What. A. Day.

The most serene of moments. Mark tells me I'm all on my own, that if I can take the boat out 200 yards, capsize it, right it, get the hell back in, and sail it back to a perfect docking then I've passed. It's completely dark now; all the other boats are long put away and everyone else in my class is up in the yard celebrating, exept one, he stays to watch.

Just me and the boat in the blackness. After whooping and hollering and yelling out commands and arguing and laughing for three hours, the calm is surreal. Taking my time, I sheet everything in, I fall off, and sure as Sunday the boat bows to physics and start to tip. I love the feel of the mast finally coming to rest on the water. I jump in, I split my eyes half in and half out of the water for that cool effect, I shore up some strength, and then with two strong kicks I propell myself up into the now-vertical cockpit, over the center grip, and in one relatively smooth motion I'm on the side of the boat, ten feet above the water, and I raise a little victory fist to Mark on the skiff. Completing my circle I hop down on the center board and right the boat easily, but then I manage to clamber into the low side and capsize the damned thing again. I pop up to show Mark I'm alright and repeat. Now the boat is up and I'm in the water, holding onto the high back side, and my energy is gone. I kick and I flail and I try every combination of feet-first-arms-first-head-first-whatever-else-I've-got-first but my sodden carcass will not go in, and now I've lost what little energy I had. Mark pulls up close on the skiff and tells me calmly and quietly that if I can just get myself back into the goddamned boat then the rating is mine to have, but if not, I fail. I'm on the verge of tears. I gather my thoughts. I hoist myself a quarter of the way in, cursing the harness with every inch. I pause, I think about which specific muscles I need to contract next to push on. I contract them. I push on. I'm half way in. I can tell if I just get one more centimeter of torso over the back side then my weight will shift and I'll be home free, but I'm so tired, so tired, and the muscles are not contracting. And even as I realize how cheesily epic I am making this moment, I think about running, and about editing, and about planning symposia, and about hanging shelves, and finding jobs, and being a sister and a daughter, and I think about Doug standing back there on the dock, and I think about Rwanda, and I realize that this beast that I'm fighting in every aspect of my life that I love, this effort, is the key, and that if I don't show myself right this second that I am capable of making an effort, then I will have officially given up, and I will literally and metaphorically sink to a level of mediocrity that will color the rest of my life.

So I say fuckall to my tiredness and to every time I've ever lobbed myself a softball when I should have accepted a challenge and I get back in the boat, and lie on my back and have a little cry.

Then I dock "perfectly" (ha) and get my rating and have a few celebratory beers and a celebratory hamburger and a celebratory deep conversation with Mark and do some celebratory dancing in the yard and take a celebratory hour long stroll to the BART station and get a celebratory walk back to my apartment, complete with celebratory nerves and celebratory excitement.

I've said it tongue in cheek so many times but now I believe it wholeheartedly: Sailing is a metaphor for life. I wasn't sure until last night that I'm going to be ok.