2021 Life Logs, Day 75: Philosophical Kind of Day
Date: Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Still Cold; High 33, Low, 29 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
My morning was spent chasing down a Covid 19 test. I thought I could just go to the Urgent Care Center and get a Rapid Test, but not so if you have symptoms. I ended up getting a test at CVS at noon, but not a Rapid Test. I will not have the results for a day or two. I still have cold symptoms, no better but no worse than last night—which is whole lot better than yesterday morning. Where in the world did I get exposed to cold germs? At least, I hope it only a cold. For the past week, I have seen very few people and none of them have a cold or Covid, at least not that they are aware of. I have mostly been sitting at my dining room table writing.
And while I was sitting at my dining room table writing this afternoon, I found myself writing with tears streaming down my face. During the last four days of Windbird’s twenty-two day passage to the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, we were part of a radio net support team for a boat that was having a serious medical emergency. The boat was Procyon and Sheri and Randy had become friends. They were much younger than us, but we had immediately liked them when we met in Panama and again in the Galapagos. Randy was in his forties and had been in the Coast Guard. He was the most fit of all of the cruisers we had met. At least he looked the most fit. But he had suffered a back injury a few years prior and had taken too many pain relievers. He had to be air-lifted from the Galapagos back to mainland Ecuador to have surgery to remove stomach ulcers and then on the passage to the Marquesas he fell on his back on deck while making a sail change. That fall resulted in the medical emergency. Within 24 hours, he could eat or drink anything and was in so much pain he could hardly move. Over the next four days, the radio net we were a part of, worked with Sheri trying to support her. It finally became evident that we had to take action. A doctor on our radio net had been talking with Sheri three times a day, but he agreed something had to be done. I sent emails to four boats that I knew were already in the Marquesas. They sent emails to other boats. Other boats with doctors aboard got involved. Boats hundreds of miles apart on the longest passage in the world with no land to be found were willing to do whatever necessary to help. One sailing doctor that was already in the Marquesas went to shore to a hospital and got a French doctor there involved. He contacted the French Navy and found a cargo ship that could divert to pick up Randy and take him to Tahiti to a major hospital. Two boats from Norway that none of us had ever met were closest to Procyon and they went to sail on either side of Sheri. With all three boats on auto pilot. they could do watches for her while she slept. The reason for the streaming tears was reading about the outpouring of support given to Sheri and Randy from people who did not even know them. On land, I have never experienced a community quite so willing to take huge risks for one another. I miss that sailing community. I don’t mean that I don’t have wonderfully supportive friends, it is just that I don’t see most people taking the time to stop and help someone they don’t know that is in need. This is when things get philosophical. What makes one community more caring than another? Why could we walk through any little village in the South Pacific and have people invite us into their homes to have tea and food when they had never seen us before? They had nothing, but wanted to share what they had out of a sense of humanity. Back in New Hampshire, I didn’t know my neighbors, and no one had ever invited me in as I walked by their home. My mind kept going this afternoon. Why? Why? Why? Then, out of the blue, tonight my daughter-in-law Jo sent me a link to a song by a female duo called Mamuse. I had never heard of Mamuse, but I loved their music, especially the words to the one song Jo had sent to me called “We Shall Be Known.” To me, it fit so perfectly with my thoughts while writing and finishing another Chapter in the Voyage of Windbird, as well as with the times we are going through trying to find our way out of this pandemic. I know. I am not usually this philosophical. But this was just one of those days.
“We shall be known by the company we keep
By the ones who circle round to tend these fires
We shall be known by the ones who sow and reap
The seeds of change, alive from deep within the earth
It is time now, it is time now that we thrive
It is time we lead ourselves into the well
It is time now, and what a time to be alive
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love”
Lyrics by K. Longaker, performed by Mamuse.
