Schooners and Willow Trees

This morning I woke from a sailing dream. I was propped up in the companionway of an old schooner I used to work on; one foot balancing myself in place, bending a knee to level myself with the rolling sea. Two of my past Captains were there, Buzz and Chris, along with some other crew that I didn't know, all men. Seas were following, the breeze steady and firm but not overpowering. The boat moved along smoothly, gently rocking.  We joked comfortably with one another, long time friends and sailing companions. Strangely, in the dream I was smoking. I haven't smoked or wanted a cigarette since I was 19, but here I was in my dream, puffing on a very slender filtered smoke, pinched between my thumb and forefinger the way a man smokes. The dream was so vivid I can remember each draw on the cigarette but I don't remember feeling it in my lungs. I felt happy to be at sea.

I woke and turned on the heater to burn off the chill of the night  in my room and then went back to sleep. The second time I woke I had been climbing a tree in my dreams. A beautiful, tall tree with perfectly spaced branches like the weeping willow tree in the Oakland backyard where I grew up. I could feel the satisfying roughness of the clean, fragrant bark. I wrapped my arms around the sturdy trunk as I worked my way higher into the top limbs. I felt safe, steady, comforted by the stability of the tree. 

If I close my eyes I can still picture exactly how to climb that willow tree from my childhood. There was a ladder to the lowest limb that my dad placed there to enable us kids to climb it. We couldn't have reached it otherwise. Beyond the ladder the limbs became the ladder, first left, then right, then duck under a branch to reach around and continue to climb on the other side of the trunk, finally squeezing up into a perfect tripod of branches, close enough together to form a seat where I would sit and read and gaze out into the surrounding hills, and down to the bay. I sat higher than the second story of our house.

If I close my eyes I can still remember how to set the sails on Lavengro, the gaff rigged schooner I worked on. Working my way from mainsail to fore, to jib, occasionally pulling out the massive gollywobbler in light winds. I can hear the creak of the pin rounds on the mast, feel the sting of brass as I move too quickly and bash my shin into a cleat, I can still feel the thrill of scrambling out to drop the jib in high winds, scrunching bare toes around the bowsprit netting to keep myself on board.

I haven't thought of Lavengro or  that willow tree in ages. I'm so happy to have visited them in my dreams last night. Two supposedly inanimate objects taking hold of my soul. I will never forget.