Ode to Diane
Chemo.
Goddess.
Warrior maven of defense.
You led us, your sisters, through fields where
we battled insurgencies within our own breasts.
You offered sorties of resistance,
standing resolute, hell bent against giving ground.
You were our stalwart midwife past death,
delivering us to shimmering new days.
Be we cowards or brave,
without judgment, you ushered us to hope or glory.
We rewarded you imperfectly with our beating hearts
or saddened you with its confirmed stillness.
On grounds hallowed by your tutelage
you have sheathed your own sword
as pink ribbons flutter silently in salute.
You have surrendered to peace, at last.
Goddess.
Hero.
What are we dancing for?
A few days ago, I watched what was intended to be an uplifting video of hospital workers, all wearing pink gloves, dancing with glee. As I watched I bitterly asked, “What are they celebrating?” Earlier the same morning I learned a special friend is now in the end stages of battling breast cancer. I felt no joy in her cancer story, just a stark disconnect between the dancing hospital staff aiming to raise a chunk of change for research and care and her predicament. I watched the glove groove disheartened, angry and hurt that such a wonderful woman could be taken by a disease — while those people danced in hopes for a cure that could not help her.
Perhaps the breast cancer public face we have painted is a too happy mask. We know that false face so well. We think of cancer and see a pink cover of walkers, racers, ribbons — a fluffy feminine shell of the heroic and tearful quest for survival. Below though, under that facade of success, there is still suffering, loss and death — the naked, ugly scars of breast cancer.
Watching the pink clad hands swaying, flicking and swinging in a breast cancer jamboree, I felt like a grim wedding guest considering the impending divorce of the bride and groom. As I viewed the video of the hospital staff cavorting, I questioned how many of them knew the face of breast cancer struggle and loss. Did the surgical staff, dressed with masks and eye shields know what it was like to loose a breast, or a life? Were any dancers survivors? Which revelers were they? I searched the faces to pick them out.
Was she dancing because she lived, like me? Was he joyous even though he lost his mother, sister or friend, or did those folks excuse themselves when asked to help with the video saying, “No, I can’t dance.”?
Now, a few days later, while I am still hurt, I understand why they were dancing. They were celebrating hope, an irresistible reason to dance, but a tragedy when it has faded.
In the dumps
If I had a clue it would be so hard to shed 10 pounds of plastic, I wouldn’t have resolved to do it. Now, after 10-plus months, a 10 pound reduction seems unreasonable and unattainable. I have not done the math, but I don’t think I can make it, unless I move to a deserted island. Even then, recollecting the gyre, the reason I vowed to do this thing, tons of plastic might wash ashore.
Today, I only left my house to run and to check the mail, yet bits of plastic came to me like metal flakes to a magnet. I swear I attract it.
Returning from my run, I saw each house on my street had a paper flung onto the drive. “Oh boy, a crossword!” When did they quit using rubber bands for news papers and stuff them in plastic bags? I loomed over mine for a moment and considered leaving the paper and the bag in the driveway. It would not go away, all my neighbors got a paper too, so they had no reason to take it off my hands. I took it inside to read cranky letters to the editor and look for the crossword puzzle. I pulled the bag off, tied it in a French knot and put it with the dwindling stash of plastic bags in my cupboard. I’ll reuse it for something.
Mid morning the doorbell rang. I froze at my desk, breathless for a moment, then slunk to carefully peer around the corner, knowing there might be an annoying solicitor peeking back at me through the door’s side window, or I would hear a delivery truck roll away. It was the later. I took in a breath, opened the door and picked up a FedEx envelope left on my doorstep. It had a plastic sleeve to hold an absent airbill, the barcoded shipping label was glued to the front. Even though it was clearly addressed to Ed, I couldn’t resist opening it. He’s been in Ohio and my snooping would save him time and bother when he gets home. (I’m such a thoughtful wife.) I opened it, therefore I take full ownership even though only half of the contents were actually for me. Inside were uniform insignia tapes packed in enough plastic to construct a raincoat. Sixteen baggies to hold sixteen small embroidered pieces of cloth tape. Really, I kid you not, each insignia in an 
individual zipbag! I can’t imagine any second use for the bags which have quarter inch holes drilled at the top for hanging on a display rack, so anything small enough to fit, seeds for instance, will fall out of the hole. I could mail the empties back to the uniform distribution center, or better yet the manufacturer, but chances are they would open my envelope, wonder why some nut mailed them trash and toss them anyway. Oh well.
