot reason it out.

Rather, it is unfolded in the place and time just before we sleep—in our halfway—between worlds, before and after explanation.

Everything here is music. Vibration. Devotion. And Worship.

Here we know we are made for God.

~FS

Alex Alexandrovich Latipov had given himself that name sometime after his parents passed away. It was his way of creating a fresh start. Or was it an attempt to stay interested in life by making a change? Sometimes he described it as a fresh start, sometimes as an attempt to hold onto life when he had simply lost interest. He often humored himself like that. Life could be so dull, especially when it terrified him. It made him want to sleep. But when he couldn’t sleep, which happened often, he made jokes for himself, like changing his name to Alex Alexandrovich Latipov. He even went to the trouble of changing it legally. When his new driver’s license had arrived in the mail, with that name printed next to his photo it gave him hope. He smiled. Maybe he could do something now. That’s what he thought. Maybe life would notice him now; and he could be happy. Or maybe the world would ignore him and leave him alone, so he could be happy. Either way. Because it had been a challenge being Jacob and he had never really attained happiness when he was that guy. Even that had been an effort to elevate his game, to give himself a bit more gravitas, or sophistication. His parents called him Jake and there really wasn’t anything wrong with that. In fact, he liked the name. But time passed and he realized sometime along the way that Jake had serious limitations. Everyone liked Jake when he was a kid and that was exhausting. But even more vexing was that Jake couldn’t keep his brother from killing himself. He was just a happy-go-lucky kid, a little brother with no power in this world. So, after his older brother shot his brains out, pardon the graphic detail, Jake changed his name to Jacob, because Jacob was a name that commanded respect and one could make things happen, or not happen with a name like Jacob. At least that was the idea behind it. Jacob wanted to have, he needed to have, some control over these things that made him anxious. Particularly the growing awareness that everyone he loved seemed to be dying. This was a real problem. And even though everyone else seemed to insist that this is just normal and that he’d best recognize the natural nature of death, he found himself increasingly having difficulty taking a really nice deep breath, and with the passing of the years he was getting very weary, perhaps for lack of oxygen.

Alex sat on the little wooden bench under the spreading branches of a large oak. The sunlight filtered down through the tall canopy, and Alex found a momentary joy in the movement of the shadows it cast upon his legs and feet. Tiny lavender flowers grew in a crack in the pavement nearby and the color reminded him of his friend. His friend often wore jackets that were that same color, or nearly. This memory flickered through his mind and he smiled briefly, and he thought with somber jurisprudence, “Well, so, I’ll never see him again in this life, that’s how it is.” And he felt proud of himself that he could think such a thing with such a mature absence of emotion. “Maybe I’m really getting the hang of this after all,” he thought. “Jake would be impressed, even Jacob.” Alex smiled as he thought back over the many times he came to this bench, and he sat and remembered, one by one, the people he’d buried in the cemetery just down the path, so close to where he sat.  Would it have made a difference if they all died at once, in one swift blow? Like the stories you hear of whole families wiped out in the holocaust, or in a natural disaster. Rather than one by one, a slow drip, month upon month. “My goodness, I prayed that I would come to terms with this, and I thought I had, an answer to prayer, an understanding of it all. I could actually breath again, I felt happy!” Alex stretched out his arms and yawned, really a bit more like a gasp, but it felt good. He laughed. “I didn’t understand anything. I had only been given a momentary reprieve, a year or little more without the death of anyone I loved. Alexander Alexadrovich Latipov is no better than Jacob, he’s just not been tested for a while.” He laughed again, louder and with more attention, assertively; and he approved of his laughter and felt strong again briefly. “How wonderful to laugh at death! How wonderful to be awake and not be tired, and to make plans and dream of something good that will happen in the future, something that I want!” He nodded and let his head drop because it felt so very heavy. Alex pulled his legs up and lay down on his side, placing his head on his arm as a pillow. Jake had slept like this, years ago, and he was alive and at peace, as he had heard his brother laughing downstairs, and his parents talking in their bedroom. Everyone was still alive; nobody was just a memory. Alex envied Jake, as he curled up on the bench pretending to be him. Trying to remember, no, trying to be what he was, not the image of Jake, but the living, breathing person who hoped and knew joy and didn’t have to pretend. “Mmmmm, yes. Childhood. Yes, that is the way of children.” He thought with pleasure, knowing that this was a very adult way of looking at life. “Perhaps there is still hope for me,” Alex thought again. “I will think of Christ, and the resurrection and eternal life and this will make me happy and it will make everything better, it will set all bad things aright again, and I will know victory over death, once and for all!” Alex thought these things triumphantly, and inexplicably he began to cry. Just a bit though, not enough to show, not so that he would betray himself. “There is a club after all. The club of those seemingly unaffected by death, because they know the answer, and it is so simple. They have the words that make everything bad about reality fade away behind a dusty mirror. Yes, that’s the way it is, and I can be in the club too! I will be in it, by God!”

