Rebekah Speaks

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with this one wild and precious life?"    ---- Mary Oliver I ditched my island a few days ago---for a smaller one, the 42-foot fishing vessel  “Dreamer.” I spent the day and nearly the night with a friend, Dave, and his crew. I went with camera and raingear,  to watch how others live and catch fish. To get wet and work on the deck beside them. I went, in short, to see how they lived---the first of many trips ahead on other boats and places and islands, to see about this life on the ocean, how others live it, survive it.   I am beginning (finally!) a sequel to my memoir,  Surviving the Island of Grace , and already, such grace comes. A new book grants permission for such things. My job was to stack corks as they were winched on deck. A quarter mile length of corks, piling so high I soon could hardly reach them and had to stand on the rim of the stern to keep going. At the end of each set, more than...

It usually starts out with a neatly labeled bin (or two): Lost and Found. Most often located in a common area, these small reservoirs stand at the ready to temporarily stash a misplaced item. Sweaters, shorts, pants, belts, ties, lunch boxes, a single soccer cleat, jacket, a ball or two, a plethora of hair bows, a stray lacrosse stick, and more than a mountain of books accumulate with time. Seekers rummage through the growing pile of debris, some wondering if wearing surgical gloves would be prudent given the moldy applesauce spilling out from a not quite sealed plastic bowl. Nevertheless, the process rewards a few brave souls and saddens the rest (who are more times than not, the mothers of children whose items went MIA). I've sorted through more Lost and Founds than I care to remember. Getting two boys through a school that required uniform polos, white oxford shirts, khaki pants, blazers, belts, and specified shoes meant impromptu rescue missions when the closet was bare a...