Of Sailing and Gardening

Sailors, it would seem, have little in common with gardeners.  But this time of year, in the Pacific Northwest, they are brothers and sisters under the skin.

It is a time when being outdoors is unpleasant.  It gets dark early, and light late.  It is cold and rainy outside.  For the sailor sitting in an open cockpit or the gardener in ankle-deep soupy mud, it is a time when each wishes that he or she was in a warmer climate.  And so neither ventures forth from their carefully-maintained bubbles of warm dry air.

But we dream.

With cruising guides and seed catalogs we dream of the coming times when the sun will be brighter, warmer.  When the thought of a breeze brings warm thoughts instead of a hood pulled tighter, and green shoots appear to commune with the sun.  Days spent at anchor in a deserted cove and afternoons lovingly coddling tender green plants, tho impossible now, fill our minds.

And so we bring reminders of those coming times indoors to enjoy, and to give us hope.