Hope Floats
- Ann Cognito
- Jul 9, 2021
- 6 min read
And so does the Climate Emergency Sailboat!
Or she will shortly…
RSVP
But hm. The colour’s gone rather wonky here. In case it’s not readable, here ’tis again quick:
You are cordially invited to the beginning of something EPIC
July 15 2021 at Blue Heron Marine, 487 Thousand Islands Parkway, near Ivy Lea on the St. Lawrence.
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It’s been ridiculous getting this organized, because I didn’t know enough about the first boatmover or about how to move Skoro. I was trying to get things done quickly and efficiently, but it cost a month, and a lot of stress (and money). Also because I’m not good at organizing. I nearly frazzled myself out of a launch site when I got too hard to get along with but thankfully that person is patient beyond the call of, well, launching I suppose. I’ve learned a lot already.
I’ll pick away at the work she needs on the water, while being grateful there’s not that much of it, that it’s largely things that can be picked away at that way (but still soon), and that there’s still a bit of time to work out how and where to switch her freshwater bottom paint for oceanworthy antifouling stuff.
I’ll also just be grateful to be on the water, and in my floating home, and on the first leg of something I’ve been waiting my whole life for.
I’m letting go of living with foundations. I don’t know how this will go, but all my life I knew I’d go off on a small sailboat to tidy up the watery world, and try to make the whole world a better place.
I may not have realized years ago that this would also involve a global climate and human rights crisis, as well as my own health crises, let alone the paperwork that now resembles nothing more than a virtual salad of shredded baloney with a lot of special sauce.
But I have a sailboat, and a purpose.
Some of the places I’ve always wanted to visit are now in imminent danger of being flooded or scorched out of existence. The Galapagos and other island nations have always called me… now they’re calling all of us, for help, while they measure the ocean as it comes closer and closer to covering them.
Maybe there won’t be anything left by the time I reach those places. Maybe I’ll never see them and neither will the rest of us. Maybe I’ll never even get that far.
I have no idea, and there’s been a lot of days lately when I wasn’t even sure we’d reach the water at all this summer, or maybe ever, let alone the Galapagos Islands. But somehow the universe has seen fit to provide me with a good, solid, trustworthy sailboat, in the midst of the most unlikely-for-that-to-happen circumstances. So I’m trusting my boat, and the universe. I’m also trusting you, in a way, because to me — putting my brain and my heart out here online is a heck of a lot more terrifying than anything that can happen to me on the water.
I don’t say that lightly. I used to have a friend who responded to most trouble by saying “Worse things happen at sea!” Apparently her grandfather had been a lifelong sailor, but the same sentiment exists across the oceans, and it’s true. The sea is lovely, dark, and deep… and it has promises to keep.
Award winning BBC photographer Jeff Overs captured this image from Newhaven Harbour on the English channel just recently.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CRAK8nOnt-d/
But there’s two other quotes which I take to heart just as much.
I don’t want to be ‘safe’… none of us are any more. I want a planet with life, maybe even some human life. I want a future full of life, for myself but even more — for the planet. I want a world that makes sense. I want to be able to look myself and anyone else, including the Earth and the universe, and say “I did everything I could.”
I want those things so deeply I can feel them between the fingers of my heart. I can see them with its eyes. I smell them on every bit of wind. I have thought about them completely.
I am convinced they can exist.
So I’m going to find them.
I dare.
It’s a little daunting, but mostly the logistics and organizing. It’s unknown. All sorts of things could happen. But all sorts of things happen anyways, and I’m scared of everything all the time anyways, including most people, and definitely including most systems (of human construction). I’m absolutely terrified of being completely without any means of financial support, but I won’t give up my possibilities for it. I even have a self-acknowledged life-long paranoia about running out of food to the extent that there is nothing at all for anyone. I’m afraid of putting holes in this beautiful sailboat by working on her while she’s (arguably) as stable as Baba Yaga’s house.
The Russian folkloric witch Baba Yaga’s house ran around on chicken legs… Image from baba yaga – Google Search | Baba yaga, Baba yaga house, Art (pinterest.ca)
Blah blah blah etc whatever.
I’m a lot more afraid of global ecosystem collapse.
I’m a lot more afraid of the collapse of social justice and human rights.
I’m a lot more afraid of all those 1970’s sci-fi novels I grew up on becoming all too realistic.
I’m a lot more afraid my son will never have children and a safe world to raise them in, because he would be such a good parent.
I’m a lot more afraid of how I’ll feel if I don’t try. I’m a lot more afraid of what will happen if we all keep waffling and trying to figure out better ways of doing things. I can’t waffle about this any more.
One of the many things I’ve learned through this boat mis-moving, boat not-repairing, boat not-launching-yet fiasco is that yeah, there’s a lot I’d like to do, but all that really matters is staying afloat – in every sense.
There’s no point putting curtains in Skoro, and scrubbing things and grinding things and installing things, if clomping around (I’m not very graceful and I drop things, power tools occasionally included) inside her to do it inadvertently causes irreparable damage. As long as I get her seaworthy (paint the bottom) and get us started, the rest can wait; I know it will get done, properly and safely, pretty soon.
There’s no point debating over which power source our populations ought to move to… just quit using so astoundingly much till we get a handle on alternatives, or we’ll be too dead to need any.
There’s no point debating the wording of bills written to mend (or prop up) governments that need to cease to exist… we need to step in and rewrite the way human society is put together, with holistic, community-based ways of managing ourselves, before there are none of us left.
There’s no point putting our PFDs on in the middle of the ocean if we don’t bail and row, and send messages… and swim.
We’re all in this boat together… in the large metaphoric sense, but we’re also on board Skoro. You being part of this puts you aboard as much as me, because you’re part of how it’s happening.
As with the Walk and Camp, through you and all the others who become part of the journey, I see — and can share — so much of the good in human beings, so many ways, so many places.
Caring and community really are our default settings.
The planet matters to us and the future matters.
We need to believe in what we can do so much that we do it.
That’s what keeps hope afloat.
With hope and determination,
Ann
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If you can donate, especially now, I thank you from the bottom of my heart… If not, please share this or another post anyways so others know this is happening
Either way, please come aboard the blog for more news and writing and rambling and photos… there’s a thing on the page to get notices when I write!
SKORO WEARING HER FIRST COAT OF BLUE!!! She’ll look even better in a day or two with a second coat, and without masking tape, but it’s a perfect sailboat blue. Now if the other things would go so well… but they will.
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