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Three Times the Charm
I look out past the back deck at my baby... lonely, cold and neglected... half under the shop roof, half under a tarp. Granted, these meager accommodations are much nicer than she has been accustomed to, but still... I can almost hear her whispering curses at me for ignoring her for so long. I'm reluctant and almost embarrassed to go to the shop for a tool because I have to walk so closely past her and I don't even stop to visit. I glance up at her and I can feel the communication... the mutual, kindred desire for each other tugging us together much akin to the experience of locking eyes with a beautiful stranger in a public place. The attraction, the titillation, and the twinkle in her eye that says she likes what she sees... the coy smile that you return in concurrence... then, you force yourself to pass her by. She was excited with anticipation then bitterly disappointed, to be jilted once more... to feel the rug of a potentially intimate rendezvous crassly jerked out from under her.
As I pass by her on my return trip to the house to resume my remodeling chores, I can almost hear her stifle a tearful shudder and a deep, remorseful sigh... or was it just the wind in the trees? Puzzled, I can't resist stopping and turning to look back at her one more time before passing through the back door into the house. Even when she's sad I don't think that in my nearly 60 years I've ever seen anything compare with her poise, beauty, and graceful elegance. She catches my glance and quickly hides her tears and, with almost canine devotion, she smiles back hopefully, in a sentimental display of understanding, tenderness, and forgiveness.
To some, she is just a boat. To others, she is a hugely frivolous nuisance… a distraction that sucks the life out of priorities and makes a mockery of worthwhile time invested. In church when they talk about boats, it’s in scornful reference to covetousness and the evils of breaking the Sabbath day… or squandering money that could be better spent on sacred things. Never mind that it was an Ark that preserved humanity… and a ship that carried an ancient prophet’s family to settle Central America. In Sunday school, it’s conveniently overlooked that both of those voyages had to have caused a compromise of latter-day definitions about what constitutes acceptable Sabbath day activities. By contrast, they knowingly and approvingly smile at the testimonials of those who twiddle away the Sabbath day in appeasement of their genealogical hobbies.
Despite all the contemptuous notoriety, to me, she is an empathetic companion who cures idleness and discouragement… a therapeutic ointment for a broken heart. She bolsters me up and gives me youthful vigor. She fills my life’s need to have goals, dreams, hope and reason to keep going. She is a work of art in progress… the dollop of clay in the artist’s hand prepared to be molded into something beautiful… a rough sketch on canvas awaiting the joinery of wooden brush strokes to give her color, definition, and personality.
She is 26 feet of shapely bends, swoops and curves that sit atop a strong, full and heavy keel all of which proclaim ‘seaworthy.’ Her sheer line is filled with utter magic that causes the eye of the passerby to stop and stare almost in disbelief. “Did I really see that?” he asks himself as he rubs his eyes to sharpen his view. “Are my eyes deceiving me? How is it possible that a designer could capture that much character and charm in the simple twist of her sheer?”
Thomas Gilmer obviously knew what he was doing. There is a natural attraction exuding from her lines that causes even the most lubberish of landlubbers to stop and ponder and yearn to know more about this boat. What’s her name? Where did she come from? Who designed her? But, even knowing those facts never seems enough. They want to talk about how she handles in this or that condition and where she’s been and where she’s off to. They can tell just by looking at her that she is destined to voyage and that she must have a unique story that they thirst to hear.
She does. And I feel an irresistible compulsion to share it with them. It’s not an easy story to tell. It’s already full of a complex mixture of pleasure and trauma. She’s a two time survivor before she’s even been completely finished and seaworthy. Her first catastrophe was falling victim to an icy winter storm’s attempt to drown her but she managed to keep enough above water to stay alive. The second was an attempt to burn her down but a compassionate fireman heard her cries for help and saved her first. This is her third chance and most likely my last chance. This time around, for her it will be… “Three times the charm.”
To some, she is just a boat. To others, she is a hugely frivolous nuisance… a distraction that sucks the life out of priorities and makes a mockery of worthwhile time invested. In church when they talk about boats, it’s in scornful reference to covetousness and the evils of breaking the Sabbath day… or squandering money that could be better spent on sacred things. Never mind that it was an Ark that preserved humanity… and a ship that carried an ancient prophet’s family to settle Central America. In Sunday school, it’s conveniently overlooked that both of those voyages had to have caused a compromise of latter-day definitions about what constitutes acceptable Sabbath day activities. By contrast, they knowingly and approvingly smile at the testimonials of those who twiddle away the Sabbath day in appeasement of their genealogical hobbies.
Despite all the contemptuous notoriety, to me, she is an empathetic companion who cures idleness and discouragement… a therapeutic ointment for a broken heart. She bolsters me up and gives me youthful vigor. She fills my life’s need to have goals, dreams, hope and reason to keep going. She is a work of art in progress… the dollop of clay in the artist’s hand prepared to be molded into something beautiful… a rough sketch on canvas awaiting the joinery of wooden brush strokes to give her color, definition, and personality.
She is 26 feet of shapely bends, swoops and curves that sit atop a strong, full and heavy keel all of which proclaim ‘seaworthy.’ Her sheer line is filled with utter magic that causes the eye of the passerby to stop and stare almost in disbelief. “Did I really see that?” he asks himself as he rubs his eyes to sharpen his view. “Are my eyes deceiving me? How is it possible that a designer could capture that much character and charm in the simple twist of her sheer?”
Thomas Gilmer obviously knew what he was doing. There is a natural attraction exuding from her lines that causes even the most lubberish of landlubbers to stop and ponder and yearn to know more about this boat. What’s her name? Where did she come from? Who designed her? But, even knowing those facts never seems enough. They want to talk about how she handles in this or that condition and where she’s been and where she’s off to. They can tell just by looking at her that she is destined to voyage and that she must have a unique story that they thirst to hear.
She does. And I feel an irresistible compulsion to share it with them. It’s not an easy story to tell. It’s already full of a complex mixture of pleasure and trauma. She’s a two time survivor before she’s even been completely finished and seaworthy. Her first catastrophe was falling victim to an icy winter storm’s attempt to drown her but she managed to keep enough above water to stay alive. The second was an attempt to burn her down but a compassionate fireman heard her cries for help and saved her first. This is her third chance and most likely my last chance. This time around, for her it will be… “Three times the charm.”