Mid afternoon I brought in the mail. The November issue of Sailing Magazine came in a plastic bag so the holiday catalog of sailing jewelry could get into my hot little hands. I leaf through it year after year wondering who could possibly afford, and want, a sterling silver monkey’s fist bottle stopper, or an 18 karat gold, open barrel, turnbuckle hinged bracelet. I suppose some yacht owner with a huge wallet and a little tiny brain will be ordering a trinket for Lovie. I myself own six open barrel turnbuckles, none of them for show. Mine are on my boat, made of stainless steel and hold up the mast. I could barely afford them. After marveling at the photos of gleaming excess, I tossed the catalog into the recycle bin and the plastic bag into the trash.
Then I attended to our mundane mail; a credit card application — which we still get, probably because we forgo the turnbuckle bracelets — it came complete with a thin plastic replica of a credit card; and a Travelers Insurance letter with a plastic “priority quote card” glued to it. Both cards embossed with my name went into the trash — identifying me for a millennium as the culprit who threw them away. Damn.
For the month of October. I will estimate an avoidance of 14 ounces of plastic “stuff.”
Falling into permanent material
Because I did so poorly avoiding poly in September, I have put off telling about the results.
First, I took a head-over-heals dismount from my bike, knocking my head, which was thankfully encased in a quality plastic helmet. Wearing a bike helmet surely saved me from a nasty knot on the noggin. Because it is recommended a helmet be replaced after taking a significant blow, I bought a replacement brain-bucket. What I got is very light — 275 grams, or 9.7 ounces — but virtually all plastic. I justified the purchase as a fair trade for prevention of brain injury. Brain damage suffered in a subsequent bike crash — because of a possibly degraded helmet — might be permanent, but only in reference to my head. The plastic helmet will exist on, and on, long after my hopefully mostly intact brain and I are dust. Still, I recalled when my brother was in neurological intensive care, I noted how medical care uses an incredible amount of plastic. I could argue that the helmet purchase, by potentially keeping me out of intensive care, could result in saving oodles of catheter tubes, syringes, splints, etc., so I won’t count my helmet as a plus.
In September I was also busy planning a woman’s sailing event. In spite of my efforts to keep the Ladies’ Day @ the Lake plastic free, I was inundated with poly bags, foam packing peanuts, and other plastic packaging as I received shipments of donated items for event goody bags. While I was very grateful to get so many nice items for our participants, it was a disappointment to see so much plastic packaging used for materials that had no chance of transport damage. Even if a fleet of UPS trucks had run over one particular box, its unbreakable contents would not have crumbled or broken. Another donor offered several dozen plastic thermal cups he wanted to get rid of. He claimed he had them in storage for years. I gladly accepted, plastic or not. Hey, that plastic already existed! I was not consuming, but rather putting to good use what was already there. I printed sleeve inserts (on recycled paper) for the cups. I tried to make them special, in hopes each recipient would use their fantastic, functional cups for the rest of their days, then pass the treasure down to their first-born. Three cases of bottled water were purchased for the event — even though I suggested coolers. I cringed when I saw recycling bins at the venue filling with one-use bottles. I could have insisted, so I’ll take partial ownership, say half liability, or around two pounds of resulting trash.
Putting on a complicated event kept me hopping. When Ed and I hosted nearly twenty folks for dinner after a challenging work day, the evening before, I asked Ed to run to the store to buy a “box” of greens. I didn’t pointedly tell him “Get one of those big PLASTIC containers of salad stuff,” but I didn’t instruct him to get a few heads of lettuce either. He knew my time limitations and brought home the most convenient salad fixing he could muster. I was glad not to have to wash, dry, pick and break fixings for a huge salad. Even though I’ll use the resulting box for storage, I must own up to a few ounces of packaging I really did not want, solely for saving a few minutes of preparation time.
