And just like that, the spring season of sailing is done. I’m sitting here, in Dad’s computer room, on a beautiful sunny Monday (why is it always gorgeous when I’m not on the boat??) visiting for the last time before we leave in something like 3 and a bit weeks. Fabulous ferry crossing today… I sat on the outer deck the whole way in my T-shirt, enjoying the sun. There wasn’t much wind, so I was hoping I’d catch a glimpse of the boats if they were sailing, but I think they’d long passed that area. So now the fears and apprehensions I had starting off the spring season have returned full-force as the magnitude of preparing for Offshore begins to hit me. It actually began to hit a few weeks ago, which partially explains my silence lately.
As the weather gets nicer, I’ve enjoyed wandering around Victoria on the weekends. I love living close to downtown so that I can just wander in when I feel like it, and I make a point of walking a lot on the weekend to make up for my week of no to little movement on the boat. The cherry blossoms have just finished, but there was a period of a few weeks when they were spectacular; especially in Chinatown where the cherry trees alternate with well-maintained evergreen trees making the street a feast of colour.
Reading and re-reading some Madeleine L’Engle has also been a highlight of the last few weeks. I love her ability, in her non-fiction work, to say what I want to say but can’t or say what I wish I’d thought of. It is always quite inspiring and thought-provoking. Attending Choral Evensong at the huge Gothic-inspired Cathedral has also been a joy. Last week, the service was celebrated by someone who had been an intern minister at our church in Belleville about 15 years ago. He pretty much looks just the same!
And then there is the A&E/BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice that I got from the library and watched again this weekend. It is always so depressing and uplifting at the same time, a thought which brings to mind something I read from Madeleine L’Engle (A Stone for a Pillow) on the ferry ride over here: the idea that things are both/and. Like one crew member’s comment to another “You are a genius, except when you are stupid”. Like the idea that I can love and admire someone who does something which seems to be so contrary or unworthy. Maybe one day, we will have a trinary system instead of a binary system: “yes/no” becomes “yes/no/neutral.” Jesus used this when he answered the question of paying tribute to Caesar by asking them to bring him a coin. I suppose this way prods us to move out of a comfortable rut of easy answers and blanket statements; blanket statements allow us to ignore the people and think only about the problem, something that the world does too much of as it is.
With more sleep, hopefully I’ll be in good shape after this week off. I’m finding I need to divide my time between reading the “good” things – the fun and inspiring books (like Madeleine L’Engle) and the ones which are beneficial for me to read for work (Care and Feeding of the Offshore Crew, for example), although I only brought the good stuff with me this week…