first morning here, the light poured in through the hatches & we got a good first look at Naguargandup. We hurried thru chores & filled up ‘Oily Residue’ w/ masks, flippers & lunch & headed to shore.
Corgidup was too small (& by the way, no pelicans). So we motored to the bigger island, Salar. The kids ran & dodged through the palm trees screaming. Juliet & I stood there in the wind & suddenly I think we both felt the same thing for a change. We both knew the same thing and we didn’t have to say it or name it. To me, that’s love.
Salar is a perfect, 4-person-size island. A corner for each of us. Sybil loves to climb the tilted palm trees. Doodle favors the bathwater-warm basin hidden between the island & the broken coral heaps. It’s the coolest baby pool you ever saw—
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For people who have been unhappy for long periods of time, happiness can feel vaguely uncomfortable. They do not quite know how to submit to it, or whether or not such a submission is wise.
On Salar, I did not immediately recognize the feeling—a sumptuous lightness, a nervous vibration, summons to laughter. I watched Sybil in the tree. Georgie, standing bowlegged, squinting in the sunshine. The wind rooted in my mouth, hair, and lungs.
I was still struggling to describe the wind. Nosy wind. Avid wind. Silencing wind. It had so many variations. In the canopy, it rustled the hem of Sybil’s sundress. It filled her skirt full as a bulb.
Childish wind.
I had always wanted a tree-climbing girl.
I needed you. I didn’t want a boy,
only a girl. A small milky mouse
of a girl, already loved, already loud in the house
of herself.
We spoke very little that day. We’d lose track of each other, then spot each other in the stippled shade. I was playing in the sand with Georgie when I looked up to see Michael watching me. Just watching me, leaning against a nearby breadfruit tree, a look on his face I’d never quite seen. Soft, with no pretending. Tender, impartial. We stared at each other across this space until, shyly, I looked away. When I looked up again, he was smiling. As I said, we hadn’t been in a great place before the trip. I think we’d both been very worried—in suspense.
But now, look, he was smiling.
Thank you, he said.
Sometimes, when I fear that I was not a good wife, I think of this moment.
Georgie charged into the foliage, and the spell was broken.
I laughed and followed, unhurried, through the reddish palm trunks until we reached a fire pit. Charcoal and fish bones. Look, I said to him, and drew a black streak on his bare arm. He stared at me in awe and copied on my arm. Then he was off again, stumbling past a thatch fishing hut, where brittle fronds hissed in the wind. He tunneled headlong into the invisible resistance of the wind. I had to jog when I lost sight of him.
Dooodle, I called.
But there he was, at the end of the island, where the surf crashed upon crushed coral heads.
Occasionally I would turn and look for Juliet. I could see her through the palms, her anchor chain loose and relaxed, deck tidy, and mast barely stirring. She nosed around in a circle, forgetfully waiting for us.
It was like love, what I’d begun to feel for the boat by then.
But as with love, I questioned the feeling.
I have never known when to let love hold my weight.
Feb 5. LOG OF YACHT ‘JULIET.’ Naguargandup Cays. NOTES AND REMARKS: Big day for Sybil! Till now she’s ridden my back tadpole-style when snorkeling. Today exploring Salar she pushed off & didn’t look back. We swam all the way out over the coral heads side by side. You think those things are rocks? I asked her later. It’s all alive. Fish represent just a tiny percentage of sea life. Proportionally, it’s almost all invertebrates. This includes sponges, jellies,