Leslie Bamford’s Career Notables

Recognized in blind literary competitions; judges have chosen my work across multiple genres, winning in playwriting, short fiction, non-fiction and memoir contests.

Contributed to and helped produce The Grand Table Anthology, a collection of works submitted by 50 writers from Waterloo-Wellington region.

Helped produce Many Women Two Men, an anthology which won the Waterloo Region Arts Council’s “Best Book Award,” 2002.

Enjoyed seeing my 1-act play, “Lonely Knights and Gin,” produced at Waterloo Little Theatre, 2001

Member of DoveTale Writer’s Collective and past member of the Waterloo-Wellington Canadian Authors Association.

For over a decade, I have participated in editing circles to help local writers hone their writing talents.

I deliver adult creative writing courses several times a year at a local community centre.

I have just completed her 10th session of this class, with ten students in each session. My students inspire me!

Leslie Bamford’s Literary Highlights

Published work:

Short story, “Siren Eyes,” published in Alberta in anthology A Beaver is Eating my Canoe, about travel and humour, 2008

Short story, “Death by Vacation,” published in California in anthology More Sand in my Bra, 2007; story also published in Alberta in anthology, Mugged by a Moose, 2006

Short story, “Light”, published in Words from Here, a roadway of stories from Waterloo-Wellington Writers, 2008

Short Story, “Too Bad About the Squirrels” published in Many Women, Two Men, Dove Tale, 2001

Short Story, “The Best Laid Plans,” published in The Grand Table Anthology, 1997

Leslie Bamford’s Award Winning Stories:

“Christmas Nuts” 1st place, Waterloo Regional Arts Council Literary Competition, non-fiction 2006

“Confessions of a Female Mariner” 1st place, Waterloo Regional Arts Council Literary Competition, non-fiction 2005

“Land of Cows and Serenity” 1st place, Waterloo Regional Arts Council Literary Competition, non-fiction 2003

Many Women, Two Men, (Book Award – contributing author) 1st place, Waterloo Regional Arts Council Literary Competition, non-fiction 2002
“Courage” 500-word Short Fiction, Canadian Authors Association 1st place 2004

“Mostly Spirit Now” Short Fiction, Canadian Authors Association 1st place 2001 and published in the Waterloo Region Record

“Lonely Knights and Gin” One-Act Play, Canadian Authors Association 1st place 2000

“Summer’s Silver Lining” 1st place, CBC short story contest: 1992 – included on-air reading

Other awards:

Third Place: “Heron Stillness” 1999; Memoir, CAA and published in the Waterloo Region Record

Fourth Place: “Don’t Know Finds Out” 1997; Writing for Children, CAA

Honourable Mention: “It’s Never Too Late”, Short Fiction, 1995, CAA

Second Honourable Mention: “Move Over, Acker Bilk”1998; Creative Non-fiction, CAA

Third Honourable Mention: “Long Distance Daughter”1996; Poetry, CAA

Others say that human beings are dreamers at heart. That we can’t help it, that dreaming is hard-wired into us. That dreaming is productive. That dreaming leads to planning, and planning leads to action, and action leads to new adventure, change and growth.

I believe it is healthy to dream.

My husband and I share a dream at the moment. We would like to own another boat some day.

We had a lovely sailboat, WhaleSong 1, for four years from 1996 to 2000. She was a 34-foot CS sloop, and we sailed her on Lake Ontario from Hamilton to Kingston and ports along the way. We loved having WhaleSong 1. We sold her because my husband had an intuition that we should no longer have a boat at that time. Three years later, he began to have symptoms of heart disease and required quintuple bypass surgery. Having a boat during those years would have not been a good thing. But now he is well again, and so we dream of our next boat.

Island Packet sailboat or Krogen trawler? Sailboats are serene, graceful and inexpensive to operate but not good river travelers due to huge masts which have to be removed and reinstalled which is a costly and annoying problem. Trawlers are roomier, run at slow speeds, are relatively fuel efficient and they can travel on most rivers. We are leaning towards a trawler but the jury is still out. For now, we dream. We snoop around marinas, looking for boats to drool over. We search the web for the latest boats on sale. We read Cruising World and watch re-runs of Latitudes and Attitudes. Bob goes on sailing courses each summer, on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. He studies celestial navigation at home. He writes exams, gets accreditation, and he’s always learning.

Which underscores my belief that dreaming leads to planning and planning leads to action and action leads to personal growth.

So for now we DREAM!!!!

“I don’t know how to scuba dive.” I speak slowly and deliberately because of my husband’s uncanny ability to tune me out when I am talking to him.

“You could take a course this spring at the pool,” he says. “They teach you to use a snorkel and overcome your animal fear of breathing underwater.”

“Sounds like drowning to me.”

“It’s very safe once you’re trained. And you can finally get some use out of that wetsuit I bought you.”

“It doesn’t fit.”

“How do you know?”

“Being married to you has made me fat.”

“Wetsuits stretch.”

“Oh, so you think I’m fat…”

“I didn’t say that,” he backtracks quickly. “I just think you’d love the things you can see underwater.”

I look at Bob more closely. Sure enough, he has a demented look in his eye. The look he always gets just before he tries to kill me on vacation.

The warning signs about Bob’s search for adventure were apparent when we were first dating. One night at a trendy Waterloo restaurant, the topic of taking a trip together came up.

* * * * *

“Do you dream about going anywhere special?” I ask Bob, wanting to know more about him.

“Mars.”

“Pardon?”