Alex sat up again on the bench. “Okay. Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.” Did he just say that? Or was it like a song drifting on the wind? It was as though it had floated down to him and wrapped him in its innane, syrupy, stupidity. It made him angry but he wondered if it weren’t true nonetheless. “How far is that true, I wonder? Is it still true after two people you loved and lost? Is it still true after ten? Or twenty? Is it better to have loved twenty-five people and have lost all of them, than to have not loved them at all? Or is it not better to have never lived at all? That might be true. I think death makes me crazy,” Alex considered. “Better to love and die quickly, before death drives you mad.”

“Oh, I am so tired!” Alex stared at the dust on his shoes. Small flying bugs glittered in the setting sunlight. “I’m not nearly finished. When will it be over?” Then he felt remorse. “I’m not supposed to feel that way. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I? What hope is there for the man who cannot seem to reconcile with the one primary fact of life; death? There is no answer but to be someone else. I am not who I once was; and I can’t be who I am. Who can I be? Who must I be? This is a dilemma.” Alex smiled and chuckled. “A dilemma. Ha! An understatement. Funny. An existential dilemma. A paradox. A pair of dice. Yes, I am going mad, I think. Perhaps that is who I should be. A crazy man in a forest, or in a cave. Talking to the animals and the trees. That seems hopeful. Methuselah. Might I call myself that? It sounds wise and understanding. Methulselah understands death and is unaffected by it. He loves all people and is not terrified, or anxious. He can breathe deeply. And he does not become overly sad when the beloved die. Methusalah has conquered death, and he knows how to live!” Alex rose and stood on his feet. The setting sun shone on his face and he was beaming.

“God be praised! I am Methusalah!”

~FS

Solidity, is but the illusion of a moment.

Time renders all things to mist.

Nothing is as firm as it appears.

Why then are we startled by these facts?

Spirit, cannot be frozen or captured in stone.

Perhaps we were made for eternity.

And matter is not our natural state.

Gratitude, is the only proper response.

Everything is an unexpected treasure.

We are always living here on borrowed time;

We who can hold onto nothing, and have received all things.

~FS

What is a person?
A mystery shrouded in flesh,
Here for a very short time.

What is life?
An exchange of impressions;
Impacts struck between persons.

What is death?
A vast emptiness; a hole torn out of the world.

What are we, for each other?
A mirror, a measure, an echo, a sounding board, a symphony.
What do we become when our notes are removed, one by one?

We are diminished. What if our orchestra loses its timpani, then its trombone, its woodwinds, violas…

We grow silent. Mute.
And nauseous.
Why nauseous?
Death is a bad meal. A terribly rancid feast.

We become like one concussed, knocked silly, delirious and dizzy, and very unsettled. It is difficult to keep our food down. We have no appetite. Only desire for the one who died; for the life, the person; and for ourselves, who we had been before, to return.

We yearn to repair the hole left in our universe. Because we are like planets now without a sun; spinning out of orbit and crashing violently towards an inner darkness.

How can it be? We were, and we are no more.

United, together, no longer.

The leaves flutter in the breeze; perhaps they soothe our sorrows, as though the souls of the departed are carried upon the wind, or by the birds flying overhead. Are they? Where are they?

Where exactly is heaven? Were we to jump into the hole they’ve left behind, could we find it? Could we follow them?

Will we be reassembled, our orchestra, in that other place? Will we perform our symphony yet again in another world?

God willing, may we all meet again; under better circumstances.

