Boiling Water

 

This week I was flooded with random, unconnected tropes in the haze of an embarrassing withdrawal. I’m at that age where don’t forget to take your pills clashes with not those pills. Every couple of years I take a trip to Chichagof Island and as you sail into Cross Sound at the changing tide, the dark incoming waters of the North Pacific meet the milky glacial meltwater of the fjord estuary and that’s where I’m floating now, between pitch and rock flour.

The cooldown hug. This is where an aggrieved lady meets the man who has caused her rage in full battle mode but after receiving her blows and gathering her fists, collects her into assuagement, There, there, I know, and usually, even if he doesn’t know, her fury dissolves into surrender, but just once, it would be funny if she was hiding a tetanus shot in her overcoat and just jabbed him in his inguinal fold and you get to watch his condescending smugness evaporate into shocked agony. Now you know mother fucker! Bonus points if the writer already foreshadowed that the dude is an anti-vaxxer. Or maybe just find an actor with spasmodic dysphonia.

The boiling of the water. Having once assisted with an unexpected delivery when I was an EMT, one of my deepest regrets (so deep, in fact, that I didn’t even know it was a regret until this week) is after having arrived on scene not grabbing the husband by the shoulders and earnestly directing him to Go boil some water! But now that I’m unwillingly reliving all these random scenes, the man then says to me, Isn’t that just something from the movies? I reply Where do you think movies come from? And turn back to my patient, helping deliver a healthy baby. In real life, the baby was not healthy, and I merely delivered and subsequently sat on the placenta.

Avoiding the crack in the sidewalk. We moved into our house ten years ago, and the neighborhood has a lovely walk. Last week, randomly, I noticed for the first time that Alex was avoiding stepping on the sidewalk cracks. We’ve been married 31 years.

You do that?

Yes.

That’s not a thing in Romania!

No.

I never knew.

There, there.

***

We took the boat out to Boston Harbor, but I somehow got lost, and took us up to Case Inlet, and we then had to sail all around Harstine Island, then south between Hope and Squaxin Islands. In ten years, I’ve never made that kind of error, but it was a lovely mistake. Six months without a drop of alcohol and suddenly I’m a nervous captain, acutely aware of rogue wakes and random flotsam. A year ago, we were cruising at 25 knots in a stifling heat on becalmed waters, and I found myself getting prepared to jump from the boat into the sound, knowing that they would have turned around and picked me up. It was the closest I’ve come to hearing the siren’s call, and it very likely would have killed me.

What’s the longest you’ve gone without drinking?

12 years.

Really? When was that?

When I was 12.

I’m no fun anymore.