Sailing and Slapping Halyards/Writer's Workshop #1
I started out writing this lamo draft yesterday based on one of MamaKat’s writing prompts. I experienced great pleasure “selecting all” and hitting “delete.” I feel great affinity with Mamakat’s blog and title, Mama’s Losin’ It. For any of you that visit here regularly, I know this doesn’t need explanation.
The sound I chose was from my day sailing days when many summer Saturdays were spent sailing in a small bay near the mouth of the Chesapeake.
So yesterday I found myself writing about this sound at a distance, thinking I could ignore all emotion. Since when has that ever worked? After another night of weird weather dreams (no tornadoes, though), I had to start over:
The rhythmic clatter of the slap of halyard metal to sailing mast, like that made by a school yard flagpole in a steady breeze, stood out in the non-motorized sailing world. As a group, sailors don’t much care for unnatural noises. The clamorous kind caused by un-captured winds causes sleepless nights. If sails and flags could be raised without halyards, I’m sure they wouldn’t exist.
When I was young this noise didn’t bother me at all. As a day sailor, I actually loved it. The clatter meant we were among the sailboats on trailers preparing for launch. Even though we were only an hour’s drive from where we lived, this sound evoked the most recognizable sensation among many that we had entered my favorite world. Even when the wind was non-existent, as it often was early in the morning, in my memory the movement of boats from land to water fluctuated with the same volley of sounds of metal and hollow mast.
I liked my new world where my mind could get quiet and that was pretty in a way that is impossible for a painting to quite do justice; that smelled like something marvelous and briney, that couldn’t be bottled and if it ever were, would never be right.So why would I choose, to leave that little space?
So that’s where I stay for now – there on the boat ramp, getting ready to sail on the soft open waters, knowing that it will be left behind later that afternoon.
Looking back, I think I would have done anything to stay and fall asleep to the sound of haylards.
LOVE your description! Well done.
That was a very beautiful post. I was transorted to the water!
You did a fabulous job describing the sound. While I was reading I could swear I was there with you!
So well written, what a lovely post.
The publicist was transported back to her sailing days with her husband. Even to the point of slight nausea as she was always seasick. It was her husband’s dream to sail off – literally. Her vomitting over the rails on a constant basis rather destroyed that dream so they took off in a land yacht instead.
Not as classically romantic but still fun.
She does, though love the sound of the halyards. Always has. She grew up on a bay in front of a small (very small) yacht club.
She thanks you for the good part of the memories but not for the slight nausea…
That so reminds me of my childhood. I grew up on the water in Central Florida with a fishing pole in my hand. We didn’t have sailboats. We used power boats (for the great distances) and push craft for the rest. Fond memories, indeed.
I enjoyed this post greatly. Thanks for writing it. 8^)
Beautiful writing…I was so right there with you, could feel the wind in my hair!
Stopping by from Mama Kat’s!
Over from Kat’s.
I could smell the sea….
awesome … i can hear that soundA!
Ooo I love this. I actually felt like I was there.
The best part is the way you established the mood and rhythm of water and the noise of the halyards. I could so imagine the whole scene.
I really enjoy your writing, Margo.
I have great sailing memories of my childhood, too. We had a 17 footer that we would sail around our little lake.
I know that sound well. Your post brought back a rush of wonderful memories.
You make me feel like I was right there with you…thanks for playing along!!
I so enjoyed reading this, being an aspiring writer myself, your images transported me there
The Peach Tart