“Mars would be nice. Somewhere no one else has been. Off the beaten track, full of mystery.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“You mean you wouldn’t go to Mars.”

“Definitely not.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too far. It takes too long. I would miss my friends. The spacesuits would be uncomfortable…”

“But think of the views. I’d go at the drop of a hat.”

“So, hypothetically, if I were your partner, you’d go to Mars without me? Be gone for years? Is that what you’re saying?” My voice goes up.

“And you would want me to stay here and live a humdrum life when we could go on the adventure of a lifetime? Is that what you’re saying?” His voice goes up to match mine.

The waitress comes by, sees the looks on our faces and backs off.

“I just can’t believe anyone would turn down the opportunity to go to Mars.” Bob’s face turns dark, the smile in his eyes fading like a lunar eclipse.

“I don’t want to spend the prime of my life going to the bathroom in a space suit,” I say, not realizing that this statement would come back to haunt me throughout our relationship. To Bob, it represents my fixation with things practical, my resistance to change, my cold feet compared to his wanderlust. To me, the Mars argument represents the first time I was exposed to Bob’s visionary side, to his love of ideas, possible or otherwise, to his penchant for dreaming.

We drive home avoiding eye contact.

In the morning the phone rings.

“This is Bob. Calling from Mars.”

I pause, try to think of something smart to say and can’t come up with anything better than “Hi. How’s the view?”

“Not so good. There’s all this red dust around. And it’s kind of lonely up here. So I’m coming back. Want to do something this afternoon? We could go to the planetarium.”

“Sounds more my speed.”

We never did make it to the planetarium. But we made it to the altar. Mars is on hold.

* * * *

My goal, every summer since then, is to stay within my comfort zone on holidays, take my laptop along, get some writing done, enjoy a little fresh air and pleasant scenery – typical middle-aged things. Instead, our vacations involve death-defying activities, no matter how blandly they develop from discussions over Australian Chardonnay and Yugoslavian Riesling in the safety of our home in January.

The scuba diving holiday didn’t pan out. Bob recognised that it was a losing cause to press for something involving a woman who has gained weight and a rubber suit that no longer fits. So he gave up. Instead, he began to lobby for a sailboat. He dragged me through a myriad of marinas around the Great Lakes for several summers, ogling boat after boat, chatting up boat owners, poring over catalogues, surfing boating sites on the Internet. The more interested he became, the more my heart sank like a ship in a bad storm. Not that I am afraid of water. In fact, I can swim quite well. But not to shore from the middle of Lake Ontario. If you get my drift.

My first experience with sailing was inauspicious to say the least. Despite the Mars conversation, we were engaged by then and vacationing in Myrtle Beach. I was lying under a beach umbrella feeling safe and secure, when Bob spied an outfit renting catamarans down the shoreline from our hotel.

* * * * *

“Let’s rent one of those Hobie Cats this afternoon,” says Bob, his blue eyes lighting up like a Hallogen lamp.

“I’m sure they’re too expensive,” I reply, hoping to divert him by appealing to his sense of fiscal responsibility.

“To hell with the cost, we’re on vacation.”

“Do you know how to sail a catamaran?”

“Sailing is sailing – Hobie Cats, Sunfish, boats with fixed hulls – it’s no sweat, you’ll love it.”

“They’re probably all booked up.”

“Let’s go and see.”

Before I can think of another objection, he grabs my hand and leads me down the beach.

To my dismay, the catamarans are not all booked. One ratty craft lies on the beach beside a hut with half its thatched roof missing. The boat, if you could call it that, leans on a peculiar angle, one pontoon sticking up like a dog taking a leak.

Bob exchanges money with a tanned beach bum sporting tattoos of ferocious marine life on his upper arms. He says some technical things to Bob about handling the Cat in the strong Atlantic surf. I try to compute the instructions but they sound like a foreign language. All I understand is something about the surf making it difficult to return to shore.

“Are there sharks out there?” I ask.

Instead of answering, the beach bum hands us two soiled orange life jackets. We put them on. Everything is happening too fast. I feel powerless to stop the progress of my own demise.

The beach bum helps Bob drag the Hobie to the edge of the beach. Following directions, I climb onto a trampoline-like mat that is strung with frayed rope between the pontoons. It is dirty and worn. The sail flaps back and forth, swinging dangerously near my head. Before I can voice my final objection, the beach bum and Bob begin running through the surf, one on each side of the craft, propelling me toward the horizon. Waves crash over me as the Hobie bucks and slaps the water.

Bob leaps onto the mat beside me, beaming.

The beach bum returns to his hut to smoke whatever he smokes and wait for another suicidal customer.

“Isn’t this great,” yells Bob above the roar of the waves, as he pulls on some lines coming down from the ragged sail. I stare at him in disbelief as my stomach begins to register the fact that we are no longer on terra firma. Bob appears transported to a divine realm that I never expect to see.
I discover in a hurry that Hobie Cats are extremely uncomfortable. There are no handholds, just the edge of the frame. To stay aboard, I must kneel on all fours on my side of the mat, keeping my head down to avoid decapitation as we come about and catch a gust of wind, careening out to sea.

“Yahoo!” cries Bob.

I look back. The beach bum’s hut is no longer visible. I can’t believe how quickly we sailed away from shore. All that stands between me and death by sharks or drowning (or both) is the ugly mat against which my nose is plastered.

“Coming about,” cries Bob.

The Hobie turns, shudders, comes to an almost complete stop like a dying whale in the swells, as Bob and I scramble around each other, changing sides on the mat so he can remain in position of skipper. I feel nauseous, bile rising in my throat. Just then a strong gust of wind catches the sail and we take off again, screaming across the waves on one pontoon.

