Out Of The Fog! (eBook)

Chapter One

Decisions, Decisions…How I Hate to Make Them!

Here Comes the Sun was playing in my head as I watched Apollo glide his golden surfboard down the Moss Landing Harbor channel on the last wave of the afternoon high tide. Jonathan Livingston then swooped in and perched atop the tallest mast in the harbor.

“Hey, there,” he whispered down to me. “The gossip du jour around the docks this morning was about some 43-year old gal who bought a 35-foot sailboat and she doesn’t even know how to sail. They say she’s crazy. I think she must be kinda cool, but heck…what does an old seagull know.”

Having just taken possession of the boat he was perched on, I whispered back, “Normally, I wouldn’t give a damn what those Salinas cowboy sailors think. But at this moment, I might tend to agree with them. Ever since I almost drowned as a kid out there in the Big Blue, I’ve been scared of that powerful ocean and I’m sure not ready now to end up in Davy Jones’ locker. I’m going to take things easy: one step, one day at a time.”

Jonathan Livingston winked at me, nodding in agreement. “Whatever happens,” I announced to him and the Universe, “I’d rather the last half of my life be an exhilarating Adventure with a capital ‘A’. No more monogrammed designer duds, tailored skirts and cashmere sweaters for me. Goodbye to vapid dinner-party chatter and that boring suburb of Philadelphia. Poseidon, here I come!”

I never dreamed personal freedom and growth meant I’d end up alone on a sailboat in Monterey Bay, and more terrifying, maybe someday even far out beyond the safety of the harbor.

Circumstances that would change my life often appeared on the horizon without warning. Occasionally, I was the moth being obsessively drawn to the flickering flame which would eventually destroy her; other times, the butterfly taking wing towards a fragrant but deadly blossom. And sometimes, just a fat and sassy frog sitting on a lily pad, soaking up rays waiting for her next adventure. A few months before arriving in California, I began to suspect the Universe, hiding behind a silken veil, and without my knowledge, request or even consent, was creating a divine plan for me. How dare it!

After 16 years of juggling motherhood, marriage, charity do-goodery and a successful journalism career, I faced a decision to either continue unhappy, sinking beneath the surface of those roles I was playing, or to give notice to some or all of them. Who could have imagined I’d even consider leaving life as a full-time mother and wife, walking away from a gorgeous home in the suburbs, and giving up everything a woman could possibly ever want. It would be adios to summers at our beach cottage, au revoir to winters in exotic destinations; goodbye to esteemed positions on various charity boards, and farewell to a so-called glamorous social life. It might even mean the end to a career where I had worked my way up from obituaries and cub reporter to night editor of three suburban Philly newspapers. Who’d have guessed I’d be grabbing my well-worn beloved beatnik threads stashed too long in the attic, my world-travelled collection of French perfumes (some already turning to alcohol) that I had carried with me through years of prior adventures, my favorite coffee mug, and be escaping to downtown Philly.

“You’re crazy,” said my suburban friends. “It’s too dangerous down there…you’ll be murdered in a week…or worse! And besides, what will people say?”

The fears of those gossipmongers weren’t going to scare me, nor would their rumor-spreading insinuations! I had a new-found faith that things would be fine if I left even though all I had to my name was $600, the total of my last newspaper paycheck. Already, $300 of this was ear-marked for the first-month rent on the tiny third-floor apartment I’d just found downtown by magic. The realtor had said on the phone that the apartment was right next to what I understood as “Fiddler Square”. Wow, a sign! How perfect! A fascinating fiddler will be lurking somewhere nearby to entertain me in the moonlight. When I finally was ready to move in, I discovered it was really, “Fitler” Square. Oh, well…at least the neighborhood sounded elegant in spite of the austere grimness of the apartment.

The somewhat autobiographical farewell feature story I handed in to the editor the day I quit I had entitled, “Her Skid Row Was A Beautiful Tree-lined Street In The Suburbs.” Maybe it would help other women who were stuck in that same suburban dead-end.

