Me sitting on the engine box on a boat named after me.
Boating.
It is in my blood.
16' Galstron I learned to ski from.
From way back into the 1600s
my ancestors named Newcomb (my maiden name) were
from coastal areas:
Martha's Vineyard, MA & Cape Cod, MA to
to Portland, ME to Vineland, NJ.
There were sea captains and whalers,
but also farmers and carpenters thrown in there too.
Me, thumbs up means faster.
I spent the weekends of my childhood onboard a boat.
My brother says he remembers holding my baby bottle
by the boat engine to warm it.
My nephew skiing behind his boat with my brother at the helm.
My husband, the engineer, is much too practical to own a boat.
But my nephew has picked up the slack there.
I have spent hours boating with him.
My son tubing from his cousin's boat.
Once on the boat
with the waves splashing
and the engine roaring
I have an internal sense of home.
Splash from the stern makes a rainbow.
That sense is very strange in some respects
because boating with my father was ANYTHING
but calming or relaxing.
TRAUMATIC is the best descriptor I can think of.
My brother at the helm of my nephew's boat.
(He shares the traumatic memories.)
But with my nephew,
the trauma is forgotten
and the sweeter memories of childhood
are rekindled.
My son being whipped around by his cousin
creating a different kind of traumatic memory.
Hopefully, a happier one.
I would have more childhood photos
if Evil Sister would share them.
But what do you expect from someone
who brainwashed your father against his other kids,
threw her demented mother under the bus for money,
refused to even tell the rest of us when our father passed away
and still won't tell where our parents' ashes are buried...
if they are buried at all.
My son's girlfriend takes a spin.
We are much happier without Evil Sister's manipulations anyway...
so forget the old photos.
We have less traumatic memories to document now.
Now excuse me while we go buy a boat,
er...kayak.