“We are leaning over too far,” I scream, clinging to the mat. “I am falling out!”

“Just hang onto the edge, you’re fine,” says Bob as he pulls in the sail to bring the Hobie’s pontoon back down. “And it’s heeling, not leaning. You’re a sailor now. You have to learn the lingo.”

“I’m no sailor. Take me back to shore.”

“Let’s come about one more time. I think I know how to sail this thing now,” Bob says.

“What do you mean NOW?” I yell. “You said you’ve sailed before.”

“Not catamarans. The ride is a little rougher than I imagined.”

“Jesus, man, this is a fine time to tell me.”

“Don’t worry, we’re fine. Coming about!”

Before I can object, the sail whips over my head and Bob begins to crawl over me. To save myself from being crushed to death by a large man on a scruffy mat, I have no choice but to scuttle to the other side of the Hobie.

Bob turns the boat on a thirty-degree angle to the waves and trims the sail in a new way. The Hobie transforms from a dying whale to a perfectly balanced craft heading for the coast of Africa. My nausea subsides as we stop wallowing in every trough and slapping hard on every wave. The sun begins to dry my swimsuit. I release my death grip on the frame and sit up on the mat, daring to look around.
The expanse of blue water is dotted with whitecaps that shine in the afternoon sun. The beach is a thin brown line behind us. Puffy fair weather clouds line the horizon. It is suddenly very quiet as Bob’s gray hair blows in the wind. He turns and smiles at me, his face radiant with joy.

“See how beautiful it is out here?”

I nod, speechless with residual fear and the influx of sensory data.

We sail for a while in silence before coming about again. I have the hang of it now, ducking under Bob at the right time so we wallow less and skim over the waves in the opposite direction without stalling.

I feel myself smiling, despite my fear. “The waves don’t look as sinister as they did a few minutes ago,” I say to Bob.

“That’s because we aren’t fighting them anymore. That’s what sailing is all about. Being in the groove. One with the rhythm of nature.”

We come about again, and begin our turn towards shore like pros.

It is soon apparent, however, that sailing in the same direction as the swells, some of them four feet or more, is a whole new challenge. Each crest hurtles the craft forward at breakneck speed, then we sink into a trough and nearly stall before the next wave shoots us forward. I reclaim my death grip on edge of the trampoline. Nausea returns. I have a sudden urge for my mother to come and save me, which is illogical since she is prone to seasickness, hates boats and has been dead for five years.

The shoreline seems to be rushing towards us.

“Do you know how to do this?” I yell at Bob.

“Hell, no.”

“I thought Shark Man told you how.”

“He said something about it.”

“What?”

Too late for conversation, we are hurtling towards the beach, high atop a rogue wave the size of a house (or so it seems from my vantage point crouching on the mat). Bob lets out the sail, pulls hard on the rudder and we skim through the shallow water and up onto the beach for a perfect ten-point landing, like he’s done it a thousand times.

As I get out of the Hobie, I realize my back is killing me, my legs are shaking and my stomach is still turning.

Shark Man comes down to meet us, takes our life jackets and drags the Hobie unceremoniously up the beach towards the hut.

“Nice landing, bro,” he says over his shoulder to Bob.

Bob grins and puts his arm around my shoulders as we start walking along the beach towards the hotel.

“You did great out there. I’m buying you a martini.”

“I think some Maalox might go down better.”

“That’ll pass once you get used to sailing,” Bob says.

“I’ll never get used to sailing,” I reply.

“That Hobie was damn uncomfortable. But you’ll love a real sailboat once we buy one.”

“I’m never going sailing again,” I say, meaning every word.

“Of course you are.” He squeezes my elbow to emphasize his words.
Back home from the beach, I contemplate this unwelcome new twist in our relationship and wonder if I should marry Bob. Co-ownership of a boat would be huge commitment, like sharing a dog or a pony. I weigh the situation, taking into account my pitiful lack of knowledge about boating, my fear of drowning, my desire to stay inside my comfort zone, and the expression of ecstasy on Bob’s face when he is out on the open water. I think it is that look that tips the scales. I decide to stay in the relationship.

I have no way of knowing that by marrying Bob, I will eventually learn to sail a 34-foot sailboat. That being with him will force me to overcome my fear of heights and my fear of flying. Not to mention my fear of being lost in the woods, struck by lightning, frozen to death and eaten by wild beasts. Marriage is not for the faint of heart. Especially when you marry someone who wants to go to Mars.

I figure once we’re married, I can talk him out of buying a boat.

I have a lot to learn about Bob.

* * * *

“Here’s an ideal vacation,” says Bob, a year after we are married. Snow is falling softly outside the window of our living room.

“We could hike the Long Trail from the Canadian border to Massachusetts next summer.” He smiles across the coffee table.

“There’s no way we could go that far in two weeks.” My feet begin to ache just thinking about it.

“We could do one section, then.”

“Where would we sleep?” I ask.

“In hostels.”

“With sweaty hikers who snore? No thanks.”

“We could commune with nature.”

“I’d probably catch poison ivy. Or Lyme disease.”

“The trail goes over Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont. That’d be the best part to hike.”

“There are mountain lions in Vermont. And bears.”

“We could buy a sailboat instead.” He looks at me slyly.

Put that way, drowning doesn’t sound so bad.

This website is the fruit of my necessary play-time. Who has time to play? We all do, if we just remember that creativity is food for the soul. As a writer and photographer, coordinator of volunteers at the City of Kitchener, wife to a wacky guy named Bob, stepmom, sister, aunt, creative writing teacher and caretaker of a fat black cat with special needs, I must also create to be happy. Even if it’s a few minutes a day. This includes puttering in my garden, cooking new recipes, playing tennis, hiking, practising my flute or riding my shiny red Vespa. Enjoy these essays, short stories and photographs. They are a glimpse into my life. Let them inspire you to create whatever inspires your soul. Comments appreciated.

First it begins to rain. Bob reads on, oblivious to his surroundings, so I jump up and zip the piece of cockpit enclosure that goes across the top of the cockpit in front of the bimini, lest drops of water fall on the laptop. I retrieve the crimson and navy towels hanging out to dry on the safety lines, zip up the vinyl windows of the cockpit enclosure. I barely sit down when it stops raining.

“Oh sure, wouldn’t you know,” I say loudly, trolling for some reaction from my husband.  He continues to read, so I return the towels to the safety lines and unzip the windows of the enclosure. Just as I am getting down to writing again, along comes another sailboat which seems to be heading for the dock right beside ours despite the row of empty slips behind us.

“I don’t like the look of this, Bob,” I call out.  “Watch this guy, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Bob rouses himself from the book like a mother with a precious child suddenly in danger.  I run to the starboard side to push the alien boat way from ours. Bob rushes to the bow to help the sailor tie up before his bow swings out and scrapes the side of ours. Then the usual marina chatting is required.

“We’ve come all the way from Ganonoque.  Seven knots, heeled over like crazy all the way. How far did you sail”asks the sailor, a thin man in a stained beige sweatshirt and wrinkled khaki shorts.

“We left Cobourg this morning.  Saw the storm coming, came in here an hour ago,” Bob replies.

“Storms a long way off. You could have made it to Whitby easily.”

“We didn’t want to,” I say.  “We’re in no hurry.”

The sailor looks at me as though I have fallen from Mars, turns and retreats below. 

“You’re welcome,” I say loudly as Bob and I return to Whalesong.  Bob goes below as well and emerges with a bowl of peanuts which I indulge in despite my irritable bowel syndrome, then I need a pillow behind my back which is beginning to ache, and now, here I am again, ready to write on. Where was I?

Oh yes, the complex. I am reading a book right now entitled Carnal Acts by Nancy Mairs, a woman with MS who is also a strident feminist. She came to feminism late, thinking for years that women’s issues didn’t relate to her. I too have avoided admitting how much women’s issues affected me in the past. I don’t like to admit that they still affect me. But it’s the truth. It’s a constant struggle to do what I want in the company of a man, even one as enlightened as my second husband, Bob.   And when it comes to writing, the urge to say the right thing rather than tell the truth runs deep. My mother taught me that the worst thing was to reveal family secrets. “What will the neighbours think” was her common cry. Teachers taught me not to mention things like periods and sexual urges. How to write anything true about being a woman, growing up drawn to yet fearing boys, wanting to make it in life without a man but latching onto the first one who could carry on a decent conversation with me? The only way to start is with the present.

I am on a sailing holiday with Bob, my partner of ten years and husband of nearly seven. Sailing is his “thing”, a passion that consumed him for decades, leading him from marina to marina around the Great Lakes, drooling at boats of various types and styles. I spent four years trailing behind him on these odysseys, so I know whereof I speak. We now own Whale Song I, a sleek white beauty with whom I have a love/hate relationship.

The vacation began ten days ago when we left Hamilton Harbour en route to points east. I am recovering from two months of illness caused by a bacterial invasion called C Diff. Weeks of medication from hell obliterated any bodily functions left in working order by the bacteria, and eradicated my hormone therapy, sending me into drenching hot flashes. Delays in test results kept us waiting for news that the bacterial bastards had been vanquished before we could leave. At last we got the green light after one precious week of vacation time was lost.

Prior to my illness, I had been looking forward to a sailing holiday. But I had not factored in raging menopause, migraines, upset stomach, an enraged (rather than irritable) bowel, not to mention a flare up of chronic fatigue syndrome complete with swollen glands, bone aching fatigue and depression. A holiday at a rest home would have been more appropriate. Or maybe a month in a padded cell.

The sailing environment makes every task difficult. This can be amusing when you are well, but it’s an enormous pain in the ass when you’re not. Basic tasks like boiling water for tea are a mechanical and spatial challenge requiring planning that runs the gamut from concerns about heating up the cabin with the propane stove (and having more hot flashes) to using a cup and having to wash it, which requires covering the settee with plastic because the kitchen tap is located one inch from the upholstery. So you skip the tea.

Then there is sleeping. Spending a night in a tomb-like berth without enough clearance to turn over without the risk of brain damage can cause insomnia in a healthy person, let alone one who has just been locked in deadly battle with the bacteria from hell. So I sleep fitfully, worrying that I will sit up in my sleep and knock out my teeth or break my nose. Most nights I dream of closed coffins and being buried alive. Bob sleeps peacefully on his side of the berth. He allocated himself the half with plenty of headroom when we bought the boat, saying he was too big to fit in the coffin side. I am resentful.

Going to the bathroom is another issue. When we are in port, we make trips to the marina washroom day and night to avoid filling up the holding tank in the boat as it must be emptied out regularly at a pump out station for a fee. Running to a washroom five or ten minutes from the boat may not sound like much of a chore, but when your body has issues surrounding excretion, it is.  But we do it, because there is no gauge on the tank, so we never know when it will fill up and regurgitate effluent from overflow valves on the stern (something frown upon by other sailors docked nearby). Despite this, it usually fills up at the most inconvenient times. And I’d be happier if our sleeping berth wasn’t right on top of it. Just the thought…

Then there is the issue of space. Wherever I choose to sit or stand on the boat, it is invariably in the way of something Bob wants. And vice versa. We are continually stepping on each other, bumping into each other, stubbing our toes, hitting our heads and generally pissing each other off. Ten days of that can put anyone’s marriage to the test.

Yesterday was a low for me. I felt discouraged about sailing, about my life in general, about the past, about the future. We were only three days from home by boat but it felt like three hundred. Everything seemed my enemy – the weather, the sunshine, the boat, even Bob for wanting a boat in the first place. So I went off by myself for awhile in the afternoon and did laundry at the marina laundromat. There really wasn’t much laundry but I had to get away on my own and do something that I understood, something I was capable of doing without bruising myself or being in someone’s way.

I think doing laundry calmed me because it is a traditionally female task. I work all year long in a masculine world. I live all year long in a society dominated by male values. And sailing has been a traditionally masculine activity. After all, Christopher Columbus sailed over here, not Christine Columbus. Since time immemorial, women waited on the shore for their men to come home from the sea. And I can see why they might have preferred it that way. Sailing is very technical. It is all stanchions and pulleys and lines that do this and lines that do that and wind speeds and depth sounders – give me something I understand, like stains on cotton or how hot to set the dryer so Bob’s shirts come out looking good. In the sailing environment, I am awkward, though I know I am getting better at functioning on the boat by the smaller number of bruises on my body this year than last. And I’ve taken courses, so I know the purpose of all the lines. I can run the boat under motor or sail, manage the helm in high winds and even dock and undock, both feats that scare the hell out of me but also make me proud. But it doesn’t come naturally to me. Sometimes I just want to bask in an environment that comes naturally to me.

“I lay awake for three hours in the night thinking about selling the boat,” Bob announces, putting his book down. 

Feeling a strange ache in the pit of my stomach, I take a deep breath.  “You can’t mean that, surely.”

“It just isn’t working out.  You’re sick half the time, you’re holidays are so short that we can never go very far…”

“Oh so it’s my fault.” I feel my chest tightening.

“No, it’s not just that.  I’m not getting any younger myself. My back hurts half the time.  And the weather never cooperates.”

“You love this boat,” I say, my voice rising.  “I don’t think you should sell it without taking a long time to make the decision.  Because if we sell this boat, the odds are we’ll never have another one.”

“I don’t think you like the boat.”

“You’re partially right.  She is the most beautiful thing I have ever co-owned in my life. Her lines are perfect – look at those white decks gleaming in the sun.  And the teak walls below almost glow in the dark. When the wind is right and the air temperature is moderate and there are no biting flies taking hunks out of my legs, I love the boat. When I am at the helm with the force of an 18-knot wind perfectly balanced by the sails and rudder, it is a peak experience. But when it is too hot or too cold or too rough or too noisy in the night, I hate the boat. She is the personification of the tension of the opposites for me. Maybe that is why I don’t want to sell her right now. Perhaps we need to learn more from her first.”

Bob goes back to his book and I sit, stunned by the bombshell that just came out of his mouth and the fact that I tried to talk him out of it.

As the late afternoon sun moves lower in the sky, we experience the learning process at its most ridiculous. We fight about cooking dinner. More accurately, we fight about synchronizing the cooking of rice inside the boat by yours truly with the cooking of chicken pieces on our barbecue on the dock by Bob. For some strange and probably female reason, serving dinner with all the parts hot at once is important to me. I refer back to my speculation about why doing laundry in this environment calmed me down. Cooking dinner is something I normally do with ease. I don’t need advice on how to do it, or help from Bob in the form of brute strength as I do with many things on the boat. So at the end of the day, when the sailing is done and we have docked and tied up lines and hooked up electrical cords, I look forward to a bit of domesticity where I can shine. But this evening, it is not to be.

Next to us, in the other neighbouring slip, is a spiffy little Beneteau with a French Canadian couple on board. The skipper has been sitting in his cockpit all afternoon, ignoring Bob who has been sitting in our cockpit ignoring him. This situation takes a turn as soon as Bob sets up the barbecue.  I hear them from below, muffled voices rising and falling.  I start the rice, then go topside and eavesdrop.  Why is a man doing something domestic suddenly fair game for interruption, I wonder? For whatever reason, the sight of Bob with the barbecue has catapulted Mr. Beneteau into chatty mode.

“Just had radar installed this summer,” Mr. Beneteau is saying. “Raytheon, top of the line, connects to my GPS, screens in the cockpit and below. Come on board, let me show you.”

“I’d love to.”

The barbecue forgotten, Bob disappears into Mr. B’s boat. I return to Whalesong’s tiny galley where the rice is cooking on the little propane stove. With no way to stop the process, I continue cooking and visualize the appearance of Bob with hot barbecued chicken, but the minutes tick by. I finally go topside and find raw chicken but no sign of Bob. Shortly thereafter, he emerges from the Beneteau, and, playing the affable host, proceeds to bring Mr. and Mrs. Beneteau to our boat for a further tour. By this time, the rice has congealed to the bottom of the pan – cooking with propane heat is like preparing food in a blast furnace – and my mood has congealed along with it. I give all three the cold shoulder.

