Be Still

It’s one of those days that you’re not sure will come again once you’ve hit September. The kind of day when summer dances with fall- the air remaining crisp, but warming ever so slightly- the seasons colliding in a way that commands you to go play outside and feel what might be the last of the summer sun against your cheeks. I know now, sitting in that sun, why my cheeks are so speckled with sunspots that I’ve tried to laser, microneedle and vitamin c to death, to no avail. I don’t think I’ve ever said no to an invitation to a day like this in my life, and my face has kept the score.

Shaun and I rush to finish the work we have to get done so we can beat the outgoing tide. My parents' boat sits on their dock in Shoestring Bay, and she’s ours for the day, if we want her. And we do.

It feels naughty- escaping the world, our children and responsibilities in the middle of a workday. But days like this won’t wait for us. Soon, the seasons will change for good until next spring- late spring- and there will be plenty of time for all the things we should be doing once the winter wind blows in, turning Cape Cod to a peninsula of slush and almost-snow. We will hibernate, and complain, as all good New Englanders do, but we'll still venture into the woods for walks with new views, and we'll pile our children into the car, only to drive to the ledge of a beach and watch the bitter waves roll and crash in, as we remember this summer, and wish for the next. But, the boat timeline is limited and finite. Soon, Songbird Too will be pulled from her summer home, shrink wrapped and put away until we all thaw out again. 

Before we make our way to the dock, we stop by a new little country store. These have become my favorite places to shop. Today, it’s Lambert's Farm stand in Sandwich. It’s right by Luca's new Montessori school and it’s adorned with what seems like thousands of red and yellow mums, and piles of orange and white pumpkins standing guard around them, with a hay stack or two for good measure. Even if today feels like not-quite fall, Lambert’s feels like an autumn wonderland.

Inside is no disappointment, either. Built into what feels like an old house or barn, Lambert’s has what seems like dozens of wood-beamed nooks with pane glass windows, filled to the brim with every imaginable goody. Racks of fresh baked pies and cookies, not even packaged yet, sweeten the air and the single serving brownies are the size of my head, covered with drizzled caramel, hearty chocolate chunks and roughly chopped nuts. It seems almost irresponsible to not indulge. We try our best to reel in the temptation, focusing only on what we might pack for a boat picnic, but still, giving in by picking up an apple pie to share with my parents for dinner after our excursion. And a giant chocolate chip cookie or two. 

In a fashion that is very much my mom, we find drinks and towels laid out for us by the dining room table of my parents' house. We pack it along with our delectable findings from Lambert’s, and head down the steep stairs to my parents' dock. Shaun has become an expert captain, and it seems like he’s able to get the boat off and running in record time today. We’re running up against the clock of the tide, with the water flowing out of my parents small, shallow channel, and it feels like we’re escaping some kind of curfew.

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The water is like silky velvet today. It’s barely moving, and almost nobody else is out, except us. This time of year, the waterways seem to become a bit of a ghost town, as people return back to their city lives, going back to work and school. I wonder if it’s any different this year than it is other years, with people actively trying to escape more densely populated areas. I wonder how many people might be doing exactly what we’re doing. Either way, even if they're here, they’re not out on the water with us.
The boats at the marina are bobbing on their moorings, waiting expectantly to be called upon. It’s the time of year where you’re not sure that the boats will be driven before they're towed out for the season, and it makes me inexplicably nostalgic and strangely sad for them. In my imagination, I give the boats personalities, and picture them, almost like Disney characters, talking to one another, wondering where their people are. It’s been so long that I’ve had the mental space and capacity to imagine such things. My days and my brain are typically so stacked with information and have to do’s and responsibilities and schedules, but there is absolutely no room for daydreaming about what a boat might say to another boat. I understand how absolutely ridiculous it sounds, but having that kind of freedom to be frivolous and a bit zany feels freeing in some way that I can’t fully articulate.

Shaun puts the boat fully into gear once we’re through the marina, and into the channel, and I can’t recall a time this summer that it has been so flat. It’s almost as if we are ice-skating, not boating. It’s the perfect day. He asks me what I want to do, and I genuinely don’t care. We’re here, and because of the tide being outgoing and not having enough water, we won’t even be allowed to return until at least 3:30 PM. That gives us four magical hours where we are sentenced to be anywhere but home. Going out on either side of the tide, which means a four hour block of inaccessibility, used to feel as if I were stuck. But now, it feels like a permission slip. I used to loath the days- even the most beautiful ones- where we would push off from the dock and I knew that I couldn’t return until a specified time. I guess the truth is, I love my freedom, and anything that might impede upon that makes me feel a bit trapped, even if it’s a magical gift like getting to be out on the water. I think having children, and also having a support system here to help me with them, has shifted that for me. With my parents nearby, and a handful of friends who are gently and quickly resurfacing and surrounding us, I am no longer afraid of what I might be missing out on, or that Beckham might get sick and need me to pick him up from school, or that Luca might fall and hurt his knee, or anything else. I know that there's a village around me- a safety net- and whatever needs to happen will happen. I am allowed to- no, required to- just unplug and allow myself to let go of everything I try to control.

Every January in the new year, the small church that my mother attends, but refuses to become a member of because she’s "not religious", has an event during one of their services. The church and it’s keepers, print out and cut dozens and dozens of paper stars and paste them all around the pews, the walls, the stained glass windows. On the underside of each star- the side that you cannot see- there is a phrase, a word, a verse or a passage. For the last several years, my mom has picked her star and mine, since I have never been home for it.  

This year, she picked hers: “Healing”. We both had an inkling about what that would mean. It had been a tumultuous fall- full of old wounds being reopened, sewn back together again, and opened once more. Healing seemed appropriate then, and even more appropriate later, when my mom faced a terrifying health scare this spring, and embarked on healing at every level.

