Blue-Water Bonding
On day seventeen we are thrilled to see the miles-to-go number on the GPS drop below 500. I write in the logblog, “This endless river of blue is simply incomprehensible. We cannot imagine finding a speck of land among it. We’re down to canned food and sporadically blurt out food cravings just for the mouthwatering torture of it rosemary mashed potatoes, freshly picked blueberries, handfuls of arugula, chocolate mousse, cheesecake! I can hardly stomach another stale Ritz cracker or canned green bean. But on the bright side, we’ve had a lot of time to talk.”
I’ve learned more about Mom in the last week than in all my years before. Born only thirteen months after her sister, she was “likely an accident,” Mom says. She came into the world fighting for life as a tiny two-pound preemie and spent her first five weeks in an incubator at a hospital in downtown Los Angeles. Her alcoholic father usually waited in the car when he brought her mother, Myra, from Gardena for visits. Twelve years later, Myra divorced him, and moved Mom and her sister and older half-brother into a small apartment in Downey.
Top 10 Best Surf Brands
Myra had come to California alone in her mid-twenties. One of nine children raised on a small subsistence farm in Virginia, she stopped going to school after the fifth grade, for lack of transportation. When she tired of living on a riverbank with a boyfriend, fishing and shooting rabbits, she headed west with dreams of a new beginning. Working in local convenience stores, she did everything in her means to feed, clothe, and educate her children, but offering emotional support eluded her, as it was something she herself never had. In great contrast to my privileged childhood, Myra’s limited income and work schedule made extracurricular activities, holidays, travel, and extravagances rare, and Mom was never encouraged to dream or explore her interests. Her father died of a heart attack when she was only sixteen.
10 Best Surfboards
The 10 Best Surfing Destinations of 2019 Photo Gallery
Mom met my father in junior high. He fell in love with her mischievous, fun-loving spirit and wooed her through high school on dates to drive-in movies and bay cruises in Fleety, his fourteen-foot day-sailer. Although they attended separate colleges, Dad couldn’t let her go. They were married at twenty-one and moved to San Diego, where Dad started law school. His first law practice was successful, and they bought a barely habitable structure on a lot with an ocean view. They rebuilt the old heroin den into a lovely cedarsided beach home, and seven years after their wedding, my brother, James, arrived. My sister and I came two and seven years later.
Mom and Dad plunged joyfully into parenthood, but their own emotional needs often went unmet. Neither having been raised by parents in a loving relationship, they didn’t quite know how to nourish each other emotionally. Even when money was no longer an issue, and they were settled in a beautiful ranch home on ten acres a few miles inland from the beach, they still couldn’t seem to connect deeply. Dad turned to alcohol; Mom was medically labeled with “depression.” Dad soon put law aside for real estate, but when his investments suddenly evaporated, they decided to take the family on a six-month sailing trip to Mexico. Afterward, Dad was offered an entrepreneurial position developing cancer centers. After losing both his father and Mom’s mother to cancer, this new work offered significant meaning. He started flying all over the country, often leaving Mom on her own to take care of us kids.
10 Best Surf Brands
For the first time I see Mom not just as a parent, but as a friend and a human with an entirely different story than my own and I’m surprised to learn that her tender, sensitive soul is, in fact, so much like mine. I’ve always seen our relationship from a child’s onesided perspective. I’m sad, realizing that she had never lived her own dreams nor was she ever encouraged to dream at all before dedicating herself to motherhood.
“Mom, I’m so sorry I never took the time to know you better,” I cry while stroking her legs on the bunk beside me, suddenly overwhelmed with guilt for a lifetime of wishing she was more like the other PTA and soccer moms. Forgiveness cracks open a long-shut door in my heart. I wish now more than ever that I could heal all her inner wounds. “I never understood you until now.”
“Oh honey, it’s okay. Please don’t worry. Look, we’re here right now together. I never dreamed I’d be doing this! I am living your dream with you. This is probably the most amazing thing I’ll ever do.” she says sincerely. “You gave me the courage to cross this ocean. Plus, I haven’t smoked a single cigarette since we left. Maybe I’ll finally quit this time.”
Top 10 Best Surf Books
I kiss her cheek. I’d been trying to get her to stop smoking for as long as I can remember. I shed some happy tears and we hold each other for a long time.
As the miles-to-go slip away, I notice how we wipe the counter in the same circular strokes, incessantly interrupt each other, and even react with the same kinds of faces. My hands are exact replicas of hers. I’ve completely stopped pouting about the Spaniard, and I’m cherishing the intimate time with Mom. I couldn’t be happier when she wants to reel in our catch when a fish strikes, tie knots, and help trim the sails. We hold hands basking in the afternoon sun, crack up over Scrabble games, and speak in foreign accents to entertain each other.