“You were downright rude to those people,” Bob says when they have gone.  “What’s with you? ”

“The only thing you had to do all day that wasn’t related to winches and stanchions was cooking a couple of chicken breasts at a specific time.  But strangers in some fancy sailboat were clearly more important.”

“I can’t take anymore of this.”  Bob stomps off into what is now the night.  I sit in the cockpit, watching the darkness creep across the lake, trying to analyze what has happened.

I am an introvert by nature and sometimes don’t feel social. I don’t like my space invaded without my permission. By mysterious bacteria or strangers. But there is more going on tonight. I think the episode encapsulates the anger I feel about the lack of value placed on the feminine in our society. My anger comes from way down deep where I feel hurt by being judged successful or unsuccessful by standards that are not mine. Worse still, because I sometimes judge myself by these standards, even though they denigrate me.

In our society, work takes precedence over creativity, action over contemplation, results over experience, facts over intuition, expression over silence, outer life versus inner experience, speed over taking in the scenery. We measure success on how much weight we can lift, or how many ski runs we made, or how much bigger we are than someone else, or how fast the boat went, or how far it heeled over – all meaningless issues in the grand scheme of things. Farther isn’t inherently better than nearer, faster isn’t more enlightened than slower, being able to tighten the sails so the boat goes an extra half knot isn’t more valuable than knowing how to cook a balanced meal. Why, then, do we so often feel like failures, even when we don’t agree with the party line? Because it is difficult to erase years of conditioning. It is exhausting to go against ones nature for years in order to be what one thinks one should be. But the alternative, swimming upstream in a culture, is also exhausting.

As darkness falls, Bob returns from his stomping meditation in what seems to be a calmer frame of mind. He sits down heavily on the settee opposite me, his face serious, his brow furrowed, and begins to talk.

“I’ve been walking around, trying to figure out what’s going on.  I know that I’m upset because you’ve been sick and because we lost a week of our precious vacation time together.  I’m wrestling with the decision to keep the boat or sell it in the fall.  If you continue to be unwell, this is not a great environment for you.  I know that you have a lot of difficulty with the sailing life, though it seems to me that you are a natural sailor. But it’s not all about you – the boat is a huge financial issue for me as well. The bottom line is that I feel confused and sad.  This is not exactly the romantic sailing vacation I had envisioned.”

“And I’ve been sitting here in the dark feeling that you don’t see the effort I am making to be on this trip, given how ill I feel much of the time. If this trip hadn’t been so important to you, I would have stayed home. How can you not know that?”

“I do know that.”

“I’m not a mind-reader.”

“And here I thought you were.” 

He smiles and reaches across the table to take my hand.  A storm rumbles and growls in the distance. I suddenly feel safe in the boat with Bob, the two of us sheltered from the world like twins in a dark womb, tucked away in our harbour, protected from the waves the storm is kicking up out on the lake. Lightning brightens the cockpit periodically, glinting off the spokes of the big wheel. In the middle of a long series of flashes, something going on between us is suddenly crystal clear to me.

“I just had a flash of insight – let me know what you think of it.  I verbalize when I am afraid or in distress. It is a self-preservation tactic I learned as a child to keep me from bottling up my feelings and blowing up later. But when you’re upset, you do just the opposite – you clam up. So as I grow more and more vocal, hoping to drag a reaction out of you, you grow more and more silent. It is a vicious circle between us, with two outcomes. I wind up thinking you don’t care about me, and you feel overwhelmed, helpless and harassed.”

The thunder roars and the wind howls in the lanyards.  Bob rubs his hand through his hair and sighs.  “I think you’re onto something.”  He rubs his other hand through his hair.  “Yes, I think this is the dance we have been doing unconsciously for years.  No wonder we sometimes feel so alienated from each other.”

At that moment, we both know that bringing this vicious circle to consciousness is the first step in transforming it. As we talk, I wonder if it is a dance performed by other couples. I don’t know the answer to that.  But I know that tonight, in Newcastle, because of two strangers in a Beneteau, we fought over rice and chicken and came up with an insight into our relationship that will help us in the years to come.

As the storm breaks around us, we settle into our snug berth to relish the feeling of closeness that we had been missing these past difficult weeks. After a long hug, Bob’s rhythmic breathing tells me that he is asleep, exhausted by the strain of the day. I turn over to my side of the berth carefully, reminding myself once again not to sit up in the night. Before falling asleep, I reflect on the fact that the summer has not gone as planned. Our summers never do. Our lives never do. But through all the changes, we learn. We didn’t sail to the end of Lake Ontario this season after all. But we were blessed with something special tonight. Which do you think will be more use to us later in life, getting to the end of Lake Ontario or the lesson learned in the Port of Newcastle?

 Two days later, we sail into Hamilton Harbour.  The skipper from the boat slip next to ours, a rotund man in a navy and white striped sweatshirt, comes over to help us tie up. 

“Great day on the lake, eh man?” he shouts over the engine.  “We just got in ourselves – went over 7 knots for six hours, heeled over so far my wife thought she was going to fall out.  Say, welcome back.  How far did you go on your trip?”

“Cobourg,” says Bob.

“That’s all?  But you’ve been gone for two weeks. You could have gone around the lake in that time. Did you have boat trouble?”

“No, we just wanted to hang out,” I say.

He gives Bob a sympathetic look, shakes his head and walks away. 

“Don’t let him get to you,” Bob gives my arm a squeeze as we go below.  “I had a great holiday. One to remember long after we sell the boat. Whenever that is. And the best part is that we don’t have to go home until tomorrow.”

