Thursday, July 24, 2008

zipping across H2O

18 Jul 2008 from PEACEWORK's MySpace blog


Current mood: blissful
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

just when you think, "oh no, that was a split second too late or too early", feel yourself tipping over backwards already calculating whether it's going to save damage if you jump off and where the mast is going to go, you see the horizon tilting and the board turning into an alligator under your too fast and/or slow moves with your greenhorn cut up barefoot soles - THAT is when the sail catches you and the boom pulls so hard in your fists that the chalice in your palms will disguise your formerly fragile hands within two days. Shovels, that's what I have now. "Pull the gas in slowly now", he yells across the water, and my body tells me to step out both feet and lean into the wind to come up with the least against that pulling wind that carries me FOR FREE, while the board divides the gusty river with me on it. I f..g did it. I am wind surfing.

Yeeeeehaaaaa!

And when you're in it, it's fast. No thinking, just feeling it move you, feeling where it wants to be on the sail, moving, tilting, changing, adjusting your position, careful, not to hurt your feet on the router end.

The board so tippy, the possibilities of a freely turnable mast endless, the adrenalin rush under full sail doesn't compare to much other. There is no stable position on that board except under wind. Tip the mast to the front it turns downwind, tilt it back u go into the wind. What a fine line that is, and how little can throw u out of it... it's like dancing, though: don't look at your feet, just never let your sail out of focus. The wind is your friend, just gotta feel out how to ride it... wow, riding the wind. How lucky am I that other people invented all that already??

This whole mast-boom-sail-board-and-router-thing is such a genius cohesion, but actually very simple when you look at it. Brilliant, really. I love it.

Scott showed me how to turn behind the sail in tipping the mast over to the front of the board - in weak winds, but nonetheless - to-tal-ly cool. I haven't tried it yet, but just because of the stupid thunderstorms and the wind dying down yesterday.

Pride or some triumphant feeling in my chest. Standing on shore with the legs straight first since an hour and shaking. Maybe just coming off the a and trying to breathe, too. I knew all along that I wanted to do it and that I would like it. The first time I remember trying it, I was in an English class on Malta, with my mom and brother. We lived in families, they together in one, me in a different one. I remember the really big cockroaches on the streets at night, tea and toast with orange marmalade for breakfast and lots of salty water down my nostrils while trying to cross over to an island with my things over my head - I turned around... back? In any case, I never made it to the island, didn't drown either, though. We had access to some kind of beach club close to the school, where they had some boards. The ones I tried had the mast coming out of the lock while trying to pull the sail up, so I gave up pretty fast, not without wrecking my back. The whole thing was free, but no lessons and pitiful equipment - tasted like a cheap copy of the real thing then, and it makes me so happy to have gone with that instinct and kept on looking for it...

I remember my disappeared dear cousin Elmar inviting me for lessons, he spent a lot of time windsurfing when we were still all living in G... he is blond, so blond, his hair is so fair...

I never went. Now I feel like going to Mexico (where he was last seen) just to try to find him, do something instead of just sitting here. I am debating if a facebook page would help finding him... it's like admitting that he's lost when u start your search. It's like believing that u can still find him at the same time...

The younger sister of my grandmother (my mother's mom's sister) and her husband, my favorite uncle Mietek once taught me some sailing lessons in an optimist - I must have been a kid then, the wall was still up and everybody needed to get through these nasty border controls while traveling to Berlin or Szcezchyn, where the daughters of the couple live. I can still feel the water on my arse, while some blond almost-man pulled me back to shore off some lake, rope-attached to his motor boat, I was silently dying of shame while his stone grey-blue eyes stared into the open. I didn't speak Polish, and I don't remember him saying anything in German to me...

Except for the day when I managed to cut my feet up pretty painfully because I couldn't get it together in that kind of super wind and drifted around more or less wasting myself on trying to pull the sail up in the gusting winds, I caught myself thinking "yeah, aunt Renate and uncle Mietek would be proud of me now if they were still alive", when they were probably feeling really amused at best to watch my total failing which demonstrated sufficiently how I had not grasped any of the sketches on the chalk board concerning wind direction, turn line, tacking and so forth, that they wasted on me during that theory lesson.

It's all behind me now. If only my feet's cuts would stop burning... we used to jam in the morning, now it's more like: "What's the wind like, honey?"

Anybody heard the weather forecast?

After all that summer leisure I'd like to point out two things:

1. Merrickville residents saved so much water that the town is now raising the water fees. That sure is one hell of a policy in terms of motivation. Wrong signal, daddy-oh. Or are you trying to scratch up the lacking six million for the treatment plant? Meanwhile it can only appear decadent to flush your excrements with potable water instead of composting or fermenting to use the remaining energy...

2. I'd like to share Janet Stavinga's invitation to the next Source Protection Report SPC meeting (no idea about this abbreviation) on August 7th, @ 1pm in the Plevna community hall.

Janet is the chair of the Mississippi Rideau Source Protection Region located @

3889 Rideau Valley Drive, Manotick ON K4M 1A5
1-800-267-3504 ext 1147 or 1 613 692 3571

In the add in the Advance Weekender from today is a lot more interesting information and one can probably find out about that here
www.mrsourcewater.ca and here
www.ebr.gov.on.ca (u may wanna comment until deadline Aug 4th on proposed legislation detailing how to prepare technical assessment reports, registry 010-3873) and by emailing her here: janet.stavinga@mrsourcewater.ca,

but attend in any case, because "This meeting will be interesting as we hear from the Province as to whether or not uranium exploration is a significant threat to our municipal drinking water systems" (from Janet's invitation).

I can't wait to see whom they will send to tell those lies...

peace always, my friends, and a good night!



Weeds and the Suburbanites

(clicking on the title takes u 2 an interesting article about lawns)

Morning!

Somebody sent me this by email and I am smiling over the timing... I suppose, a lot of you enjoy the rain as you don't have to water your lawn, but it makes the grass grow so fast... well, I hope you'll find this conversation between GOD and St. Francis stimulating, too.... The photo shows my backyard. I didn't plant much and I never ever weed it, needless to say. I did put the stone walkway in...




GOD:

Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago?
I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles.

ST. FRANCIS:

It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers "weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

GOD:

Grass? But, it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees; only grubs and sod worms. It's sensitive to temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

ST. FRANCIS:

Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

GOD:

The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

ST. FRANCIS:

Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it - sometimes twice a week.

GOD:

They cut it? Do they then bail it like hay?

ST. FRANCIS:

Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

GOD:

They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?


ST. FRANCIS:

No, Sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.


GOD:

Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

ST. FRANCIS:

Yes, Sir.

GOD:

These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

ST. FRANCIS:

You aren't going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

GOD:

What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. It's a natural cycle of life.

ST. FRANCIS:

You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

GOD:

No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?

ST. FRANCIS:

After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

GOD:

And where do they get this mulch?

ST. FRANCIS:

They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.

GOD:

Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

ST. CATHERINE:

"Dumb and Dumber", Lord. It's a story about....

GOD:

Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.