Ahoy, I sail.

Dear Babies,

"Why are you in a bathing suit?" I asked your dad yesterday on our way out the door.

"Why are you NOT in a bathing suit?"

"Isn't the point of a boat NOT to get wet?"

"You have no idea what you're in for, do you?"

And it was clear, then, that in regards to the sailing lesson we were about to embark on, no, I had no idea what I was in for.

"What happens if you capsize?" your dad asked as we drove to the yacht club on this sparkling Sunday afternoon.

"CAPSIZE!" The atrocity had never crossed my mind. I was thinking like sailing, you know, Jackie O, John F. Kennedy, pass the Grey Poupon.  As we pulled into the club's gravel driveway the outdoor bar along the water caught my attention, not the increasing wind speed or the rippling white-capped waves out on the bay beyond. "Do we have time for a drink? You know what would be great right now, a white wine spritzer--"

"BABE! Are you kidding me? You're gonna die out there!"

"What, I'm a sailor! Don't sailors drink?"

At that point, it also became clear that your father was in no mood for my humor.

"This is supposed to be fun, Denby, lighten up, you're like the Old man and the Sea." With our instructor in sight, I knew I had a short window to get any remaining corny nautical references out of my system. I had already been cut off from quoting "What About Bob?"--"AHOY! I SAIL!"--that morning at 10 a.m. "You're acting like we're gonna be battling Moby Dick out there." Okay, I was then done. We walked the rest of the plank, I mean dock, in silence.

..."Mike! Amy!" a sun-kissed man with a hearty hand shake greeted us. "Do you have anything you'd like to leave here?"

"Like what?" I asked.

He laughed. "Oh I'd leave anything you don't want to get soaked!"

I looked out at the stretch of water before us. At the dizzying path of jet skiers and kayakers and power boats and innumerable white sail boats being whipped around in a breeze that was suddenly looking more like a wind.

My bug-eyed stare could not be ignored. "There's a race out there today!"

"Oh great!" I said, my voice high, creaky.

"Yeah! You guys picked a good day to start. Great wind!"

I noticed my heart increasing in pace, so much so that I didn't even take the bait I was given about wind. (A mighty wind!) I was visibly nervous.

Your father nudged me a look of "I told you so," and I stepped awkwardly onto a tiny sailboat thinking I very well might die...

"Who's first?" the instructor clapped his hands and began rubbing them together, looking giddily between us both.

"Ladies first!" your father replied. (Don't cry for Daddy, babies, he gets me back sometimes, he gets me back good.)

"Okay great! Grab the tiller there with your back hand and..." and the instructions flowed as this man tried to talk me through sailing a boat in literally a different language. He must have went on for a good minute before I said, "excuse me, what's the tiller?" (The stick thing I needed to actually steer.) There was one word he said often that I understood loud and clear.--"Okay, get ready to tack. We're tacking." "Okay, what does that mean?" "Amy, DUCK!" as the massive main sail went flipping around to the other side of the boat and came this-close to whacking me unconscious in the forehead.

There are so many variables with sailing. The wind. The water pressure. My goodness, the other boats. Who has the right of way? Why? There was a race going on, a regatta! There's a speed limit? Water cops patrolling around! The Bay Constable, we almost hit him!

It literally is another world out there on the water...

One I knew nothing about...

One I now have such admiration and respect for...

"But how do you get to know all of that about the wind?" later I asked your dad when we were done with our lesson, finally enjoying that white wine spritzer from seats at the outdoor bar.

"You feel it..."

I paused. I looked out at all of the boats on the rippling water. Perfect triangles of white slicing by. The way the light reflected off of them was truly beautiful. I thought of the boat that we were just on, all the ropes, looking up at the sail when it was in full bloom. That feeling of driving it straight ahead out into the open water, with nothing before us but sun, and not looking behind...

I sighed. "I don't think I'm the type of person who feels the wind..."

Am I a natural sailor, babies, no.

But I tried. I put myself out of my comfort zone.

Every now and then it's important to do this, and not in a Vegas "say yes to everything!" sort of way that leaves you bowling with an Arabian shah in his hotel room that has its own alley at five a.m. (hypothetically speaking, of course).

Try things. You might like it. It's easy to come from a place of "why am I doing this? I don't know how to do this?" Don't let that stop you. Remember to say, "why not?" Look at your dear ol' mom here...

Ahoy, I sail.

Love, 

Mom