Other than that, I did okay, about the same as August. In total, I will call September a two pound, two ounce, back slide month.
Sex of the sailors
Most places in the world, we sailors can not wait for the summer to begin, bringing warm breezes and long days, ingredients for splendid sailing. Where I sail though, we can’t wait for the summer to wane.
With October here, the weather I have yearned for can finally be glimpsed around the calendar’s corner — it will be less than 110 degrees Fahrenheit every day until May. That is no shock to the majority of folks in the northern hemisphere. The surprise comes in the fact, the average temperatures in the desert, where I sail, will stand around 65 to 75 throughout the fall and winter. No blizzards, no ice on the lake, no bone chilling days are anticipated near Phoenix.
Even though the highs still hovered around 100 degrees last weekend, I could wait no longer. I went sailing Friday night with Linda. We leisurely skimmed on Orange Crush across the black water, ate dinner with a group at a new waterfront restaurant then sailed back. Saturday and Sunday I raced in Arizona Yacht Club’s fall racing series. Three times out definitely marks the beginning of my sailing season.
All three outings were on boats owned and sailed by women. This is rare. I don’t know why, but it’s men who usually get the “family” boat, then take charge of it — occasionally naming it after a wife, a gesture to infer the womenfolk are a part of the boating equation.
Ed found our boat Bliss. A Santana 23, she was in line with what he wanted. We traveled to San Diego to get a look at her — he insisted I come. When I saw her I was not smitten. She looked short, squat and retro. Sort of like me, but dusty and needing a bath. Maybe that is why Ed immediately loved her, not that she was dirty but that she looked like me. He negotiated the deal while I wandered the yard and looked at other sleeker, shinier boats I would rather take home. He insisted I write the check so I would “have skin in the game,” and cause to feel Bliss would be my boat too. He saw something I did not understand — Bliss would be as much mine as she would be his.
The phenomenon, of men owning the boats and thus owning sailing, was illustrated when I looked over the Arizona Yacht Club’s Fall Racing Series skipper list. “Gordon, Steve, Jim, Greg, Charles, Gene, Bill, Mike, Lafe, Joe, Peter…” 34 skippers with only one woman’s name, Dianna, my friend. She invited me to crew on her new cute Santana 20, Hot Flash. Though I’m not a racer, I accepted. I wanted to get a better look at racing and to compare the Santana 20 to Bliss. And of course, it was a chance to go sailing. After giving it a whirl, why there are so many more men than women racing is even more of a mystery. Yes, it was a bit physical, but it did not seem to be a man’s game. As a matter of fact, the men on the race course encouraged us. They were tickled to see a boat full of gals impudently chasing them. It reminded me of the third grade, when the same sort of thing began to happen — girls chasing boys without much of a chance of catching them. Hot Flash didn’t come close to winning any of the seven races, but with each race, the women aboard discovered more about the new boat, the sport and sailing, and we went a bit faster.
I hope with time and practice the tables will turn, as they did around fifth grade. In a few seasons the guys may get a kick out of chasing a boatload of women around the lake.
It’s the little things
Robert W. Service (you know, the famous bard of the Yukon) wrote,”It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.”
In August, my efforts to reduce my plastic use further has hit a wall, or a sand dune. The tidbits of plastic I never gave a thought to before make up a shifting hump that I can not seem to pass over. I can’t navigate around the mountain of little plastic stuff.
This month I looked for shampoo that comes in a bar but could not find any, so I bought the biggest plastic jug I could find, one without the luxury of a pump dispenser and associated extra material. I could have researched on the net, but I did not, I gave in to laziness and did the easy thing, picking up the jumbo bottle and putting it my grocery cart. The same trip I also bought a giant plastic bottle of sunscreen. I do all sorts of outdoor stuff, know the awful sound of the word “cancer” in reference to my body, and I share sunscreen with Ed, who burns in the moon light. I chalked that purchase up as absolutely necessary. Those were the only two plastic bottles I brought in the house this month. Bottles are not so hard to avoid except for personal items. No bottled soda, no bottled water, no bottled condiments (unless glass is available), easy and doable.
