September 28th 2000
towards wellness:
how do you say ‘yola’ in english? ketch?
-a long, narrow, flat-bottomed rowboat…?
went rowing in th hudson yesterday as th sun set behind th new high rises on
th jersey city waterfront. not counting th coxswain, there were four of us
joining our efforts@ th oars.
…it only took me three weeks to be there by five-thirty on a wednesday
since my friend gaynor cote told me about this outfit- ‘floating th apple’- &
yesterday, she managed to get away from her desk @ th united nations in time
to join th crew in a second boat. she tells me they actually have a couple
of dozen riverworthy vessels, some of them setting off from red hook in
brooklyn… i was fairly envious: th furthest we sailed from port was th
northern edge of battery park city- maybe there were too many beginners among
us- where gaynor told of crossing th hudson to th jersey shore on her earlier
outings.
my zitz(?)bones are sore for th first time since i was a student @ th martha
graham school of contemporary dance almost twenty-five years ago…! my lower
back is also feeling th effects, but not as bad as i feared from th initial
weariness after an hour (-& a half?) of pulling oar.
growing up in vega baja, a couple of summers when i was around fourteen we
had th most unusual boat- an ‘arkansas traveler’, a broad aluminum shell
made for drifting around ponds & down muddy creeks, fishing rod in hand. i
may have done some rowing on that boat, though i seem to remember we mostly
took it on family outings & would power it on those occasions w/ a
two-horsepower english outboard- a ‘manchester seagull’?? not manchester,
ridiculous…
i just flashed on th last time i actually went rowing in vega baja: i’d been
up all night doing psychedelics w/ my outlaw friend raymond orsini & @
daybreak, we ‘borrowed’ a cousin’s boat, dismantling a rusty padlock to get
into my uncle’s beachfront property. we rowed out to th peñones-sharp
outcroppings of brown, calcareous rock that rise out of th ocean in a line
to define th inlet that is ‘la playa de vega baja’ – & picked sea snails-
‘bulgaos’ that we had my aunt marian’s domestic & cook boil for us…she
made a comment about how back home in st. kitts they had some of those- only
three times th size, nearly big as yr fist!
anyway, th story last evening seemed to be not just about working on form &
technique, but about immediately developing & sustaining th awareness to
fully engage whatever level of skill one had in th service of building a
group rhythm- to rowing as a team.
not easy, but a beautiful, exhilarating, crucially meaningful experience for
me under th circumstances: developing th skills involved in teamwork- for
film production, for webprojects- seems to be th main task & focus of my life
these days…
bighugs, david=(8{>