vent dans les voiles

I found this compass during a summer trip to the island. There was a neighborhood wide garage sale so my mom and I bounced from house to house to see what kind of things people were selling. I remember this particular weekend really fondly, I wore my yellow strapless sundress and I was working out every day at the time and feeling really great. I came home with a paddle crafted by one of my high school math teachers who has lived just down the street my entire life and I hung it proudly on my living room wall while I was in the townhouse. However, it was a small sale around the bend where I found the compass. The husband and wife were just packing everything up and the compass had been tossed into the free pile.

Growing up this property was home to a family with three boys who came to my house after school until their mom came home from work. One day when I was young my friend Jennifer and I were at their house for some reason and on the ground half buried in the backyard we found this coin that looked bloodied and worn and read, “round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows.” I remember the feeling of mystery surrounding it and being incredibly creeped out… So it was interesting to find another treasure there so many years later, only this one wasn’t quite so eerie.

There’s been some real intrigue with boats and navigation this year. I’ve always loved these things but it seems intensified as I rediscover myself anew. {In case you missed my love of cartography/maps see my post from Nov. 4th.} Part of it I think is that for a season I felt like I was a boat lost at sea, directionless. If you can imagine a large boat in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight and sails limp and lifeless, that’s how I felt. All at once it was like a gusting wind came along and set me on course toward land and that feeling has been so invigorating and life giving to see my sails reawakened the way they were meant to be.