A breaking wind

Idea: There's nothing like a beautiful day on a boat to put the wind back in your sails.


Every once in a while God does something to show us that He is listening. One such event unfolded yesterday against the backdrop of a sun-filled, breezy, warm-but-not-too-warm Savannah day. I went on a boat ride through the intercoastal waterway with Mike's grandma Elaine and his uncle Sean, and as I rode through the reeds with my hair pasted to my face and my butt stuck to the seat, I thought to myself, nothing could be so divine. 


At first my mind was cluttered with thoughts of all the snakes, gators*, and other creatures of the reptilian variety that could be lurking nearby. I kept my eyes peeled for such creatures, just waiting for one of them to slither out from the marsh and attack. But as we weaved our way closer to the main waterway, I became satisfied that my paranoia was unfounded, and I settled into the steady lull of the little fishing boat that carried me towards the open water. The wind felt good against my face, and my memory suddenly projected before me a slideshow of riding on my parents' boat on Lake Allatoona, driving the jetski on Lake Michigan, and paddling a canoe with Mike on a calm summer day. I remembered how much I loved boat rides, and how these memories had been diluted in the planned chaos of my undergraduate years. 


I found myself on a guided tour, with Sean narrating and Elaine excitedly pointing at all the sites: this is where my friend so-and-so lives, this is where the shrimp boats dock, this is my favorite house because it looks like an old southern plantation, this is where Paula Deen used to shoot her show (!), this is the bridge where I worked when I was eighteen...I smiled and nodded, but not in a courteous, uninterested way. This was a whole new world to me, a map of personal landmarks that was available by invitation only. I laughed through anecdotes of Elaine telling me about the time she went to see Elvis in concert, and about the time that Sean was left dangling off the side of this bridge because no one could hear him yelling at the end of his safety rope. With each chuckle I could feel my world getting a little lighter, and even a little brighter. 


For so long, stories like this one have ended with a sudden brain-jarring interruption that changed the course of the story from a daydream to a nightmare. Or they have ended with an exasperated sigh in acknowledgement of all the work I could have been doing  during this brief, fleeting moment of fun. But finally I have stories to tell that don't result in the urge to pop a depression-reducing SSRI or otherwise brain-altering pill. I have been praying for so long to get to a place where I'm not waiting for the bottom to drop out. And although I still feel that way occasionally, that feeling is getting farther and farther from my consciousness. I feel renewed, rejuvenated, reinvigorated. I feel hopeful. I feel like maybe, just maybe the thing I have been struggling for so long might finally be here: independence, joy, and the emotional security that comes from the conflation of the two.


*Yes, I realize gators don't live in saltwater marshes, but who cares when you're gliding through the reeds at a limp turtle's pace? Haven't you ever seen animal planet??