Catalina Bound

She would be quiet now, she decided, and she felt the familiar satisfaction of that choice, its small internal tug like the strings pulled tight on a cloth purse. She'd keep her secret in the bag, keep her eyes on the trail, try to listen. Try, also, to keep her eyes away from the glossy animal movement of his dark hair and the shape of the muscles in the seat of his jeans. But the man was just one long muscle, anywhere you looked on him. - Barbara Kingsolver in "Prodigal Summer."

Day 175. What a nice round number. Hurtling toward my half-birthday on August 3rd. Tonight, I am filled with nostalgia. It would have been my Silver Anniversary had I remained married to my first husband.

We were married outside on my aunt's acreage on July 27, 1985 after a three-week engagement. I'm sure everyone thought I was pregnant (I saved that status for my second marriage. A wedding 20 weeks into a pregnancy is a surefire way to have cleavage in your wedding dress - a bonus I had not anticipated!). The real explanation for the short engagement (we had dated for over three years) was that we were avid wind surfers and the wind usually dies in July. We had nothing else to do.

The proposal was unique: he walked into his room where I was lying sprawled on his bed following an evening of wind surfing until way past sunset. He said, very off handed and matter-of-fact, "Let's set the date." Me, in typical Julie oblivion, replied, "The date for what?" (Aquarians are not known for romanticism). He said, "The date to get married." I paused (having never considered it - not once) and said, "Oh. Okay. I like seven's." We consulted a calendar, and conveniently, July 27 (7/27!) fell on a Saturday that year. We bought a little ring a few days later. Our moms did the rest. I recall remnants of Madonna and Don Johnson in our attire.

Ah, Montford Ira the Third. I wish I could say I had fabricated that name to protect his identity, but, alas! That is his factual namesake. We met at Ernie's Polka Palace in December of 1981. He was recently home from Marine boot camp at Pendleton in San Diego. Cropped hair, a USMC bulldog freshly tattooed on his bicep, and a body to die for. Two dances confirmed that we were the best two-steppers in the place. There is nothing like love when you are 18 and 20 (I was an older woman). For the next seven years, we cavorted in a wild dance of our own, interwoven with passion, love, lust, intensity, and insanity. Probably not the ideal ingredients for a lasting marriage. I was never bored.

Monty was a sailor. His family owned two catamarans: 16-foot and 18-foot Hobies. We sailed them like we danced: precision and expertise on the edge of potential disaster. Unbridled wildness in the service of going ever faster. I worked the jib, and learned to lean out on the trap so far and so arched that my pony tail skimmed the water as we planed over it. We dumped it all the time because Monty would fly a hull so high that the inevitable gust of Oklahoma wind would send us catapulting over. It made motor boat skippers extremely nervous. They would see us spill over in a violent cascade of multicolored sails and a ricocheting, bikini-clad body (that was me, crashing in off the trapeze) , circle around, and come back prepared for body recovery. Instead of unconscious blobs floating in the debris, they would find two laughing youngsters, congratulating ourselves on another cool wipeout while we righted the boat. Good times.

While living in Long Beach, we launched the 16-footer from the sand in the bay and, in the naive splendor miraculously granted to two- and twenty-two year olds, sailed west to Catalina Island. The mountains of our destination were blurred outlines on the horizon that we glimpsed when the smog lightened. Far out into the Pacific ocean, a school of dolphins accepted a silent invitation issued by the catamaran hulls as they glided through the waves. The dolphins swam and danced and jumped and played close enough to the boat for me to lean out off the tramp and touch them. They grinned like jesters, accompanying us for several miles.

We blasted into Isthmus Harbor in the late afternoon - me (terror stricken) stretched out on the trap summoning all the ballast I could from my 120-pound frame. We didn't want to flip the boat in Isthmus Harbor. It held our food and water and matches. I remember a specific skipper - tanned, round-bellied and sipping a margarita while Jimmy Buffet strummed in the background. He leaned over the gleaming teak edge of his 43-foot Hans Christian sailboat and did a double take. "You sailed over from the mainland on that?" he shouted incredulously. For an answer, Monty and I executed a tight tack, missing his hull by mere inches, and headed to shore. Good times.

We were told near shore that you had to pay money to beach your boat on Catalina Island. In our innocence, it had never occurred to us to research the socioeconomic status of most people in Isthmus harbor. We had no money with us (ah, youth!) so we promptly turned around, sailed out of the harbor, down the island, and found our own private blue lagoon where we beached the boat and crawled into a sandy cave to spend the night. Made a fire and ate salty smoked salmon that Monty's mom had carefully packed into a tiny cooler for us. I'm assuming we had water in addition to our beer. I can't remember much else about the cuisine that night. We were living on love.

The sail home the next day was tedious and lengthy because the winds had totally died. We almost got run over by an enormous freighter in the shipping lanes off of Long Beach. The captain had the audacity to blast his horn at us. As though a freighter smashing a 16-foot Hobie would ever even feel a bump. We loaded the cat on its trailer and drove home to Monty's parents' rented cottage at Surfside. His mom welcomed us with an enormous bear hug and a sigh of relief. I didn't get it then. My son is about the age Monty was when we embarked on our Catalina escapade. I get it now.

I didn't sit zazen back then. It wouldn't have occurred to me. Being with Monty was the best lesson in living in the here-and-now I have ever known. I could write a year's worth of blogs on our adventures, but I think I'll end here and relish them inwardly instead. I haven't had contact with him since 1989, though I know he still lives in southern California. I suspect he never found a First Mate quite like me. Shine on, Montford Ira. Thanks for the memories.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc