On takeoffs and deadlines

by Christine Kling

Last Saturday night, our dear friend and fellow author Miriam Auerbach threw a Bon Voyage party at her gorgeous new home for my fellow blogger Mike J-, his lovely wife Mary, and me.  The house overlooked this tranquil pond where I got this shot of a heron on takeoff.  It was an amazing party with oodles of delicious food, good friends and a selection of adult beverages that even included a Margarita Station (see MikenMary's photo below).

But there is a problem with Bon Voyage parties. It presents you with a kind of a deadline. It means from that point forward, everyone starts asking you, "So, when are you going to take off?"

And much as you want to go, you look at your boat and your mind starts ticking its way through THE LIST. . . Replace engine start battery, check rigging, replace halyards, replace running light bulbs with LEDs, install new wind generator blades, sew new bimini and dodger, haul out for bottom job, replace anchor chain, and on and on.  And the thing of it is that in doing any one of those jobs on THE LIST, you are just as likely to break something else while installing the something new, so it likely will take you at least two to three times as long as you think it will. When will I take off?  I have no clue.

I remember one time years ago after Jim and I had spent three years building this 55-foot sailboat and we'd been living aboard and fitting her out in Ventura Marina in California.  All our friends wanted to throw us a big going away party for the day we left the dock.  They finally pinned us down to a date and that day at noon as the champagne corks popped, a dense fog bank sat right off the breakwater.  We waved our good-byes, motored off into the fog, went about seven miles down the coast and sneeked into Channel Islands Harbor to quietly wait for a better day.

Eventually, somehow, some way, you reach a point — and it is most definitely not the bottom of the list because any sailor will tell you that you NEVER get there — but you do reach a point when you say to yourself, this is it.  It's time.  I've got to take off.

Last Sunday morning as I sat at my computer looking at this vast collection of files I have under the loose heading Novel Notes, I realized that my book has A LIST even longer than the boat's.  Throughout the four plus years of writing this book, I have accumulated this collection of notes and questions and reminders of things I wanted to change someday, and though I've been working on this collection for months now, I don't seem to get any nearer to the bottom of THE LIST.

Then again, maybe what I really need is to plan myself a little party, to go ahead and set a date and stick to that deadline.  There comes a time, even with a book, when you have to realize you'll never get to the bottom of THE LIST, it will never be perfect, and you just have to allow it to take off — and sink or swim on its own.

Fair winds!

Christine

 

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