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Sailor’s Delight

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 2 Comments

We sailed for so long that second day, I felt the motion of the ocean while lying in bed–a joyous sensation.  While my body rocked, my mind rolled back over the events of the day.  The wind had been wilder this time, calling for more engagement from the crew. We began to keel and it took a lot to not fall over while filming as they rapidly trimmed the sails.  The snorkeling was better–we got the last mooring ball by the reef and visibility was clear.  Red coral, angel fish, parrot fish with pastel iridescent scales and light blue lipstick, some needle nose fish looking like a syringe with fins.  

I was also thinking about J.  He’d grabbed the check at the Happy Buddha Bar in the marina once we got back on shore–the unexpected move had evidently left an impression on me. 

Part of me thinks if he’s leaving soon, I should just throw myself at him and have a quick romp, riding it for all the good times I can–while I can. Part of me thinks I’m safe within his escape plan and I don’t need to do anything because why even start what’s got an expiration date stamped on it already?  I’m off the hook.  Besides, I’m off the market.  

The next day, my Facebook feed fills with sailboats for sale. After vetting them (okay, and picturing myself on them) I do my own little circumnavigation and text Pat about a few of my favorites.  They work together, so I figure he can tell him.  Pat tells me to friend J and tag him in it.  “He can be kind of shy.”  Feels like too big a step to take.  

I’m not sure what I’m doing when I reach out to him about coming to trivia at Waterfront Brewery the next night.  It seems pretty benign I tell myself, as I open then close Instagram.  Then open.  Then close.  

Then open. 

Pat had texted he’d be late, so I was preparing to wing it solo until he arrived.  Seeing J come around the corner of the bar truly startled me.  Since he hadn’t written back, and Pat didn’t mention him coming, I didn’t expect him and it caught me completely off guard.  

“What’s our team name?” Pat says when he arrives a little later. 

“Sailor’s Delight,” I say.

He laughs, “Leave it to the writer!”

“Actually, J came up with it, but I loved it.”

The TV screen with the questions is above us.  The scorecard on the bar below, I’m leaning over to write an answer when the next question comes on.  Fingers softly graze, then slightly rest on the inside of my arm, gently requesting my attention.  I lean back into this tender move as it withdraws.  Again I’m thrown.  It’s one of those moments you can feel getting recorded in the story of your life

J himself is a soft touch.  No big ego driven song and dance, no verbal billboard conversations.  His light teasing, when I make some comment about not minding mornings as long as no one’s telling me what to do during them, is: “Is that why I always beat you to the boat?” and a kidlike smirk.  It was more to say Hey, we have a history than, Let me use this to elevate myself.

After we come in fourth from last, Pat goes out to smoke and J and I swipe on the sailboats on my phone.  Island Woman.  Another one with a name we can’t read.  Again, I picture myself on each of them.  Again, I’m not sure what I’m doing or wanting to happen.  Left alone with him, I think I just panicked.  

Walking out into the humid locker room of a night, J makes another subtle move I find impressive. Pat’s first and we’re both in step behind him. Being closer to the door, J reaches out his arm and without missing a beat in word or step, he holds my gaze while he holds the door open for me via side arm.

I try to fall asleep for an hour, but I can’t because words keep coming, demanding to be written down. I write on three different pieces. Time with him hadn’t pinch off my muse, like I’d feared, it was doing the opposite.

Sailing, Takes Me Away. . .

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From the boat


When I was a little girl, I loved playing with paper dolls. Wardrobes made of paper hanging onto bodies formed from cardboard with little tabs folded over shoulders and around waists and legs. It was temporary, a strong breeze could render them naked once again. Easy to change if I changed my mind. 

J stepping into my eye line was a lot like that. Hanging there, against blue skies and cotton ball clouds, a fifty shades of aqua backdrop bordered by island sand. Did I say stepped into?. . . I meant sailed. The background and my friend Pat’s boat (and Pat for that matter) were all familiar–the cardboard constant. Making J the paper outfit overlaid on top.  New. Different.

But what I was really grooving on that morning–besides my love of water, boating and snorkeling the reef–was my essay placing in the contest I’d entered.  It would be published in the next few days.  I had champagne and was planning to celebrate with mimosas. 

Earlier I’d shared the news with my close writing friend and she’d offered to build me a website.  After the toasting and enthusiastic congratulations, I floated what I thought was a crazy idea.  I wasn’t a big enough deal to warrant a website.

Pat nods and J says, “You probably should have a website.”  

His words spread on me like frosting–a nice feeling on top of the nice feeling I’m already having.

The wind picks up the farther we get out, so I man (woman?) one of the winches adjusting the sails, prompting Pat to make a compliment about my strength in relation to my gender. To which I quip, “I like to be all the Spice Girls.”  I’m sporty, at times scary, other times posh, and have been ginger.  I’ve tucked my frilly dress up into the leg band of my underwear so it didn’t get caught in my bike spokes, riding in wedges for miles. 

I  break into a really bad cover of “If you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends.”

J chimes in from his winch, “I never understood that song.  Sure, I’ll get with your friends.”

I laugh into the gap extending to let this new interpretation settle in.  Clever. Sexy.  I’ll never hear the song the same way again.  

Another tab of J’s paper folds over.

I watch his back muscles roll underneath his shirt.  The way a sleeve folds into the crevice of a flexed bicep. And I watch myself watch, wondering what I’m up to.

Two weeks later I’m climbing aboard again and as we get ready to sail, I go down to link my phone with the Bluetooth speaker in the salon.  At my elbow is suddenly J asking, “Need any help?”

My knee jerk response to this question is always, no.  Because it hits me like an insult, implying I’m somehow incapable.  But in that instant, I see how it pushes others away.  I turn away in the circumference of this realization, a fighter pilot who’s just fired a missile but wishes she could take it back. It’s early and I secretly hope for another chance to play it differently.

A tab folds over.

We sail on and he says other things I like and jive with. And I notice myself watching his lips as much as I’m listening to the words coming out of them. Sometimes he does a little smirk and it makes me smile. I like his lips. I think the smirk makes him look cute.

Coming from self-awareness, he shares about needing to have his own personal space and how hard it is to have it in Key West.  How it’s all cramped living quarters for this huge chunk of change and he’s not really down with it.  Neither am I, that’s why I have a camper.  Neither is Pat, he’s on a boat tied to a mooring ball.  J couldn’t find a boat he and an insurance company could agree on so he applied for a job in Indiana.

There it is, the eroding of our island community conversation I’ve had with more people than I’d like.

“I’m so tired of saying goodbye to cool people,” I stare past him in a quiet moment of memoriam to all those who have gone before him. I feel his paper flutter in the winds of change.

I’m Off the Market Until My Book’s ON the Market

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“I’m off the market until my book’s ON the market.”  That’s what I said, and I meant it.  I was drawing a thou shalt not cross line in the sand. I should know better.

The last time I did that was after taking a trip with a guy I’d been dating for a few months.  We found a cheap deal to Vegas to escape winter in Wisconsin and thaw out for a while.  When we got there he invited his friends in Vegas over and they hung out pretty much the entire four days and three nights smoking pot in our hotel room while I complained about it to my sister on the lobby’s payphone. Had my car starting on fire on the way to the airport been a sign?  That’s right, on fire. The brakes locked up, causing friction to build and ignite something under the hood.  

I’ve never seen the metaphor as crystal clear as I do in this instant.

By the time we got back the relationship was also in flames. Our break-up was the final straw breaking the camel’s back–the camel’s back being my attempts at having relationships. This break-up, on top of a string of other break-ups, on top of my recent divorce had me assessing my already poor track record with men.

I said to my bestie Renee on our next girls night out, “Thirty days. I’m benching myself for thirty days. No flirting, calling, kissing, hugging or fucking for thirty days.” 

The next weekend on our next night out, a tall, dark and handsome (it may be cliche, but it’s also hella accurate) half of a twinset (which made him even more sexy)was buying me drinks and asking for my number.  Had to give him the brush off for three weeks, after which I fell madly in bed with him.  He was definitely one of the better choices I’d made.  Perhaps my brief hiatus had performed some kind of reset to the ‘my type’ presets.

And now, many years later I’m doing the same thing but for different reasons.  To continue with the sports allegory, like athletes not having sex before a big game–I doubt Lance Armstrong banged anyone the night before Tour de France–I’m not risking diffusing my energy, either.  I’m too easily distracted when I’m attracted. 

The I’m-off-the-market-until-my-book’s-on-the-market statement was made a few weeks ago, to much applause from those close to me who know this about me and support my focus.  Evidently cuing the Universe: “Let’s send Jen a nice boy.”  

Why?  I mean, Why now?  I’ve been in Key West on and off for four years, and now suddenly my good friend who rarely invites me sailing, invited me to sail with a friend of his who’s just learned how and wants some practice.  A captain.  Sure, why not.  It’s not bad enough he’s cute, funny, helpful and has great lips–he can sail and has a sense of adventure.  Am I being tested or something?  

This is bad timing.  Good guy. . . bad timing.  Feels like I’m just hitting my stride with my book writing.  

One Night Stand (part 1)

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Lost at Sea and Lost in Translation

A call to the island’s creative types went out from The Studios of Key West like a bat signal. Come together to write, rehearse and create backdrops for four brand-new 10-minute plays—in just twenty-four hours. Each writer form cast and crew by plucking names from an empty ice cream bucket and loose parameters from others. A line, a prop, a time, a place. We writers then turn in a short play at dawn, passing the baton to a cast and crew who will spend the day rehearsing and staging for two shows Saturday night.

Thus the name: One Night Stand.

After choosing “Tiki Hut Cruise” and “The Roaring 20s,” I sit down with my team and brainstorm. I don’t know any of them. None of them know me. I’ve been in Key West on and off for four years, but have only been on the periphery of the many theatrical productions here. I usually get a free ticket as a friend of the sound engineer and she takes me with her to the cast parties. It was by way of this friend’s invitation that I’ve landed here, wondering how I can possibly blend all this randomness into some sort of performance art for people to actually enjoy. I’ve never written a play, this is not my forte`

It’s my attempt at alchemy that makes me follow the stream to The Roost–a mini-version of a NYC pub around the corner. Reason would send me home to start coaxing creativity from my keyboard, but my highly social soul hates to miss any fun and wants to get to know these people a little better before telling them what to say and how to move. I’m mixing and mingling, scribbling ideas down and sipping champagne for said friend’s birthday eve. In a moment of subconscious clarity, I step outside because I think want to smoke. But what I need is the view looking back inside through the window at everyone drinking and laughing and talking–real Norman Rockwell style–it hits me that no one else hanging around is a writer. These are all the people who don’t start until what I do is finished. They’re due back at 8:00 in the morning. My clock is already ticking—I look over at the clock on the wall, it’s 10:30pm—AH! What was I thinking!!! I’d lost two hours of precious time already. A line from The Matrix blips across my mind, “Time…is always against us.” ~From the main man Morpheus.

So much can be revealed in such a quick pause. I pay my tab, grab my notes and hop on my bike, self-doubt creeping up with every push of the pedal. Halfway through the thirty minute ride home, it starts to come to me. Some lines, some costumes, a bit of a plot revealing a bit of a theme. I tap it out on my laptop, giggling and aha-ing to myself as I watch it gel. Texting others to see what they’re comfortable with, what they can bring from home. It’s a dizzying whirlwind of words and scenes–as creator and first audience member–I’m trying to capture and make stand still on a page to be shared with others.

I hit send and wonder: Would it even communicate outside of my own weirdly wired noggin? Would anyone get it?

To be continued….

An aMAYzing Month

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 2 Comments

I planted some seeds in the spring. I applied for a grant from the Anne McKee Artists Fund for my book Gut Instincts, to pay for editing and for the accountability to finish it so there was a book to actually edit. I submitted an essay entitled A Father By My Name to a WOW! Women On Writing contest. And I tried to quit my job by giving the following notice: “I think I’m going to go disappear into nature for awhile and write.” Key West was getting warmer and I felt the pull of literally greener pastures. As right as it felt at the time, I couldn’t sleep that night, which is unusual. The decision kept flipping around in me all unsettled like. I retracted said resignation the next morning. A few weeks later I’m offered a promotion — from my already cool job of playing games in swimming pools at resorts to regional manager. May first was my first day.