~FS

I feared the worst when that beautiful little beast came victoriously from out of the woods,

I saw violence, murder and death in her wake. Surely, she had conquered, she had vanquished, she had torn flesh and drawn blood somewhere in there. I know her ways, and the look in her eyes, and her desire, placed deep within by instinct.

But even so, I hoped and I waited for the bunnies to come out, as they always do lately; two little bunnies. They, an answer to my prayers. For years I’ve waited for them to visit our yard, and to make their home with us. How I love the innocent mammals, warm and soft, furry, gentle, eating our lawn in docile tranquility. I’ve watched them these past few days, perhaps a week or two, and my heart has burst with happiness. They are finally here with us. My dear little friends finally made it and are dwelling with us. It is a blessing, however short-lived. But joy rarely drives me to the pen or the keyboard with the same desperate compulsion as does pain, and in my suffering I now write. I have no other answer for death and the recurring terror of that final end.

I found my little friend where I expected to, sideways in the dirt under the trees, eye staring vacantly at the sky, his sable body inert and cold. A red gash just behind his ear, running ragged down his neck; the mark of a cat. She didn’t even eat him. She isn’t hungry, she is well fed, a housecat with a knack for killing just for the fun of it. My, how I hate her.

I buried the bunny in the earth, to the side of Rocco’s Loop Trail, a little trail I made not long ago in memory of my shih-tzu who died and took much of me with him. And after I buried the little creature I picked up two rocks, razor sharp, and heavy in my hand, perfect for throwing; and I went hunting. If I could find that calico I would kill it. Vengeance, a desire placed deep within me by instinct. But it is unlikely that I’ll kill her even when I find her unless I forget the bitter taste of remorse in that moment of opportunity. What other power is there over death but to kill? One grows weary of the weight of one’s impotence. One desires to act instead. Even if it is a futility. But I love cats also. So, what would another dead animal do for me?

Well, I want her to know the pain that she causes me when she kills. And I want God to know. Doesn’t anybody know? If I throw this rock will I get your attention?! Will it dry my tears once for all; and make the anger go away? If only. There is a case for vengeance, but experience shows that it is a weak case indeed.

~FS

If it were only the purple brilliance of the newly blooming periwinkle flowers I would be satisfied, but it is also the shimmering green foliage of the boxwoods, glistening with dew in the morning crispness. These things together are magnificent.

It is the arching branch of the apple tree, reaching, and bowing low over the freshly mown grass. And the morning sunlight, still low in the sky, casting a warm glow through the tree and across the grass, where a lively robin can be seen dancing gently, and bowing quickly over its morning meal, saying a brief prayer before eating a worm.

Veronica cascades over a broken-down wall; and sweet Daphne fragrance drifts upon the breeze, intermingled with…is it viburnum? Osmanthus? Yes. All the floral world is alive now and calling to bees and birds to pollinate.

 
I walk with my dog, slowly, aimlessly, both of us contentedly; neither of us is leashed to anything. My mind is free to wander, and he is enthralled by the base of every tree. With little puffs of warm air he sniffs everything, missing nothing, moving randomly, joyously, from one tree to the next; he is like a tiny steam train, puffing and snorting as he goes, then coming to rest contentedly into the station.—abiding in pleasured stillness, with his head and nose buried deep within worlds unknown to me.

Standing in a forest of flowering currants, surrounded by sword ferns, with bird calls filling the air; all these things working together for the good of man and of beast. We are dwelling, together in an abundance of beauty.

*

Time, like the snow falling, brings a hush in its wake, covering the past in a soft blanket of silence. The sun shines upon us, melting our hearts like the spring thaw, and awakening our consciousness to the bright future unfurling around and within us.

~FS

All of creation groans and is in pain from the beginning until the present moment. Yes. I ran over a beautiful raccoon with my truck this afternoon. One ran out in front of me and I had time to swerve but then another came over the bank, up out of the roadside ditch and I felt and heard it hit the back wheel, twirl up and hit the side of the truck a second time, and in the side mirror I saw its large sable body spin and slump in a heap at the side of the highway. I couldn’t stop for the large semi-truck directly on my tail. I might have tried more evasive maneuvers but for that truck, and not wanting to cause an even larger tragedy. I destroyed that little creature’s life; I ended it. And I caused grief to others. I’ve seen animals mourn their dead. I expect the other, or others if there were more, went to see their dead friend, or their dying friend and they were helpless to do anything for him. I know that feeling. I’ve been there myself with the dead that I have loved. I won’t go into the details of how life drained out of me the rest of the day, but it did, and I became very numb, and I yearned to leave this world myself, but for those I’d leave behind and the sadness that might cause. Life feels like a warzone, each passing moment taking one or another of us randomly, leaving some of us to fight another day. Some people go out of their minds in war, some turn to anything to dull the pain, some go all in and become mercenaries, killers for hire. I understand them all.