Having eliminated most of the big, obvious plastic waste from my consumption, if I want to do more I am faced with doing without or avoiding small stuff. The caps, tabs, lids, and wraps are like the grains of sand Mr. Service referred to. I have thoroughly congratulated myself for doing without the packaging associated with sliced or grated cheese, ready-made salad dressing, and passing on purchasing new flipflops, but I continued to wink at the juice box with the plastic cap or the Popsicle wrapper. “Unavoidable,” I rationalized. The small stuff is easy to disregard or justify.
The little plastic things fall into my hands like sand slips into a shoe, collecting in tiny annoying piles. I went to my dentist to get a regular cleaning and found myself afterward in my car looking through a plastic bag with a plastic tooth brush inside a plastic bubble mounted to cardboard, a plastic box of floss, a sample of toothpaste in a plastic tube with a plastic lid and a tiny coupon in a small plastic bag. God forbid that coupon be soiled by touching the toothbrush packaging. I need to brush my teeth, and floss. I get big globs…well you don’t need details. My old toothbrush had bristles that looked like Einsteins’ hair and surely it’s not possible to buy a wooden tooth brush with stiff boars hair bristles wrapped in paper anywhere in my neighborhood. The floss — I bet the floss itself is a polymer. It sure seems plastic-like. The box certainly was. I know there are button-like metal floss containers but if you buy such a thing in the store it is boxed in a fist-sized or bigger plastic clam shell, to keep dishonest shoppers from conveniently dropping the tiny package in their pocket as it is eventually intended. This month I watched as Ed bought a large plastic bag of plastic floss bows with picks. He can’t seem to get the knack of the wrap around the fingers floss. It was a choice of many bits of plastic, or Ed with gingivitis. I opted for the plastic and kept my well-flossed mouth shut.
Digging through my recycle bin and trash cans today, for a cursory pre-report accounting, I noticed all the bits; the lids, tags and wrappers I have tried to discount as not mattering much, but I know they do. I just have not figured out how to keep them from collecting around me as I walk through life. Next month, I will shake out my shoes and work on reducing the use of little plastic things.
For the month of August. I will estimate an avoidance of 12 ounces of plastic “stuff.”
Gone Coastal (Part IX)
Mexican Train
Miguel’s phone walks across the storage chest, buzzing like an over-sized beetle. Cook extracts himself from the galley, grabs the phone and pretends to toss it out the open hatch. We cheer as he follows Randy’s earlier remedy—flips the phone open, then shut—to quiet the frenetic buzz.
Amí is still not feeling well enough to join us for dinner and takes her plate dotted with a few bites to the deck to dine in the fresh air. Only Amí is still seasick, apparently not so much she can not read. She uses her heavy hard cover copy of Cryptonomicon as a tray. Elenore loads her dish and stands alone at the nav station to eat. I’ve yet to see her sit, for any reason except to put on socks.
Five men, Margarete and I squeeze around the large salon table intended for six. Three men compress onto the storage chest against the bulkhead, heavily laden plates balanced on their unmanly held-together knees. Late comers Conrad and John, the old Brit Berkley professor, stand and eat at the counter like bachelors.
It’s the first time so many of us have dined together. None of us need be on deck, except Amí who has anchor watch. It is by far the best meal we have had on the trip. We laugh, tell jokes and stuff ourselves continuing our toasts, even though our dole of wine is gone. We toast the sea and the wind, tossing our heads back and tipping our empty glasses, hovering them above our bird-like mouths open to catch an imaginary dribble.
Dessert is chocolate cake intended for the Coffee Bean birthday celebration. I swirl my fingers around my emptied plate to collect the tiniest chocolate morsel as Sam cranes behind the bench to fetch dominoes. Some of us—like me—have never played dominoes, let alone Mexican Train. Seven of us start up an over-crowded game. The rules seem to be, shall I say, flexible. Each person, who has played before, has personal rules. Randy is the natural arbitrator, laughingly choosing any domino dictate which clearly benefits him. The good-natured interpretations and disagreements heighten our fun. We play unfettered by hard and fast law.