I look forward to another day on board, resolving to continue my writing.  Not more of that woman stuff on his laptop, pipes up the voice again. “Yes,” I say out loud, my voice echoing off the low ceiling over my head. “Most definitely yes.”

Same goes for vacations. Starting out is torture. The administration of leaving town must be handled. Who is going to feed the gerbil, water the potted geraniums, collect the mail, attend that meeting next Monday? I arrange everything using Excel spreadsheets. Then there’s packing. My husband and I used to throw a few things in a suitcase and leave without a backward glance. But we’re fifty-five now, and we can’t go anywhere without Obus forms, heating pads, chiropractic pillows, orthotics, medication, extra trifocals, and a fan for my hot flashes.

By the time we leave town, I’m not sure whether I am fighting or fleeing.  A ten-hour drive does nothing to relieve the tension in the back of my neck.  I arrive in Vermont stressed to the nines, needing to work off my agitation in some useful way, or at least distract myself with something interesting.  Instead, two weeks loom without no VCR, no email, no voice mail, not even an Internet café – only mountains, rocks, trails, streams and cows. The days stretch ahead like a desert, nothing to call an accomplishment in sight.  Just a small motel room, maids to do all the work and restaurants to replace the need to cook our usual nutritious meals. Although we’ve been here many times before, it’s always the same at the beginning. I can’t imagine how I’ll get through it.

I bring my laptop this trip, a hand-me-down from Bob when he upgraded. I open the case, determined to work on my unfinished novel about two women who run off to the mountains to find themselves. The keyboard is a small but I will adapt. My characters expect that.  But for some reason, I can’t concentrate. Mount Mansfield looms outside the window as a presence. The famous profile that makes up the highest mountain in Vermont calls to me. I feel the first stirrings of another way of life. My characters must wait. Put their quest on hold. While I do some questing myself.

There is something about the mountains. They are always different, day to day, like the sea if you’re a sailor or the air if you’re a flyer. The light changes, the clouds thin or thicken, the trail is dry, or slippery like someone covered it with Vaseline. At first, you say I’ve made that climb before, what’s the point of doing it again? But no climb is ever the same. Just like making love is never the same. Maybe it is like that with all sensations. There’s an infinite variety. Knowing that is enough to make you come back, again and again. To the man you love. To the mountains. Or if you are lucky, to both at the same time.

After a few days of aimless agitation, I begin to awaken to my surroundings, becoming aware of the infinite variety of things to do in the mountains. I notice the cedar trees outside our window, the brown mouse that runs back and forth between them, the changing face of the mountain profile in the distance. I take Bob’s hand, walk by the stream, watch a herd of black and white Holsteins grazing. Eventually time slides effortlessly by. One minute a whole day stretches out before me like a blank computer screen waiting to be filled. The next minute the sun is beginning to set, it is time to think of our stomachs, rest our aching feet, have a glass of wine and contemplate which book to read tonight. By the end of the first week, I find myself anguishing about the lack of time left. Only one more week and we have to head home.  

The need to accomplish things slips away as the days pass, like a seal sliding into the water. I can imagine life without daily routine. Life with meaning you can’t measure in numbers of advertisements sold or invoices processed. Life with meaning measured in watching clouds build or hearing bird songs that you can’t identify or seeing spirits in rocks that have been hewn into magical shapes by centuries of water pouring over them, changed by the hand of God or Mother Nature or the eternal forces of the universe. I want to stay longer, at least three weeks. Or three months. Or three years.

Mountains are constant. Compared to humans, at least. New rock falls here and there mark their aliveness, but for the most part they don’t change much during a human being’s life span. I have changed since my last trip here. My legs aren’t quite as strong, my body not quite as resilient after a punishing regimen of consecutive days of climbing. But my resolve is still there. That urge to complete the climb, get to the top, make it over that next boulder, around that cliff edge – it still drives me. Perhaps I should think of my novel as a mountain trail through my psyche. Maybe that way I will make it to the end of my characters’ journey. Which is also mine.

The trails we climb in the Worcester Mountain Range are all numinous in their own ways. Lush green underbrush. White birches. Granite cliffs. Rocks flecked with green and white quartz. Aroma of pine needles. Blue mountains rolling like waves in the distance. Ecstatic hikers, faces beaming at the summit. Nervous novices, feet clad only in flip-flops, stumbling on dangerous trails. Fearless children. One little fellow tried to sell me a rock half way up Smuggler’s Notch, on a trail filled with rocks no different from the one he had in his hand. When I asked how much, he told me three dollars, more if you buy it at the bottom. That kid will go far. I wanted to reward his innovative thinking, but his mother whisked him away before I could get the money out of my fanny pack.

Not only do they produce cute kids in Vermont, they produce cute cows too. A herd of honey-coloured ones with long horns and bangs graze near the Trapp Family Lodge. Long, silky bangs, right down over their eyes. Some kind of Scottish breed, I learn from the reference book on cows that I purchase in Stowe’s tiny bookstore, rationalizing that every home library needs at least one cow book. I note that the calves don’t have bangs. Guess they come with age. Along with the horns. And that implacable cow-like serenity that I keep hoping to discover within my own agitated being.

One day we find a treasure between torrential downpours – Bingham Falls, mysterious and evocative with its dim lighting, ancient trees, holes hewn in the rocks by eons of rushing water. The trail beside the falls is steep and slick with mud, making it a hair-raising experience to climb around the edge where one false move could be our last. But edges must be climbed around, just like wet paint must be touched. Why? Because we are human. Because it’s part of our nature to be curious. Even a cautious person like me gets caught up in the rush of adventure around such beauty.

