laurawhiterivers

I have my own boat today – because of you.

I remember 30 or more years ago, sitting on the deck of the sailboat SYSTOLE deftly crossing the Sound.  The wind was trapped fast in the canvas and her bow cut through dark waves. I could hear the foam stirring on the surface.  It was night, and the lights of shore grew more dim with each mile we put between us and the Mystic mooring field.  A glowing phosphoresence swirled in the inky black water at the transom and every star known to history spilled across the sky.

Those same twinkling beacons trusted by ancient explorers watched us venture out into the night.

It never left me.

Never.

It wasn’t easy to become a fledgling captain. My course to this moment has been horrible and beautiful; rather like a storm perched on the horizon painting the sunrise in every color, but always hinting at disaster.

My story doesn’t matter right now, only my gratitude.

I was always haunted by that night sail, and 25 years later, when I found myself a widow-captain, facing a cluster of gauges at the helm, and the idea that I would lose not only my husband but also our life on the water, I made the choice to learn our boat.  I had no idea how to run a boat.

None.

Today, I sit writing to you on my own boat, belonging only to me; a solo widow-captain surrounded by friends and a boat-family on a muddy, tidal upstate river. My life is rich, busy, and anchored soundly by the knowledge that I survived major loss and earned respect from my peers on the Hudson. They supported my journey from first mate to captain one hair-raising lesson at a time.

Thank you.

You were just taking a kid out for a ride on your boat – but the ripples of those trips have now landed three decades and two generations away.  I am teaching my teenage daughter to handle the boat now. There are very few young girls who can say they run a 44-foot cruiser with their mother.  It gives her a little spark of self-esteem that lives separate from any outside approval or affirmation, and I hope it insulates her against the pressures of our world today.

Thank you. It was just a ride on a boat, but it kind of changed my life.

Laura White-Rivers