Hello,
This is Jacob Watson.
I am sharing from my book,
Gifts of Grief,
A Man's Revelations After Sudden Loss.
Chapter 7,
Ocean Chorus.
I will offer a period of silence for your meditation and reflections.
This chapter starts with the fact that Christine knew I had salt water in my veins.
From the very first time that we met,
She began to hear stories about my sailing adventures,
And true to form,
We had our honeymoon sailing.
Because she was a Midwestern girl,
Sailing was new to her,
But she really understood it and how important it was in my life,
And she became an excellent first mate.
This was not easy for a Michigan girl who grew up landlocked in the middle of Michigan,
But she did a wonderful job of adapting,
And soon we were taking our kids sailing.
We would charter a boat for about a week every summer and sail in Penobscot Bay,
An area of Maine that I loved and had some experience sailing.
Being in Penobscot Bay reminded me of my time years ago,
Sailing as first mate on the black schooner Nathaniel Bowditch,
When we took Maine kids out for camping and schooner experiences.
Many of these kids had never seen the ocean,
Much less lived on it.
Our kids thought,
Of course,
It was just another adventure,
Whether it was Penobscot Bay or the beautiful little harbors that dotted that Bay,
Such as the Fox Island Thoroughfare,
With Southern Harbor on the western side,
Or Bucks Harbor,
Or Benjamin River,
Or the Eggemagen Reach,
Or over across Jericho Bay at Swan's Island,
And of course,
Beautiful little Pulpit Harbor,
And that special place,
The Glathery Island.
Once we arrived at a secure anchorage for the night,
They loved to go ashore exploring.
I could see the writing on the wall when one summer,
Our daughter chimed into our discussions about our ports of call with the opinion that we should stop at the local post office,
Wherever there was one,
So that she could send a postcard to her latest boyfriend.
Our kids could see that we were happy sailing,
Being with them,
And being outdoors among the sea and the islands of Penobscot Bay.
When Christine died,
I knew that I had to find another way to get out on the water to take care of myself,
So I looked around and eventually found the wooden schooner American Eagle sailing out of Rockland.
So I booked a passage into Penobscot Bay early that summer.
When I arrived,
The first mate showed me my cabin,
And the name of the cabin was Kay.
There it was again,
The universe taking care of me.
Christine herself would not have liked the small cabins that the schooner had below,
But for me they were perfect,
Especially because I was going to spend most of my time up on deck.
It turned out that the schooner American Eagle had been found and refurbished in Gloucester,
Massachusetts,
By an old friend of mine,
A man I had worked with at the small boatyard in South Freeport when I first moved to Maine.
He was to be a crew member on this first trip of mine.
This was a great way for me to get out on the water,
To be among the sea and the islands of Penobscot Bay,
And other people were doing the work.
I didn't have to worry about navigating or cooking.
We sailed down to Booth Bay Harbor.
We anchored right off the town dock,
And the next day a bunch of us went ashore.
I didn't like walking around Booth Bay Harbor because it was a tourist trap,
And I noticed many of the tourists were indeed couples,
And that made me even feel more lonely.
So I returned to the schooner ahead of time,
Where the fact that I was not coupled with Christine was not quite so obvious.
It was a gift to watch the fireworks from the deck of the schooner,
To see their colorful reflections in the water.
The next day we sailed out past Squirrel Island,
And I was laying on the cabin top,
Just enjoying being out in the open ocean,
When suddenly soap bubbles appeared floating over the schooner.
I looked up and saw a little girl sailing in a small boat,
Blowing bubbles our way,
And the bubbles were unimpeded by anything,
So they floated across the water and across the deck of the schooner.
Later,
As we sailed out into the open ocean,
I heard voices and looked around,
But couldn't see anything unusual.
The other passengers didn't seem to notice,
And the voices swelled as the chorus became a kind of chanting.
I lay back down and just let it envelop me,
The ocean chorus coming to me from the open ocean.
This went on for a long time.
I felt out of time and in another dimension,
And I let the sweet sounds envelop and caress me.
This was a gift to be sure,
And yet it brought forth a deeper gift that took months to unfold,
And that deeper gift was,
Oh,
This is for me.
The other passengers on the schooner didn't hear the ocean chorus,
But I did.
It was for me,
And it has stayed with me all these many months.
What has also stayed with me is the confirmation that the ocean is not just a place of solace for me,
But it is a place of healing for me.
I now offer a period of silence for your meditation and reflection.
Come out of this meditation time slowly and gently.
Give yourself time to remember that you have a body,
And that your body is supported by the earth underneath you.
It was a gift that Christine brought me to Marion,
My hometown,
Where she died,
And I was surrounded by my friends and family,
As I've said in Orange Sunset,
Chapter One.
It was a gift that Christine sailed in our old family Harrishoft twelve-and-a-half footer on her last sail around Marion Harbor,
And then by the land that we had given to the Land's Trust,
Where my family's house had been built,
And then torn down when they died.
Christine and I had lots of memories bringing our family to my parents,
Where they were loved.
My parents were gone,
The house was gone,
And yet the land held all the memories.
Christine sat there,
Bundled up in her orange vest for safety,
And a few of the memories came out,
And we shared them,
But many were not shared,
But they were memories nonetheless,
Part of our soul.
The land held them,
Just as the land held the memories of the Wampanoag Native Americans,
And farther back in time.
We shared those memories.
They are part of us still.
It's like all of those memories are a bundle of gifts.
The common quality of the bundle was the sea,
The ocean.
It was a bundle that I was able to recreate for Christine's service,
Which looked out on the entrance to Portland Harbor,
Where I had sailed my little 21-foot wooden boat from Connecticut to Maine.
It is a gift that is all around me,
Because I am never far from the ocean.
Or,
Put another way,
The ocean is never far from me.