On May 12th I get to go to the awards ceremony for the Anne Mckee Fund and see the positive reaction to the name of my book and the inspiration the board of directors felt from my application. I’m handed a $500 check for half the grant award and tell myself do not spend this on a tattoo. I deposit it into its own savings account, just to make sure.

End of May I receive an email saying my essay has advanced to the top 40. The first time I submitted to this contest I didn’t advance at all. The second time, I made it to the top 40, but no further. This was my third entry and in June I see through tears of joy (bawling is more like it!) I’ve made it to the top 10 list, out of 244 entries. Regardless of where it places–first, second, third or one of the seven runner ups–my essay will be published, my bio and photo featured on their site along with an interview on their blog The Muffin. First, second and third come with cash prizes and if I’m fortunate enough to make it, I’m definitely getting a tattoo!

All these seeds sprouted–even the job one I tried to uproot and transplant–blooming in brilliance and then handed back to me, like a long-stemmed rose. The fact that I’ve touched someone with my words, took some chances and put myself out there, and went up a few steps in my resume` while trying to go a different direction are all pretty incredible gifts already.

Can’t wait to see what summer has in store. . .

Contest Notification

Rerouting. . . . .

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 3 Comments

I’ve come to think of the Holy Spirit as my life’s GPS. It’s got the map, it knows where we’re going. I, by contrast, am to wandering off and have a fondness for distractions and detours. The queen of wrong turns, I need never fear. Because just like Google Maps, if I get lost or turned around, the app will spin and say “Rerouting” until it displays a new blue marked path I can follow to get back on track.

I grew up learning about the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I’ve long since traded religious dogma for spiritual laws; gone is the God I used to worship as something superior–I’ve found him on the interior now, in a deeper connection to my true self. The meaning behind a lot of the things I heard taught has changed, but the names remain the same.

HS is kind of my favorite. An energy that communicates through hunches and serendipities, gut instincts and nudges. If I listen to them, I’m living my best life and I’m happy. I’m still reeling from the latest one…..

In April I was all set to do what I’ve been doing for the past two years: taking my camper and kitty to a state park and workamping (working in exchange for a free site). It was time for my next assignment. After giving my boss notice, it didn’t sit right. I’d gotten this job playing games in swimming pools at resorts around Key West. It was listed as a “gig” in the job posting, which was perfect because I was only going to be at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park for a few more moths (there’s limits on how long you can stay at one park). Super fun job, great money, I biked between pools in my bikini and was done in time for happy hour.

The way I found the job was kind of magical. I was recovering from COVID, unemployment was ending, and I was aware I couldn’t go back to bartending; I was too weak. I felt I’d outgrown my old way of being and working during the shutdown. I wanted something new. I went to Facebook and came across a page on my feed I’d never seen before and haven’t seen since. It was “Key West Gigs & Short-Term Jobs.” Perfect! My site at the park was short-term, too.

Funny how we get into things and then they change. Interesting how my plans morph and change without me even knowing it, until I try to assert them and they fall apart.

The next day I took my notice back. I’d slept on it and woke up uneasy within it. Took it as a sign and followed it. And then she offered me a promotion. So now I’m Regional Manager and have found a lot that I pay for, have a lease for, an electric and water bill. Things I haven’t had for six years and thought I might never have, or want to have, again.

I trust this new direction because of all the other new directions I’ve taken that ended up being better than what I thought I wanted.

Gina

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I’m volunteering at the Mile Zero Fest in Key West. From my post at the entrance gate I can hear Cody Canada and the Departed are on stage. I wasn’t sure I’d like this kind of music — thought it might sound a little too much like country music — but they’re winning me over. Their strong guitars and the front man’s banter are winning me over: making me dance, even. We’re at the Sunset Green’s Lawn across from the Gulf of Mexico and in between two hotels: 24 North and The Gates. 24 North is named after the latitude and longitude of its location; I have no idea what The Gates is named after — although its bar, Rum Row, has lots of quotes about Hemingway and rum runners.

