My son and I are building a boat. It is a lovely dory about 19 feet long and just over five feet wide. Its sheer is graceful and its strength, abilities and potential for pleasure are impressive.
This entry was to have been a joyous accounting of receiving the kit, unpacking it and commencing our build in my big lovely shop. Instead, it is 0344 Saturday morning, my son, Sheffield cannot travel to Portugal from the US and I have lain in bed wondering about too many friends and too many complications until I could no longer stand it and am now sitting at my wife’s desk in the still morning contemplating events that three months ago would have been the plot for a cable TV thriller, and this morning are just statistics to which we are becoming jaded as the world locks down long after the time when that would have been effective, or just dithers without a strategy in dim hope that something will save us.
There is a monster among us that will have its due, no matter how many masks one may have, nor how many emergency cans of tuna. These are terrifying times that are testing the humanity of the US political leadership (not doing well there…”This is the fault of the Obama administration”) and the strength of the world’s social fabric (not so good here either…”The US brought the Coronavirus to Wuhan”). One can only hope that this contagion’s lust will be slaked quickly and it will subside, or that a vaccine will be developed in a magically short time, or that it will mutate into something much less dire….but there seems only hope left to rely on.
Linda and I have cocooned in place with our puppy and our garden and we’re washing our hands every third breath, but who knows if that will suffice to protect us? I am still building this boat, but the joy of doing so is damped, muted.
More information about the boat, including many examples afloat, are available on the manufacturer’s website. Here are some pictures of the materials as they arrived:
