After a loooooonnnng day of firing up the old framing muscles,
and after an arduous winter, lifting tiny brushes,
and bowing to hard driving muses,
it is sooooooooo nice to look at this painting,
the ferry docks at Wood’s Hole,
and know that in just a little over one week,
we will be right there.
With a car full
of freshly framed oil paintings,
two tired but happy old women,
on board a great iron vessel,
steaming for home.
I never tire of that 45 minute trip.
Even the passages which I have spent deep in the bowels,
catching a few last zzzzz’s on the 7am boat,
before the long drive back to Pennsylvania,
or the one’s where I chose to shelter
from the raging winter storms,
and look out over the freight boat’s rail,
while knitting those fisherman’s patterns,
in the warm and cozy cab of the truck.
For those, and all those other trips,
when the summer sun was shining,
or the October fog blanketed the sound,
when the passengers played with the following gulls,
and the benches left our shorts wet from the waves,
and my camera caught
just the right raking light
on a rigging of canvas sail
that was carrying some other sailor
home from the sea…
I owe all of that magic,
all of those memories,
all that the vineyard has become in our lives,
to that very first voyage,
can it be so close to 40 years ago…
with my friend Lynn.
Sail on silver girl.
