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 an hour of cork-stackin

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