The galley and salon grow muggy, even though it is cool outside, a light breeze swirling around the companionway. Our faces flush—made rosy by the wine, the heat and the mood. I feel incredibly happy.
At this moment we have a magical communal lightness—except for Elenore. Just after eating she ran to throw up over the stern. She’s allergic to wine and Cook used it for the salmon. Now that the offending fish is—let’s say “gone”—she’s fine but steaming mad Cook did not warn her. “He knew!” she spat. We joke about domino rules, scarcely looking up as she tromps through the boat, giving Cook the evil eye. I know we are too noisy for her to get the sleep she obviously needs.
After playing several games, the various Mexican Train rules blend to be a new set made solely for this day and this boat. We play and tell sea stories, scoffing at obvious lies and exaggerations and leaning into the table to steady ourselves during a recounting of a fearsome yarn. We are laughing; hooting, loudly when Miguel’s phone buzzes to life.
John pushes back, stands puffing his chest, struts to the phone, swings it in a wide arc to his ear and puts his hand on his hip. He doesn’t answer, but effeminately holds the still buzzing phone to the side of his face batting his eyelashes. We know something is coming and hold our breath. In an pinched falsetto John feigns answering, “Miguel? Si. Un momento. Miguelito, mi amor, es tu madre!”
We beg him, “Do it! Do it! Answer.” He doesn’t. He plucks out the fully charged battery and drops it into his pocket. We slap the table and roar. This game is over. We’ve sent the dominoes dancing.
Gone Coastal (Part VIII)
EL TELEFONO
Cook has closed the bilge and is rooting through the ice chest when Margarete and I emerge from her quarters fully chocolatized. Most of the men who had taken to their bunks to sulk over the floppy dinghy and their resulting denial, are now on deck gazing longingly toward shore. A few others have gathered in the salon and sit reading, eating grapes Cook has set out. Randy, the skipper, is leaning on the threshold of his stateroom casually grasping a handhold while he talks on his cell phone. He’s grinning and cajoling, graphically retelling the tale of the “limp dink.”
After shoving off and until anchoring, phones have been used discretely — except by Miguel, the young Venezuelan, who has his palmed and glued to an ear every moment we are within range of a cell tower. It seems his girlfriend is missing him terribly, even though they chatter constantly. Still hot from recent cooing, Miguel’s phone, which is plugged in for recharging right under Randy’s hand, sings for attention. Randy looks for Miguel to scurry to answer, but he must be in the head or on deck. In a seamless wave Randy drops his hand, swoops up the phone, flicks it open and slaps it shut. Everyone in the salon giggles as the skipper theatrically touches his finger to his lips to shush us. He cranes to look up the hatch.
“Who wants to go ashore?” he asks loudly, holding his phone above his head. An immediate surround-sound, testosterone-juiced chorus of “Me!” “Me!” “Me!” circles the salon. If anyone was asleep, they aren’t now. Spencer yanks the curtain open, toddles into the salon with his hand raised, yawning, “Me too!”
Miguel bounds down the companion way, glances toward his phone and shrugs his shoulders begging a translation.
“Do you want to go ashore?”
“Si. Yes, si!” Miguel smiles as he picks up his phone to determine its status. He checks for messages and plugs it in as Randy finishes his phone conversation.
“My friend who lives here, another skipper, has a skiff he can launch. I didn’t want to impose, so I offered him $100 to water taxi for the evening. His boat can handle six. He has to drive, so five can go ashore in one trip. We should let the birthday boy go to celebrate with his little brother. Miguel, Spencer — Alex, do you want to go?”
Elenore, who looked so longingly towards shore, turns on her heel and lurches up the steps. She knows she must stay aboard and get a bit of sleep.
“Anyone else?” he looks over his shoulder incapable of ignoring the first mate’s huff. “So, it’s settled. We’re pulling anchor at midnight. Don’t miss the boat. Get your twenty bucks and be ready. He’ll be here shortly. Remember, everyone back and set to head north before 2330. No later than 11:30 or you’ll be driving up the coast!”