I thought to give everything up would be the toughest decision I’d ever have to make. I didn’t know then that not too long later, there would be many even more difficult ones. What I did know, however, was that I was tired of having all aspects of my life controlled and manipulated by a husband who wouldn’t even put my name on our bank accounts, who made me feel less than that one-legged water-bug scurrying across the damp basement floor.

For the six years before we had children, I helped him run the real estate business he had taken over when his father retired. I worked long hours every day in the office, doing bookkeeping, managing over 200 rental properties of our many owner-clients, handling the advertising, answering phones, charming clients, reminding him of all the things he had forgotten to do on his side of the desk…and never got a penny. It was humiliating having to almost beg him for money just to buy Kotex. I couldn’t figure out how my life had taken such a radical downward spin. Things just sort of crept up on me like that homeless black cat stalking its prey in the dark shadows of the old weed over-grown cemetery I had grown up behind so long ago where the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia would later be buried. But I did know it was time to muster the courage to do something really frightening…leave everything behind and simply walk out.

No more coming home from interviewing someone for a feature story or from covering a Municipal meeting to find an open bottle of his Canadian Club sitting on the coffee table, a half-empty bottle of wine in the fridge, or a martini pitcher still half-filled with ice sitting in the dining room. No more listening to the chink of ice cubes being put in a whiskey glass at 5:30 p. m. when he arrived home, announcing it was cocktail time. I was almost one-year sober, still hanging on to my recovery program for dear life, and I was not going to let any of his subterfuge lure me back to that damned bottle!

I met the children’s father on the Canary Islands. That year, I was attending L’Université de Grenoble, situated conveniently at the foot of the French Alps. I didn’t choose the Sorbonne because I knew it would be crowded with American students and I was determined to learn French well enough to speak it like a native. I also wanted to spend spare time skiing the Alps. It was Europe’s worst winter on record and people were dying in the streets. Almost daily, old folks were found curled up and frozen to death in the dark corners of stairwells. No trucks, boats or barges came into or left Grenoble as all roads, rivers and canals were frozen over most of that winter. Fuel for heating stoves was seldom available and if at all, at exorbitant black market prices. I’d walk for hours through the slippery streets of Grenoble, carrying a five-gallon can, searching, begging for stove oil, often, after dark, returning, empty-canned, to my tiny dreary freezing apartment. I finally gave up hunting and just stayed under the blankets, shivering in my bed when I didn’t have classes.

To find the nearest warm spot for Christmas break from classes, I hitchhiked down to Barcelona and asked a travel agent where the closest place was to swim in the ocean. His answer? The Canary Islands. I had no clue where they were but went to the shipping lines office to get a ticket on the next banana boat headed there. I stood in a long line and at the ticket counter was told the boat was sold out. I went three mornings in a row, always to be told, “Sold out.” As time was passing, I gave in and returned to the travel agent who said if I paid him in advance for the roundtrip tickets and for the two weeks I’d be staying in a hotel, plus meals, he’d get me a roundtrip ticket. Yeah, sure, I thought, but agreed and said I would have the money in the morning. He quoted the two second-class boat tickets the same as the shipping company’s price; the mid-range hotel with meals would be $20/day. It would be taking all I had, leaving me just $25, but it would be worth not having to worry about finding a place to stay and places to eat. The next morning, the agent handed me the one-way ticket for the next boat leaving that afternoon. He said his agent would meet me at the dock in Las Palmas with the return ticket and lead me to my hotel. At 5:00 p. m., I was on a small banana boat headed to Las Palmas de Gran Canarias.

When I came aboard, a crew member led me to a dark and dingy little one-cot room down in the bilge area next to the engine. It was one half-step below steerage accommodations under deck in an area reserved for cargo. I immediately went back upstairs to the Purser’s office.

“I paid the Barcelona travel agent for second-class accommodations,” I said to the man behind the desk. “I’ve been given something worse than steerage class. I want to be shown this very instant to a better cabin and at least, a second-class one.”

He smiled, put a “closed” sign on his door, and took me to a first-class cabin which was much larger, had a sink in the...