The art of lasso-ing a storm (living & drowning) (& traveling alone with your parents as an adult.)

Published in the Spring 2020 issue of The Auburn Circle.

The weather radar glowed red around our coordinates in the sea. For several minutes, I had been staring at the clouds approaching swiftly as if they were a drunk man flailing down the curb of a busy street; my eyes watched in anticipation of a crash. A mirror had been set just above the sea, the heavens a monochromatic reflection of the violent rolling waves.

Looking directly above through the clear hood over the helm, I watched the mast rock back and forth—a 66 foot metal rod bobbing in a mass of seductive water. Lightning unzipped the darkness every few breaths. The bass of thunder resounded through my spine. To the west, the clouds fell heavily to the horizon, blankets of rain beating the ocean like they were one.

I don’t know if the dock will be able to hold us in the weather.

We’re already way bigger than it’s meant for and it’s not very sturdy.

It’s our only option.

We’re coming in fast.

Are all the fenders and lines on the port side?

Change the fenders and lines to starboard,

Quickly.

Quickly!

We have one shot at this.

The rain reached Aliénor while my mother and I worked together to untie all the fenders from one side of the catamaran to the other. My old Sperry’s from middle school (gray camouflage) were being faithful in protecting me from slipping as the rain filled my eyes and my hands tied sailor’s knots I didn’t know I had memorized. I love this. I looked at my mom before we finished the last two fenders, feeling for the first time like my sailor’s certification was legitimate. She looked like she had just been rescued from overboard. I knew I did too—my braid a heavy line (there are no “ropes” on a boat) on my head, my clothes, wet rags that clung tightly to my body in their fright.

We ran back to the helm where my father was captaining the sailboat. Admittedly she was more engine than sail right now though. The genoa (smaller front sail) was out, but if we let the main sail out too it would be the first time in my life that I would experience the feeling of a plastic bag drifting through the wind. Although it might be more similar to riding the devil’s personal bull mid-air—a lot more bucking and shifting than floating and drifting. Do you ever feel like a bull rider falling from the sky, hoping you won’t die? Sounds like a hit to me. I scream this is living! to my parents and raise my fist in the air, a drenched girl challenging the universe that tried to drown her.

FIGURE-EIGHT KNOT (also known as the Savoy knot, Flemish knot, and double-stopper):

forms a secure, non-slip loop at the end of a rope. One of the strongest knots,

it is used for instances in which a rope may be put under strain, jamming to prevent losing line.

When my sister was 14, she was surprised by the news that she would have a sister. My brother was 4 when I was born. I was absolutely an accident—my mom uses the word surprise (gift) (miracle from God) (grace). On my 21st birthday, my sister named me a Godsend. I’ve realized the way I’m sharing this may seem like I am attempting to pump up the picture of who I am as a human, but my goal here is really to emphasize my strange timing in entering the world. (While I’m already here though, I will say thank you God for allowing a fun family surprise to be my existence. If you had given them something else that would have been a bummer for this story.)

When I was 4, my sister left for college. My brother and I grew up laughing with and screaming at each other. I am not sure the ratio of one to the other, but we somehow ended up staying each other’s best friend through ruined board games with accusations of cheating, stark differences in nearly every area of life, and holes in walls. (The key to a lasting relationship: forgiveness wildly inappropriate humor).

Something interesting about my brother—when he commits to something, he feels deeply within his soul that it is his moral obligation to uphold that plan. If one changes their mind, his immediate reaction is that their original statement/involvement/word of commitment was a lie, for he sees words as promises. This fact about my brother is relevant, because as I grew older, entering high school and college while my sister got married and had two kids, my brother’s excuse for missing many family trips was “prior commitments.” This led to me experiencing the classic “youngest-sibling-feeling-and-essentially-becoming-an-only-child-when-her-siblings-all-leave” earlier than expected, and that led to many trips, just me and my parents.

REEF KNOT (also known as square knot or Hercules knot):

used to bind a rope around an unmoving object. It is not recommended for tying

two different ropes together, as ropes with different thickness may slip.

I have often thought I could write a whole book about the escapades of traveling alone with my parents. There are many stories of misadventure and hilarity—sitting as a teen in a bar with them as they drink, fighting about the sneaky Instagram posts of my parents being weird, representing all of the children of The Hughes Clan at family reunions and events, missing Broadway plays because we got the time wrong and crying the whole way through. I have fought with them over silly matters while sitting in a breath-taking environment. I have felt lonely. I have wished for someone beyond my parents to share the memories with. I have been eager to be older, wiser, taken seriously, as the perpetual child of the family no matter my age.

Because there is this foundational belief isn’t there? The often unlabeled view that our parents are not people. For much of our youth, they are the means by which we receive everything. They are the bringers of food, the mode of transportation, our personal organizers and schedulers. They are emotional counselors as well. The lap we sit on for comfort. The hair we hold while sucking their breast. The bed tuckers, the hug givers, the inspirational speeches.

They are the environment we live in—whether one that holds gifts and sustenance or one that neglects to support and give and hold. They are the clean counters, the lights paid for, the water running. Or for others, they are the lack of those things. They are the the trash can full of bottles. The bruise on your arm. The empty seat at a basketball game. They are what we receive or fail to receive as children.

I have received an abundance.

SHEET BEND (also known as becket bend, weaver’s knot, and weaver’s hitch):

useful for joining together two different ropes, preferably under load as it can loosen if not under any strain.

This knot is the preferred knot instead of the Reef Knot.