From the stage, Cody announces that a women in the front row has left with the parting words of: this isn’t red dirt music! His response slams her with, “Red dirt isn’t a genre it’s a place in your soul.”

Or something like that. His words and certainty grabbed me and made me like him even more. It seemed like a good way to address it and the crowd went wild. They moved on and into another great song. After which this banter began between Cody and the crowd. They started using the “K” word (Karen) which then became “Fuck you, Karen!”

Then I heard Cody talking with someone in the front row about what her real name was and the slam of the woman morphed into, “Fuck you, Gina!” I gave a nod to their creativity, even smiled a little. As a writer, I am familiar with rejection and am very sensitive to its encounters.

At the end of the show, people were filing out of the gate saying, “Fuck you, ‘gina!”

As in the abbreviation of vagina.

Ok, now they’re slamming girl parts. They’re using girl parts as an insult. Boy, am I tired of that.

How the fuck can the vagina, the gateway of newborn life, ever be associated with weakness? Reduced to a slur.

Meanwhile. . . “grow a pair” or “have some balls” is equated with toughness.

Have you ever seen a guy get hit in the balls? Watched him crumble to the ground like a bouncy house that just blew a seam? Come on. How has having balls been associated with strength while a vagina, capable of an expanding to encompass the size of a tiny human, gets the rap of weakness?

In the immortal words of Betty White: “Why do people say, ‘Grow some balls?’ Balls are weak and sensitive. If you really wanna get tough, grow a vagina. Those things really take a pounding!”

The Laundromat

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I was going to bike to a free washer and dryer, but the little voice in my head said, “Just go to the laundromat. It’s closer. It’s easier. It costs a whole four dollars.”

I like to listen to that voice. One, because history shows that it knows stuff and two, because what doesn’t get listened to tends to stop talking. It’s taken me on wild and wonderful rides in the past, so I tend to trust it. I scoop the clothes out of my bike basket and as I load the washer I see my bike start to tip in the wind. I catch it before it falls and the guy folding his clean clothes — the only other person in there, surprisingly — remarks, “You caught it, nice job.”

Random comments like that can be rare in Key West, almost as rare as a practically empty laundromat, which makes me pick it up and run with it. Our chit chat turns to the power of positive thinking and we share some of our favorite inspirations. It’s when I mention that I meditate that his face really lights up.

We’re also both gypsies, cheating the seasons. He’s down from Pennsylvania where it’s too cold to work construction, I’m here because of opportunities aligning.

“We should hang out sometime,” he offers.

I’m aware that I don’t respond to his suggestion, but I’m unaware as to why. And now I have two conversations going: the one with him and the one in my head trying to figure out why I didn’t take him up on his offer. He seems cute enough: hair on the longer side, curling up around his ears and where it hits the top of his T-shirt. He smiles a little when he talks, and he talks like a guy who takes responsibility for his life, his thoughts and his choices.

Sometimes you get so used to turning away from what you don’t want that when what you do want faces you full frontal, you wobble. Forget your lines. I’m prone to saying yes easily and effortlessly and I’m not sure it serves me in the romantic realm of my life. Somewhere in me it seems there’s been a decision to take things more slowly.

He mentions he likes to hang out at one of my favorite spots: the state park, Fort Zach. Here’s my chance. I say I love that place and I would totally hang out with him there. He doesn’t grab my offer like a lion coming up on a gazelle in the wild; he casually nods and says when he tends to be there.

It’s the desire to share a YouTube video of inspirational quotes that brings the exchanging of phone numbers to the table.

As we say goodbye, he makes the classy move of saying, “I’d love to take you out to dinner some time.” Nailing the landing, in my book.

The Power of the Negative vs. the Positive

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I’m really good at my job, mostly because I love it. It’s perfect for me; and vice versa. I play pool games (swimming, not table) at various resorts in Key West. Every late morning I ‘suit up’ in a bikini and tank top with the authoritative “Instructor” across the back and pedal my bike from one end of the island to the other stopping to play pool golf, Name that Tune, Black Jack on a floating table made of foam; handing out free drink tickets to the winners.

Only in Key West.

