February 4, 2006

• The Anchoring Dance

  When
  you search “sailing solo” on Google, all you get is sailing
  organizations for single people. That’s frustrating. I used to wonder
  why the guy I crewed for NEVER sails with his wife. She sails with her husband’s brother instead. I thought that was kinky. But now I totally understand. And it explains why they’ve been married for 14 years.

  Almost
  every time we sail together, Matt and I argue. We both love to sail,
  but we both want to be skipper. Too many cooks in the galley.

  So,
  last month when we attempted to go sailing in near-25 mph winds,
  because it was my only day of vacation, it failed miserably. We never
  got out of port.

  I came stomping home, and my neighbor lady, the
  one who’s retired, looks up from her gardening. She smiles at me and
  asks, “Did you guys go sailing? I saw you pulling out of the driveway
  with the sailboat this morning.”

  “No.” I said tersely, and went inside where I proceeded to throw an infantile temper tantrum.

  Later
  on, I baked some brownies and brought them over to her house. She
  talked with me about how she and her boyfriend used to go sailing on
  Lake Travis in Austin, and they always fought. “It’s not uncommon,” she said, with the voice of experience.

  Eileen Quinn says it best:

  
  

  excerpt from “The Anchoring Dance” by Eileen Quinn . . .the perfect little parking place is easy to find all you really got to do is read his mind if what your honey wants is hard to tell when the hand signals fail you can always yell grind your teeth or shout till you’re hoarse there’s always one more step you can file for divorce no better way to test a true romance than to do, do, do the anchoring dance. . .

  • 6:20 pm
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