But I found a little chapel at the edge of the woods, metaphorically, and I crawled inside and prayed: Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me. I said this many times, quietly to myself, as I mourned the raccoon. I cried, and I survived another day. In younger years I would have returned to help that little creature, or to bury him. But now I cannot bring myself to see what I’ve done. I can’t see another dead animal, or human, I am reaching my limit. I’m only fifty-five; what shall become of me? It doesn’t matter, the same as will happen to us all, death will find me randomly on the battlefield, tomorrow or next year, or in ten years, but it will happen; and in the meantime all of creation mourns and cries in pain, and I am witness to all their suffering, with nothing but duct tape and baling wire to use to fix the monumental problems that only God himself can fix. But he is acting at leisure. Which I understand, though I don’t, but who am I to argue?

I find it remarkable that living is both clinging to this world and yearning for the next at the same time. Loving life and wanting death. Enduring and fighting for another day, hoping to see the sun rise, desiring to live a little longer, and the next moment reeling from “the terror of knowing what this world’s all about” and wishing we’d never been born. Maybe that’s just me. But to some degree I imagine we all have some similar feelings about our exile here. Lord Jesus have mercy on me. I crouch in my metaphorical chapel, saying my prayers, grateful that night has fallen finally, sorry for the little raccoon, and determined to stay in here and not go outside again. I’ll watch the sun rise through the window and pretend there is a way out, but knowing there isn’t. There is only the way through, as they say; there is nowhere to run. But God is in control, Jesus Christ is risen, and ultimately there is a resurrection. Every story ends in death, but every story also ends in new life. I don’t know this, but I believe it.

~FS

It is easy to eat from the tree of knowledge. It is easy to let the mind run wild; chasing across mental fields. Imagining that our mind operates freely and independently. Forgetting that our mind is always in service to something. The mind, the brain is a tool that is not its own master. It is obedient to our will, and goes to work as it is directed by the spirit. Our mind serves invisible masters, subtle and hovering hidden upon, or just below, the surface of consciousness; our brain is able to rationalize any position that suits us, and we almost always believe what we think, and take it as true.

Our human pride likes to imagine that we don’t need any guardrails or any guidance or any rules to limit and organize our mental processes, but our mind only works under these conditions, only within some type of system can it operate properly. A good operating system allows our mind to work beneficially, and a bad system leads us to think in damaging ways towards our self and others. God said that we may eat of any tree in the garden, but of the fruit of the tree of knowledge we may not eat. The serpent tells us that it will be okay to try that forbidden fruit. We’ve been making excuses and explanations for our bad decisions ever since.

It is easy not to be aware of what system we are operating within, in fact, it is more common for people not to be aware of the system that is guiding or ruling their thinking processes than to know it. We just think. We just think the way we’ve always thought. We imagine that we simply think in the correct way, or the best way, of course, because it is how we think. Changing our operating system is no easy task. For one, we have to become aware that we have one, and this implies that we are not our own masters. This humbling reality is antithetical to our human pride. This first stumbling block is enough to keep most of us from getting any further in our journey to psychological and spiritual health.

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” This verse and many other scriptural references give us the perfect code for rebooting our mental system according to Godly wisdom.

Finally, turning the system off entirely is often the most beneficial. Giving it a rest. I for one have a brain that is too active and prone to despair. Always reaching, striving, whirring, and pumped up on adrenaline, cortisol, coffee, ambition and frustration. Searching and not finding. Yearning and not satisfied. Praying in solitude. Often, there is nothing better for me than to have the snow falling, so to speak, in the midst of my never-ending thoughts, covering my neurons with a soft white muted silence, a comfortable numbness. A desire unfulfilled makes the heart sick and the mind uptight. Often when I can’t find God, when I don’t experience closeness with Him in church or in the woods, or in prayer, I turn to television or a glass of wine, and hope for death. Such is the terrible strangeness of life in this world: outcast, and waiting for the future. I understand choosing dissipation, distraction, entertainment and trying to forget the promises of better things; in the meantime, these all ease the pain of separation from the one we love. Though there is nothing better than to know God, sometimes there is nothing more blessed than to be too busy in this world to try.