We nod our heads, satisfied with the arrangement and the change of mood. Cook hoists two bottles of white wine above his head and does the Rocky Balboa victory dance. “Look what I found for the rest of us,” he sings. He stops and gestures stiff arm, palm out. “For dinner,” he decrees. We hold as commanded, lick our lips and make hot tea he has set out. Cook is the master of what and when we eat or drink while on ship — except our chocolate.
Everyone gathers on deck to enjoy the lengthening shadows and scan the harbor for the shore boat’s arrival. A small aluminum skiff nears. The skipper waves and calls to Randy as he eases the throttle. As the boat skims alongside and disappears in our sheer, Miguel’s cell phone rings again. Miguel retreats to the bow to answer, looking somewhat irritated. He returns quickly, flipping his phone shut as he shrugs his shoulders. “Mi novia es crazy por me,” he apologizes.
Boarding will not be as simple as stepping from one deck to the other. We are more than six feet above the waterline. Margarete and Connor rig a rope ladder while Randy introduces his friend below. “This is Charlie. He’ll take you in and bring you back. Call him a half hour before you’re ready or just show up where he drops you at 11. People fall in using these ladders so be careful. If you have anything you don’t want to get wet, leave it or we can hand it down once you board. Miguel, give me your phone,” instructs Randy as the men cue up at the ladder.
The five have primped, slicked their hair, put on travel clothes. They smell strongly of baby wipes and cologne. One by one they lower themselves to the launch and speed away. We watch until they cut behind a jut of docks and Cook has called us to dinner. Randy pulls Miguel’s cell phone from his pocket, plugs it in and turns to serve himself salmon, rice and a green salad. Cook pours wine into small plastic juice glasses and passes them to the table.
“To the birthday boy,” offers Randy. “And the skipper,” adds Ed. “…and the crew.” Smiling, we raise our glasses to toast. Miguel’s phone vibrates loudly.
Hey Joe
My July started out well, I continued to make gains, or rather losses, by sticking to plastic avoidance rigorously. I bought big, heavy blocks of cheese, eliminating wraps for what would have been several smaller packages. Regular Catalina dressing purchases stopped when I concocted an Ed-approved home brew. I was feeling pretty cocky before it happened. I fell off the plastic wagon — in a big way. Ed and I went to Trader Joe’s.
Upon entering the store, I immediately noticed Joe’s is packed with plastic! What happened to the old Trader Joe’s where you could pick up a head of lettuce or a few tomatoes without a hint of packaging. We did not purchase any produce for that reason, but the temptation was so great for an array of goodies, when we wheeled up to the checkout stand, our cart had more synthetic polymers than a Dow laboratory. Scones, bagged in plastic drug across the scanner. Bleep. Blue cheese, wrapped in plastic. Bleep. Nuts in plastic bags. Bleep. Plastic by the pound slid past. Oops.
Gone Coastal (Part VII)
CHOCOLATE
As soon as we set anchor the boat settles as if the keel was set firmly in bedrock. The sun warms the decks and all manner of clouds dissipate. To the northwest the whipped sea is merely a dark ribbon of contrast below the gray sky.
The dinghy, which for the past two days hung flaccidly from the stern, suddenly becomes an object of serious attention. It is wrestled to the deck by the Coffeebean Brothers, Margarete the engineer and Elenore. The older Bean brother, Michael, is marking a milestone birthday and a trip ashore will ensure a proper celebration. As they lay the craft on deck the younger of the Beans glances over his shoulder as if he expects the coast to disappear. Four mates toil, the men stripping off fleece a layer at a time. Taking turns on a foot pump they work feverishly to revive the boat. Although the resuscitation attempt is intense, the launch refuses the inflation. Soon the entire crew has circled the craft with hands hanging slack at their sides. The little boat is a goner. There’s nothing anyone can do but stand silent and regard its passing. Finally someone asks, “Is there a water taxi? A shoreboat?”
You see, our voyage is dry.
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Sailing The Pink Sea
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COMING SOON!
I'm working on instructions for an eye splice any sailor would be proud of making.