She sent me my star in the mail, as she always does. I opened it to much disappointment: “Be Still”. I scoffed. I’m not particularly religious, though I would consider myself to be incredibly spiritual. Every now and then, I suffer from panic attacks or anxiety, and for some reason or another, it had made its way into my vernacular to repeat myself in those moments, “ Be Still and know that I am God.”  I call "God" by many names. Most often, "The Universe" or my "angels". Whatever he, she or it is, I’m pretty sure we’re all talking about the same entity. I’m pretty sure we’re all talking about the thing that ties and binds us together in inextricable ways. We’re all talking about the thing that we come from, and ultimately return to. The thing that we all are, and the thing that we are all trying to be. However, this did not feel like my year to be still. I was indignant about that darn star. I hung it in my music room reluctantly, just in case it might have some hidden meaning later, as signs and messages often do. I even told my mom in that moment, "I think maybe you gave me your secondary star," I negotiated with the Universe. "There is no way it is my year to be still." It was my year to hustle. To break my own records. To do big, bold and powerful things. Stillness was not part of the plan, even as I grew little Hadley inside of me, I felt called to be off and running, off and running, off and running. 

And yet, here I am. On a weekday, on a boat, that I cannot get off of for the next four hours, even if I wanted to, and I don't. I cannot go back to shore, I cannot be there for my children if they need me, I can’t fly to Nashville and fix some work issue, I can’t really do much of anything except… Be still.

Because I have no preference, and because there are limitless options, Shaun points the nose of Songbird Too towards the coast of Martha's Vineyard. On my parents new boat, it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to get across the bay to Martha’s Vineyard, but today it’s so flat we might make it there in record time. I watch the ocean as we start to bump along it. It’s still so much flatter than usual, but even the flattest sea has bumps. I suppose it’s like life that way. The ocean changes from a sparkly deep blue green to a silvery, gray matte, like titanium. A bit of a fog descends around us. The only other vessels we’ve seen are professional fishing boats, and I wonder if maybe this is a portal to some other world. The water feels like it’s moving slowly around us, even though we are moving fast around it. It feels like if we went any faster, we might be spun into another universe. Either the water feels alien, or we do, and I can’t figure out which it is. But it’s deliciously foreign. It’s exceptionally mysterious, and even though I have known these waters for most of my life, they never cease to surprise me. Or teach me- About them, about myself. Being on the boat has always been where I think the most. It is deeply meditative and spiritual. And, whoever, wherever, or whatever God is, here is a place that I think I am closest to it. Where I hear it. And I'm grateful for it. 

We go on a new path, that neither Shaun or I have been on and the waves pick up. I’m in the front of the boat, the bow, and getting bounced around quite a bit. To be honest, there are moments that I’m a little scared. Not because I don’t trust Shaun- I do, implicitly- but probably because I don’t fully trust anything. At one point Shaun slows down. He looks at me: “Take the wheel for a minute. I have to go to the bathroom.”

My parents have had a boat since I was 10 or 11 years old, and I’ve never driven it in the open water. Every now and then I would take the wheel for a moment while my dad did something or tie an anchor something like that, but I’ve never driven the boat. I get to the wheel and hold it steady and slow while Shaun uses the bathroom. He comes back: “Do you want me to take it?”

And I don’t. It’s odd, and sudden, how much I do not want him to take the wheel from me. It's odd how good this feels, and how deeply I want it. I have literally never done this. Shaun coaches me through a couple basics, and I bring the boat up to speed. Suddenly, I am no longer the passenger being bumped in the front of the boat. I am no longer relinquishing anything- my comfort, my control. I’m no longer scared. Even though, I probably should be more fearful driving the boat, than riding with my very experienced husband as a driver. But no – I am invigorated. I feel the cold metal in my hands as I stand at the steering wheel, and we start surfing over the rolling waves. The sea has picked up now, but it feels flatter than it ever has. I am standing, riding the waves, not being bounced by them like I typically am. Right now, I am the captain of the ship. I bring the throttle up, going faster and faster. I dodge lobster pots, and aim towards the imaginary lines Shaun tells me to stay within. We passed fishermen, and weave through sailboats. I do my best to just look focused, but inside I am bubbling with excited glee. I don't let it surface. I’m not entirely sure why I don’t let my face or body in on the fun- maybe I want to seem cool to Shaun, or to myself, even though we both know I am not cool. Maybe I don’t know how to be unbridledly joyful yet. I've been working on that one for a while.  The engine sings, and so does my heart. Once we go around the tip of Martha’s Vineyard, and it is only open ocean ahead of us, the waves start to get bigger than either of us are comfortable with and we turn around to go back in towards the bay, and seek a little shelter by the shore to have our lunch from Lamberts.

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I swear, maybe it’s that the ocean is a conduit to something bigger, or maybe it’s just that we’re surrounded by so many sources of energy and life, but I swear, I feel like I get downloaded with messages as we're out here. I wonder to myself what everyone might be like if they had a place that felt to them like this does to me. I wonder what the world might look like, if all of us felt a little more connected to a bigger picture, and all of us felt like we had permission every now and then to get lost and be still. I didn’t plan on this year being my year to be still. I guess I didn’t plan on it, because I didn’t see the value in it. The value has always been in action. But, I’m learning that when I give myself the opportunity to be still, I am better directed in what action I should be taking. I can hear myself when my heart says things like, "You can do it. Take the wheel." I can hear the world as it speaks to me, and tells me that I’m not alone, or that I’m doing OK, or that I can let go for a little bit.
I did not plan on this being the year that I would be still. But, I thank God, or the Universe, or whatever or whoever is speaking to me through the sea, that it was. That it is.   ​