As one who has been cast out of the garden yet believes in the promises of Christ’s salvation, these are the tiresome ups and downs of life in this world. Glimmers of understanding trade places with moments of despair which yield to epiphanies of spiritual experience, which give way to emptiness which draw one into relationship with our Lord which become tests of endurance and then perhaps a fall from grace, and then a moment of humility that lifts us back again into the presence of God, and then another fall. This is the roller-coaster of life. Remembering, forgetting, crying in anguish, breathing a sigh of relief, deep gratitude, terrible anger, acceptance, sorrow, suffering, joy, a bit of peace, hope for more peace, hope to escape from loss, some anguish, around and around, up and down, and up again, and then back down again. Polishing, wearing us out, and building us back up. Isn’t it funny? Isn’t it terrible? Are we like mice being whacked by a cat before being devoured? No. Maybe. It depends on how you look at it. What operating system are you using? Be joyful always. It is possible. Pray for help. Be helped. Be forgotten. Try again. Give up. Cry out. Try again. Hope. Isn’t it interesting? It sure is something. Isn’t it something?

~FS

When I was a child I sometimes had a very strange sensation when I was in bed falling asleep. It was as though the entire room, the space that it occupied, were compressed into a point directly before my eyes. It was both a visual and a visceral sensation: perspective collapsed onto this one point, so that the corners and the angles of the room all converged, originating and ending on this dot, and at the same time the density which the room normally occupied compressed onto this point so that I felt a very great weight and pressure hovering just beyond my eyeballs. Everything about the room was still there, every detail, I could see, but it all fit on the point of a pin. Sometimes I even imagined that it was all literally on the eye of a needle. But it was the strange density that bothered me. It was an unnatural and unpleasant experience. It was a fascinating sensation, that frightened me, and I remember more than once running to find my mother for comfort, and when I tried to explain to her what was happening, she couldn’t understand me. Eventually the sensation went away and the room would return to normal.

Memory shares this quality. Time is compressed into a single moment. Everything I ever did shares the same place in my mind: what I did this morning, when I remember it, is like what I did as a child long ago. The shape of my experiences, the entirety of my life, like the room in which I used to fall asleep, all originate and end in this same place within me. Some memories are clear, others are in a mist, but they all are right there, somewhere, hovering just behind my eyes, somewhere in here.

Just below the surface of the water, where it is still clear, just above where it darkens and fades into obscurity, a jellyfish is pulsing and moving slowly through space. I watch it from the dock, mesmerized by its rhythmic dance, jerky and smooth, catapulting forward below me. I see my own face reflected in the water, superimposed upon the jellyfish, the sky behind me and the clouds passing by. I was on that dock watching that jellyfish forty years ago; I see it in my mind’s eye, just like I saw my face in the window earlier this morning, as the snow began to fall. Behind the cloudy glass of the dilapidated blue building I see my dad. He waves. I wave back from the dock. The jellyfish has gone. I’m all alone. I untether the dinghy and push off from the dock. I’ll go for a little row around the cove while I wait. I remember what dad told me, don’t row out beyond the point; stay in the cove and you’ll be safe.

There is plenty to explore within the limits dad set for me, and I’m a good rower. I can go fast, and far very quickly. I spent hours pulling the oars through the water, exploring that cove on the eastern edge of Tomales Bay. Today, I live on a different cove in Washington State, on the western edge of the Puget Sound. Looking out at the sunlight as it dances upon the waves I’d like to go rowing here. It calls to me. I’d like to go rowing later today with my dad. He died almost thirty years ago. Maybe he’ll come back. Wouldn’t that be nice? I’d like to have him back, so we could row together today. The beach is quiet. The dock is quiet. I see a seal poke his head above the water not far from shore, and he glides silently past me as I smile. It is a cold day, and windy, but I’ve got a good jacket on, and the sun is shining through the clouds.

