Merrily on the ferry…life is but a dream

A friend off-island the other day said something: “When you come here, the ferry ride is just an hour or so, right? It’s not that long.”

Yeah, kinda.

You know how when you have a planning phase, and an emotional overlay to an experience, it gives an extended life to whatever you do? For example: The prom you went to (or are going to!) might be a 2-3 hours, but you’re remembering it & thinking about it, with all the emotions, memories & feelings about it, even now.

The ferry’s like that. First, there’s the planning. Let’s say you need to go off-island on Friday, so you plan which ferry you’re going to leave on, and start shaping the week around that. You start thinking about the food you’re going to take, the book to read, the knitting, maybe even think about the kids you gotta take.

You think about how early you need to get in line. Maybe you even use the spring schedule instead of the winter schedule, and get there on time, so you have time to visit with people in line as you go back & forth between coffee gathering at The Bean, or The Doctor’s Office, or Churchill, or Roy’s or Cafe Demeter, or the Sweet Retreat or the San Juan Florist.

Then there’s the trip itself, where it works like this: If you really want to read, people will come talk to you; if you really are wanting to visit with folks, everyone leaves you alone because you brought your book, and they think you want to read. Something like that. Either way, as you drive around in America, you find yourself thinking about what you talked about, or what was happening in the book.

See, there are folks who say the ferry defines & limits our lives…I don’t see that at all. I’d say it expands & extends the possibilities. We decided to go for a deeper & better life living on an island – the ferry just adds to that.

Then, as you do your stuff in America, the process begins again, as the ferry is in the background for whatever you do. It really is nice to come home on the ferry, and even nicer to come on the day you planned. It’s not horrible to sleep in the car till the next day because you missed the last boat, but a nice warm ferry has its place.

Then you tell people for the next week what you did & the things you saw & all that on the mainland. Kinda like you went through the mists of Avalon & went to magical place.

So, you see…it’s not just an hour.

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