And I rock it. How could you not? It’s easy, fun, I’m independent and my boss and I love each other. It helps that I seem to be a natural promoter via my enthusiasm for anything fun. I get my exercise biking sometimes a total of twenty miles in an afternoon, meet cool people—people from home, fellow funsters, musicians setting up to play after I’m done—and satisfy my need for variety because no day and no pool are ever the same.

The bartenders support me and my cause because happy guests are good guests and good tippers. Except for this one bartender this one day who decided to spread lies and ruin my life. I wish I didn’t let people’s inaccurate depictions of me hurt so much, but I’ve never been able to get away with it. I try; tell myself all the upbeat, fortune cookie sized things, like “other people’s opinions of me are none of my business” and “you know your worth” and “hurt people hurt people” but inevitably doubt creeps back in and washes over me, wave after wave. I try to not let it capsize my boat of self-certainty, which now feels more like a Tom Sawyer raft than a boat.

In a sea of positivity, why do I let this little drop of negative become so strong? Why do I weight it so much more heavily? Why do I let one voice become louder than the rest of the choir?

I don’t know. I mean, I do and I don’t. I’ve struggled with it practically my whole life, this, as Mary Karr puts it, “constantly checking to see where I am in line” in relation to others. As much as I tout the stand strong and tall imagery when things are going well—or when things aren’t for someone else — I can crumble when someone starts throwing mud. Because deep down I fear they are right. Deep runs the doubt that maybe I’m not good enough. Not by a long shot.

So I hide. I dodge my boss’s texts asking me to call her about the comments this guy has made about me. Kind of like I hid my underpants as a kid when I’d wet them. Then I go into victim mode, almost paralyzed by a situation that I’ve given way too much weight to.

I apply for other jobs. Or I threaten (whom? myself?) to leave the island entirely; never to be heard from again. Fight or flight. Fight or flight. I know it’s ridiculous but I can’t stop the mental calisthenics. I’m too well practiced. It’s second nature at this point. Maybe first nature, even.

Then, for no other reason than I’m tired of it, I reach out. I take baby steps to stand up for myself and set the record straight in the most compassionate way I know how. That’s when it shifts. That’s when I find out how good it feels to bring things out into the open where they can be seen and my true reputation established.

Just In Time

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My financial funds hadn’t been this low since I was in college. I wasn’t exactly eating ramen noodle, but I was checking my banking apps daily–sometimes several times a day–keeping a close eye on what was coming in (not much) and what was going out (much too much). Do I drop my car insurance? The camper insurance? Food?

Florida can sustain me with sunshine, the salty air in my hair and surround me with the calm and curiosity that the aqua blue of the ocean evokes. But a pandemic that ended my job made me dependent upon an unemployment benefit of $197 per week (one of the lowest in the country) that I had to coax from an archaic website meant to discourage access. There was literally a stick figure that moved across the screen telling me where I was in line.

I’d lived like this for the past year and a half. I was now newly employed, but the paychecks hadn’t hit my account yet. Just as I was scanning my mind for even more creative financing options–I’d already returned all the Amazon purchases that still had the refundable window open and spent all my gift cards and return merchandise credits–my birthday weekend rolled around.

And as I was working in my new gig of Pool Game Instructor, the topic would come up. This led to one of the guests/gamblers at my floating BlackJack table insisting, in his accent from Quebec, that he was buying me a birthday drink. And then another. Sure, he was winning, but it was only Monopoly money–er, chips.

I was drying off next to a chaise lounge after saying I really had to go to another resort and play more games in another pool when he came up to me and handed me a hundred dollar tip. I tried not to take it even as my wallet’s mouth watered, knowing how much I needed it. He pushed it back towards me. I shook my head, took a step backwards, trying to give my resistance deeper meaning.

“Just take it.” He said it so softly it was almost like he knew how much I needed it.

So I took it. Because I did. Badly. And then I thanked God once again for filling a gap that I was powerless to fill. I was grateful, this week before Thanksgiving, and somewhat amused that this Power greater than myself had Its own creative financing at play. Moments like this humble me. Remind me. Of that Bible verse “Consider the lilies of the field….”