Otter Weather

Rain hammers the deck as the wind roars over the high bank of the south shore.  Like big, blue wings, the tarp on the derelict boat rafted alongside billows in the gusts and shoots spray high onto Old Hand’s wheelhouse windows.  Windward is a sorry sight–the once proud Herreshoff racing sloop now lies rotting through the long Northwest winter rains.  I used to pride myself on my tarpological creations, but now they are blown to blue tatters before the furious onslaught of the Pineapple Express.

A kingfisher chatters high over the rigging as the whole boathouse sways above Old Hand’s starboard rail.  At times like this, I wonder if I should have used 10″ lag bolts to anchor the posts onto the dock.  But it seems to be holding fine.

This is the weather the otter likes.  One slithers onto the float and lies momentarily atop my inverted Livingston dinghy before again vanishing into the green depths of Port Madison.  It’s good to see them again–my pals the otters–if I could only get them to use the cat box.  But they scoff at such refinements, and prefer to poop all over the lines I’d so artfully coiled on the dock.  Such is the life of those who toil at sea.

After all the work creating my art exhibit, I went through a depressed phase, exacerbated by a lingering cold.  This down time usually accompanies the completion of a project.  It’s just part of the process.  It’s only natural that we feel emptied out after such an expenditure of energy, and the empty feeling, far from being  bad, is just what I need.  Rather than feeling washed up, it’s better to make friends with the emptiness and spaciousness in order to be filled again with the creative spirit.

So now I roll and split great oak rounds near the old Ed Monk workshop, repair Old Hand’s diesel heater and go over current tables–making long, Springtime passages over the Salish Sea of my imagination.