Distance, Time, Emotions, and States of Mind

One of the longest trips I ever took was just a short hop from Mid-Coast Maine to Boston. It was the final act in the drama between my first wife and me.

The summer had been spent in a little cabin on the west side of the island; daily I commuted by bike to either the boatyard across the Gut to the large commercial boatyard I worked in, or to the little cove where my father-in-law, the Cap’n, kept his thirty-four-foot catch, Pyche.* I spent lots of time that summer doing work for my in-laws when I wasn’t working at other things. I cut wood, scraped bottom paint, helped haul boats out of the water for repair, and anything else the Cap’n could think of. Oh yeah, lots of sailing, almost daily. I learned to hand-reef and steer. I was an AB, an able body seaman, before the end of it all.

Originally, I had hoped to head to Pennsylvania to get established early before fall classes started, where I was going to do grad work in anthropology. But after many tearful sessions, I agreed to return to Maine for one final attempt to heal the marriage.

The problem was that the marriage was a multi-legged beast, like some mythical creature on a cartouche or armorial bearing. There was my wife, her mother, the Cap’n, Pyche, and me. Not to put it all on the others, I was willful, believed that I’d been fated to be a great anthropologist, and could do no evil. Up against that was a woman who couldn’t believe that her family was not the best thing created, and there was something odd in not diving wholeheartedly into membership. Said membership involved moving to the coast and catering to the Cap’n.

So that you know, things had been moving in this direction for two years. My wife “acquired” me at the end of my Pius Itinerancy. I was pretty much a project for her, and maybe one that lacked much promise, too. None in our families or social circles had much faith that I’d actually finish a degree. My history was so checkered with abandoned projects that most assumed it was an affectation, and that I’d soon revert to type. I admit that they had good reason for this belief. But things were changing, and nobody, including me, realized it.

Then, in my junior year, I had a paper accepted for a symposium. Then another. People in my department at the university began to pay attention. Talk began about going on to graduate school. My wife became concerned that her plans to relocate us to the Maine Coast with “Mommy and Daddy” were threatened. We already spent weekends, holidays, and vacations introducing Wes to the arts of boat repair, Coastal English, Coastal life, and being an understudy to the Cap’n. To my wife, an entire future she had been planning since before the wedding was threatened.

In my senior year at Boston University, I was accepted to three solid graduate programs in anthropology. But only one provided financial support. Without the support, I could not continue. I accepted it. That university was too far from New England for frequent trips to the coast or a relocation. DEFCON 3 was declared—a final summer in Maine to ensure that Wes would not leave.

We were two very stubborn people. Mind you, I don’t say she was evil, wrong, or bad in any way. We had always been going to different places; it was just that for a while we were on the same course. Those courses diverged, and it eventually came to her making the tactical error of insisting that I choose. Argument followed argument; rebuttal followed rebuttal. Right or wrong, I wanted to be a professional anthropologist, and this was my only chance. I chose, and we settled on a separation.

Soon I was back on the all-too-familiar road. My pack was on my back; I had a guitar case in one hand and a carrying case for my cat Clancy on the other. It was just a short hop to Philly for us. We didn’t think it was going to be the end of one world and the beginning of another, but it was. The separation became permanent, and then came the divorce.

If you follow the blog, or even casually peruse the stories, you might know that I’m from a maritime family – merchant marine, Navy, and just a hint in the past on my mother’s side of Privateering ( NOT Piracy – SEE!). I should have known that sooner or later that background and all the inculcation on the Coast would follow up and bite me. And it did.

I was at the Folklife Center in Massachusetts, which I had developed for the Department of the Interior. We had booked a model maker of ships and a boatbuilder to work in our exhibit area. Soon I was helping shape planks, dolly and drive rivets, and generally build a boat with a crew. Old stuff began to reemerge. When the great “Reinvention of Government” came along, there was an offer from my friend, the boatbuilder, to come on down to the coast and work in a boatyard.

I had completed one long journey that day and began another. It eventually led to years of working as a marine carver and, in a minor way, writing stories in this blog.

So long journeys can be measured in miles, time, emotions or states of mind.

• For readers of my stories about the coast, there really was a Cap’n and he really was a bit of a pain.