Summer breeze...

We tried to fly kites in city park

under that sunny, endless sky

but the breeze wouldn't cooperate...

we still had fun though!

In Honor of my Anniversary - A Whole Lotta Text

Here is one of my favorite Journal Entries from "back then."

It's dated 7/16/07 - almost three years from today.

I take a slow amble to work. Work is in walking distance, skating distance and just a little under biking distance, though if I were running late it wouldn’t be too much to hop on the cruiser. This morning on my walk I was thinking about how our lives are full of “yes.” Someone on glitter once quoted someone that said “to every question asked of it the universe only says yes.” Which is absolutely true, if you think about it.

If you ask “Will I fail?” then you will.

“Can I succeed?” You will.

“Do you love me.”

“Yes”

“Do you hate me..”

“Yes” the universe says.

We can’t go through life constantly saying yes to everything or everyone – you’ll get trampled on and stomped on and you’ll lose your way among the brambles, but if you say yes a little bit more you’ll get places you never thought you would be.

This month I have said yes to a lot of things that I wouldn’t have done before.

“Yes, I’ll dance with you.”

“Yes, you can have that.”

“Yes, I’ll give that a try”

Yesterday I said yes and set sail (literally) on a little adventure.

I called up JR to go for a bike ride after finishing up at the Menomonee Falls event. We kitted up in our spandex, and headed out along the lakefront at a relaxing, post civil war re-enactment pace talking…we went and checked out the Discovery World Museum’s front lawn which has my new favorite toy – a little metal sculpture you put pebbles in and it makes noise and sounds like an African thumb piano.

After that, we headed south some more, right next to the lake, over by the summer fest grounds, along the shoreline. We had to take it slow because of all the pedestrians – there really isn’t much there right now but there are signs all over announcing that there will be a long grass prairie, a short grass prairie and a lawn for running around on. There is a little lagoon and a little floating deck to sit on in it. Very beautiful and there were so many people walking their dogs, biking, and just enjoying the view.

We had just exited the new park and gone into a parking lot saw and wanted to check out a little red light house. I wave at everyone. I say hello to everyone I pass. I thank anyone and everyone because I feel that the walls between people can come down a little more if I even just say two words. It brings them out, they stop staring at their feet. I stop staring at my feet. Anyways, I was waving at the boaters passing by and this sailboat comes towards us.

“want a ride?” he hollers at me.

I look back at Jon. We had just been talking about going sailing five minutes before.

“Want to go?” I ask him.

He grinned yes.

“Sure!” I shout back. I took off my shoes and helmet and put my sunglasses in JR’s jersey pocket.

We were basically on a cement pier and we didn’t have a bike lock, not that I would have locked that bike up anyways. There was a sketchy, rusted metal ladder leading down to the water, so the boatists moored up to the wall. Jon hopped down the ladder with his bike, his shoes clipped to the pedals, swinging free. He was safe on board. I passed my bike down, crossing my fingers that it would be okay and not end up on the bottom of Lake Michigan and then climbed down the ladder myself, bare footed, in a tri suit.

“Hey, I’m Peter.” The guy said, shaking our hands. We introduced ourselves and decided where to go.

“I’ll head to skipper buds” he said. “We’ll dock there and have margaritas.”

Peter turned out to be a person who retired at 41 and has been living on his boat since then. He does odd jobs for a living, just sails around, and hangs out. He seemed to know everyone on the water, from a twelve year old boy on a sunfish to a group of people on a yacht. He delivers boats, does refinishing of old buildings, you name it, he can probably do it.

Jon stayed in the back talking to him while I climbed up to my favorite place on the boat – the very front. I sat down at the prow and swung my legs off the front, dipping my foot in the wake.

It was beautiful, I cannot tell you how it feels to just be there, skimming over the water, watching it look like the melted glass from a house fire, all angles and peaks making wakes and waves and have the wind in your face, waving to everyone else in the Harbor. Boats let you walk on water, it’s a little like feeling a miracle.

We sailed down to this bar, shored up, and I learned how to tie a boat up. JR and I walked in, and the place was filled with Harley riders and their transvestite looking women. We were a little (to say the least) conspicuous in my tiny tri suit and JR’s spandex bike shorts and our bare feet, but we had some drinks and talked my Peter flirted with the rich ladies next to us.

After that we set sail again out of the harbor. I sat on the front again. I spent half my time looking out to the bay and the other half to JR and Peter who were talking. I appreciated watching them break down boundaries, connect to someone they would never have before. I’m not sure how we would have ever met peter otherwise, since peter lives on the water and JR and I are pretty much land locked – we use wheels, not rudders. We talk to the people we know, the people we are comfortable with, the people we are introduced to by safe people, which qualifies them as safe people, too. JR observed that we are taught as kids to say no to strangers, to stay away from people, lest they hurt you, that the world is harmful and evil and everyone is out to get you and those feelings are continued by the things that make us stay inside: Televisions, the internet, and any number of the things that take us away from the humanity of each other. We are consistently and quietly exiled to our own living rooms by these things.

Because we do not walk around and yell “hi there!” to everyone we don’t know that it’s a rare thing that you don’t get a “hey there!” back. When we open up and just say “yes, I’ll try it” you never knew what you might do, where you might go, who you might meet but you have to personally decide whether or not you are willing to take the risk that you may get hurt, that your toes might get stepped on, or that it may fly back in your face like spitting into the wind.

We were dropped off at the yacht club at about seven thirty, JR and I just glowing from the wind and the water. We put our clipped shoes on and rode out of the yacht club home.

I’ve never started a bike ride and ended up on a sailboat before.

I should really be asleep right now...

Shot until 12:30 AM, and we'll be getting up at 4:45 AM to shoot again...

Here are some stills from the little picture my friends and I are making for a class...

(PS: one thing I just noticed is that the blanket tag is showing! Oh well...we'll fix it in post :)