Wind on the Windows

It's been drizzling for days and days, and the weather predicts more rain as far ahead as the projections go.  The cumulative force of unending dull greyness and the chilly 50 degree mist makes me want to throw myself off a bridge, or at least curl up with a warm dog and a blanket and unhealthy food. This afternoon the rain took on a harder sound and the wind rose.   The trees with their new, still-wrinkled leaves started dancing and now it's a full gale outside, rattling the windowpanes and hissing and whooshing outside, with sudden bursts of raindrops hitting the side of the house in unexpected gusts. 

I like the cozy feeling of being inside a warm house on a rainy night, usually, but tonight in the back of my mind each gust of wind makes me uneasy.  My boat is in the water again.  We launched it the weekend before last, but postponed putting the mast up until later, and tied it to the mooring hastily.  We imagined there would, eventually, be better weather to go check all the halyards, and we headed to my garage for projects that could be done indoors.  Every jangle of the neighbor's windchimes and rattle of the windows makes me think uneasily about the boat.  I try to recall the knot I tied.  I'm sure it was good.  There's no reason to believe it wasn't.  But I didn't check the knot that my boat partner tied.  I should have double checked.  And I didn't tug at every line tying the mast onto the boat.  I should have done that.  I wonder how big the waves are down there right now. 

This must be a little bit like what a parent feels, when a child is off somewhere.  It's not worry, exactly.  There's no specific reason to worry.  Just a constant background awareness of something I care about, somewhere else, subject to forces I don't control.  Only a hope that she is safe. 

Comments

[turboglacier]

When I put my mooring down, I thought a single mooring pendant would suffice. But my friend, whose boat was to hang there, insisted on a double line. He was right. I slept better.

[MPM]

And speaking of pennants, I'm a fan of the yuppie yellow manufactured ones--Yale Polydyne. The ubiquitous spliced three-strand Nylon ones get all crusty and stiff, and I understand they fail by melting from the inside out as a result of repeated stretching.