The same adventurous streak has led us to take up golf this summer.  Learning a new physical skill at this age is a dubious venture but Bob encouraged me. Being a dutiful wife, I outfitted myself with all the gear before the trip – clubs, bag, cart, lessons from a handsome golf pro who wears enticing cologne. Anything for the cause.

We decide our first round of golf should be played in Vermont – for different reasons. Bob wants to play in spectacular scenery. I want to play where no one knows me. When the day comes, I am nervous and have difficulty breathing. I tell Bob that as a kid, I suffered golf trauma taking lessons from my father. I have galloping performance anxiety, and feel like throwing up. I ask if we can find a golf course uninhabited by other humans. Bob suggests a ritual.

“The maids will think we’re perverts,” I say as Bob wraps a rope intended for scaling cliffs around two spare pillows in our motel room. I watch as he knots the thick rope, putting a stranglehold on the pillows, a gleam blazing in his eye.

“That’ll hold them,” he says, his gray head bent over the bed. “Your father and mine, for good measure, tied up and left behind. It’s the only way to contain them. Free our minds. There, Houdini couldn’t break out of that rope. Not even if he was a pillow.”

I stifle the urge to laugh, as Bob puts the trussed up pair in the closet, closing the door on them with a resounding bang. Despite the ridiculous concept of two personified pillows in bondage, it feels good. Maybe there is something to rituals after all. At least in Vermont.

We head for Copley Golf course in high spirits. It is located in a nearby town called Morrisville. We have difficulty finding the place because Vermont town names are weird. Waterbury Centre isn’t the same as Waterbury. Highland Springs isn’t the same as Highland Depot. Morrisville is just past Morristown. An unsuspecting tourist can get confused. Even state parks are poorly marked and can only be found by asking local farmers for directions. At one park we visited last year, the staff told us that they were so hard to find, they were rarely very busy. Obviously a badge of honour to a Vermonter.

Today we persist, with Bob at the helm, and find the golf course where my worst nightmare comes true – we are paired up with two strange men named Henry and Chad. Henry is short and paunchy, has an ugly swing and an amiable personality. Chad is tall and lean, with a great swing and an arrogant personality. I feel nauseous as they watch me hit my first drive about thirty yards to the left and down a ravine. But I have to give Bob credit – the closet ritual helps. I do not throw up. In fact, I handle my emotional trauma surprisingly well during the game. I ignore Chad when he tells me what is wrong with my swing, and focus on each shot like Tiger Woods (well, maybe not that much focus but I can dream). Bob is supportive. He even plays a few holes better than Chad, which pleases us both.

As for me, I will take some more lessons from the cute golf pro when I get home.  Because I discovered, on that course under the tranquil gaze of Mount Elmore in the Green Mountains, that I like golf.  It’s something about pitting oneself against the course, not another person.  It’s very much an individual sport, which suits my nature.  It’s a great trigger for hidden frustration or simmering rage – a true denial buster.  In fact, it is so easy to get psyched on a golf course that the true object is not to let that happen, rather than to get a good score.  Hitting a good shot is numinous.  Hitting a bad shot is the pits.  And every hole is different, every fairway a personal challenge.  Where else can you walk for hours in such lush beauty, on grass you didn’t have to water or mow? 

We round out the day with a visit to Ben and Jerry’s down by I89, the most garish place you could ever hope to visit, nestled in the middle of a blue mountain range.  Lineups of families with screaming children fill the courtyard where you wait to place your order. Even larger lineups wait for a tour of the facility. There are attendants running the parking lots to avoid total chaos. Speakers blare information. Kids drop their cones and wail. The juxtaposition of a peaceful golf course to this screaming horde of humanity makes me give my head a shake. I remember on our last trip, I vowed never to come here again. I look at Bob, about to say we should forget it. He has a crazed look in his eye – not the same as he had tying up the pillows – this look screams sugar deprivation. So I wait in line. Time crawls. The people in front of us dawdle. At last it is our turn. Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt for two, in a dish please, with two spoons. Bob pays and we head back to upper parking lot #3. It begins to rain. We run, shielding our treasured treat, just making it before the skies open. Laughing, we sit in the van and eat what is, as always, the most delicious dessert on the planet. Maybe all the screaming was worth it. After all, it is a test for my serenity meter. And good practice for going back to work.

Serenity and vacations. They finally go together just when you reach the top of your climb. But then there is the return, the heavy steps down the trail from the craggy summit, the roots waiting to trip you and send you headlong down the mountain, each yard gained jarring every bone in your body.  There is no switch in my brain which can change me from mountain time to someone run by a clock that screams “nine to five or later” every morning, Monday to Friday, week in, week out, all year long. Part of me resists the descent. I have forgotten how to wake up at 7 am. I have forgotten how to do things that I don’t like doing. I’ll have to retrain myself, so I can do what I have to do, back in the trenches of my city life.

But I have learned one this summer – returning home unchanged is not an option. I have made a dent in my anal retentiveness, realised there is more to me than Type A behaviour, become less agitated, more centered. This time I will stay connected to the timelessness of the Green Mountains. I will call up the mystery of that ancient falls when daily life gets too hectic. I will use the focus that I had on that golf course to complete my novel and remember the trussed up pillows when I hear negative voices in my head. I will hold onto the inner peace that Vermont provided and remember that my life is a computer screen, waiting to be filled. Nothing is going to happen unless I show up. In the days ahead, I will remember Vermont. As one character in my novel says, they don’t call it the land of cows and serenity for nothing.