We are not far apart, dad and me; separated by thirty-odd years, separated by death. We share a point in memory, in a strange place within: a gateway, like an eye, a place that has always been, perhaps, where the angel with a flaming sword also stands. And Christ draws everything to himself. In Him we originate and come to an end, and a new beginning. This idea doesn’t scare me like it did when I was a child. Now, it is hopeful and light. It doesn’t compress in on itself with a dreadful gravity as it once did; it expands outward like an eternal promise.

~FS

The sun rises in the sky but I can’t see it behind the thick cloud cover and the mist that hangs in the air. The day brightens and I see the seagulls soaring overhead, searching for shelter inland from a coming storm. The wind brings with it the smell of salt and freshness from the ocean water, not more than a half-mile from my home. At the beach I stand looking out over the waves, dark and white-capped. Across the turbulent waters, in the sky above the mountains the sun breaks through, brilliantly illuminating the surrounding clouds and making the surface of the water far away from shore much too bright to stare at. I look away. The wave tips are bright and silvery, contrasting sharply with the deep shadows within the water troughs. The wind is blowing strongly now and it is exhilarating, and it makes me sleepy at the same time. The clouds are darkening, the mountains are deep velvety gray, the ocean is a green slate, broken and thrown about, and the sun is far too bright to look into. It is the type of morning one imagines that God might call out from the heavens, or Christ might descend from the clouds and walk across the waters.

A small sailboat ploughs through the waves. Its sail is full and pulling hard. In my mind’s eye I see my father at the tiller and he has a serious expression on his face. Wind tosses the wisps of hair above his ears, and at the back of his head, and sends ocean spray into his face, speckling the surface of his aviator sunglasses, and causes the windbreaker he is wearing to billow and flutter. I don’t recall what he was like in church, but in his sailboat he was a devout man.

We sailed on Tomales Bay, north of San Francisco. We always had the bay to ourselves. I don’t recall another boat on the water when we sailed. It was a lonely, windswept place, beautiful, and unencumbered. It was wild and untamed. As a child this is how I remember it. I didn’t enjoy my time there, but I loved being with my dad, and it felt like we were the only people on earth. Fishermen had caught an enormous great white shark at the mouth of the bay earlier that year, or the year before. I couldn’t get that idea out of my mind. Maybe there were even larger sharks in the bay with us too. Being swallowed by a great white shark seemed likely in that wild place at the end of the world. It would be fitting. I wished that I could have seen that huge shark, strung up by ropes and hanging from a crane. Boldly I dipped my hand over the side of the boat and let the cold pacific water rush through my fingers, tempting the sharks to bite.

I admired my dad. He was a Coast Guard Captain. There was nobody better than a captain. I’d never heard of an admiral; in my mind they didn’t exist. There were only captains, if you were at the top, and that was what my dad was. I felt honored that he invited me to sail with him, even if I didn’t really like it. He scared me a little too. I didn’t want to do the wrong thing when I was with him. It was very possible to do the wrong thing, and that was never pleasant. Sailing was a serious affair; it wasn’t funny if you did the wrong thing. Sometimes I thought it was funny when I did the wrong thing, but usually that made it even less funny. My dad and I didn’t have the same sense of humor when I was a kid. But when I got older we laughed together more, and life became a little funnier. I’m glad that happened eventually.

Our sailboat was moored at a little marina on the east side of the bay. It was tethered to a buoy a few hundred yards off shore. We used a little wooden dingy to row out to it. The marina was a short drive off the highway, down a dirt and gravel rutted road that ended in a muddy parking lot near the water. There was a small dock with a few old fishing boats. Fishing paraphernalia was strewn about the site everywhere: crab pots stacked to the sky, nets, motors, boat carcasses, rusted bric-a-brac and oyster shells littering the corners of everything. A small, dilapidated wood building with cloudy windows stood at the edge of the dock. Faded blue paint clung to the old wood in some places, the rest was rotting wood, and it appeared as though mud held the boards together. A strong smell of grease, salt and creosote hung in the air, and cigarette smoke floated out from the open door. An old guy in greasy overalls always sat in there, or came out and greeted my dad. They always had business together before we went sailing.

~FS