My father grew up on a sailboat—the first a little styrofoam one he constructed after receiving the parts by turning in Kool cigarette labels he collected from knocking on neighbor’s doors in Charleston, South Carolina. His friends and he would venture into the harbor where freights and yachts would cast waves higher than the mast of the sailboats they would soar to islands and across the bay on. They discovered shark teeth, fossilized bones, and once even hit a submarine in the fog. They were marooned on the small island of Castle Pinckney for hours yelling for the attention of the coast guard that drove by unaware of the lost middle schoolers while their parents were simultaneously fuming and buzzing with worry at home—a plate sat uneaten for little Mitch at the kitchen table. Finally as night approached, they were rescued by drunken fishermen who had been watching them all day.

And he was little; 5’8” or there abouts. The dicks at school would pick on him as little dick boys in school do, so starting at the age of 11, he trained for hours each week in a martial arts studio, sparring with any who would have him—hand-to-hand, fighting with bo staffs, using any weapon they would give him. At any opportunity he was ready to prove himself, now a buff kid, with arms thick as thighs, muscles hard as metal, veins adding character to his hands, yet he held a strict “only to defend” policy with his power. He became a black belt in Taekwondo, Zempo Kin, and received his highest achievements in Kung Fu while simultaneously graduating high school, joining the Air Force, blowing out his knee and being sent home, marrying his first love on his 18th birthday (my mother would come about a decade later). It was sailing, the great wild world his for the taking, all pressure and conflict locked away on land, that gave him both a place of peace and exhilaration throughout his childhood. He still sails as often as he can, the respite sailing provided for the bullied rambunctious kid still working its spell upon his soul today.

BOWLINE (also known as the Boiling knot):

creates a fixed line at the end of a rope, making it useful for fastening ropes to posts or rings.

It is most commonly used for rescue, as a trapped or drowning person

can tie it around themselves to be hoisted to safety.

As his daughter, I grew up on a sailboat, too. There is a picture of me when I was 6 or so at the helm, hands fast on 10 and 2. My bathing suit is checkered in small blocks of pink and white; there are blue, yellow, and green flowers on my left hip. My hair has a Victorian poof on the top of it due to a rat-sized French braid. My eyes are closed, eyebrows tight in concentration, cheeks squishy. Beside me, stands my father. Wearing a white t-shirt he probably still has, blue swimming trunks I saw him wear last month, one of those dorky white sun hats, sunglasses, salt and pepper beard. His left arm rests in front of him, his right holding a metal pole above. He has that look a person gets when they forget what it means to think of anything but the ocean.

He looks the same to me now. There is certainly a part of me that will always hold fast that image of him in my mind, the image from a 6-year-old girl’s perspective who is sailing a ship much too big for her. But even more so, there is a prevailing youth to my father as there always seems to be with those who love to explore and make friends with strangers. He met me when he was 38, and my mother was 37. He has been the same age the whole time I have known him—no matter the trekking poles he now uses to hike or the rest he needs before he can vacation.

Often, not only do our parents demeanors stay much the same throughout our time knowing them (as most people’s do), but so does our child-like view of them. To know someone as your care-taker, your chef, your counselor for close to two decades, waxing and waning in the presence of their roles, but still holding them all the same; and then, to begin to experience true independence in living apart from them, in scheduling doctor’s appointments, in paying for your water and heat. The roles they have exhibited and you have cast upon them, begin to shift and diminish. When their roles fade, a person is left, a human that functioned before you and continues to do so despite you.

ROLLING HITCH (also known as Magnus hitch):

fastens a rope to another rope or pole. It is used to pull and lead an object along lengthwise.

A simple friction hitch, it relaxes the tension of a sheet, rigging a stopper to clear jams in winches or blocks.

Last summer, my parents went on another one of my “only child” trips, travelling to Wyoming to camp and explore national parks. It took less than 24 hours after arriving in the West for all of us to be yelling at each other on a bench in the middle of the city square of Jackson.

The conversation is so unclear now—a memory soars down the river of my mind, passing rapidly. Something about the balance of spontaneity and plans. Another floats by. This one flickers a glimpse into miscommunication, different pages. The next zips like a petal swept in the current—impossible to make out. I don’t try to catch it. It’s not a flower anymore, no longer fresh; it belongs downstream, a piece of a greater picture, mesmerizing when you zoom out.

It was so silly of us. We begrudgingly prayed at the end. I remained on the bench as my parents went for a chicken salad lunch. A few teen-angst-level-of-dramatic tears leapt the ledge of my eye. I watched a kid practicing karate follow the lead of his older brother’s moves. His eyes kept flickering from his face, to his hands, to his feet, back again. It all started to fade. I journeyed to the diner where my parents were eating.

The bartender: “Do you want a free chocolate shake?”

Me: “What? I definitely, definitely do.”

Stoic faces to excited laughter.

CLOVE HITCH: a simple all-purpose hitch useful for attaching a rope to a series of posts as it adjusts smoothly. It is quickly and easily tied or untied. It is a good binding knot, but should be used with caution as it can slip or come undone if the object it is tied to rotates or is not tight from applied pressure.

We are still learning about those closest around us—especially our parents. I was unaware of the stress my father felt, the neglect my mother felt in planning the trip. I saw no part of it by myself, did not infer that these things were hard for them like I might for a close friend. Simple as it was, these care-takers were also working people outside of me—a CEO of an engineering company and an office manager by day, trip consultant and homemaker by night—and I had forgotten to consider this basic fact. It is in the blatant moments where ignorance becomes awareness, that an added dimension befalls our parents in our eyes. It is in the resolution of arguments, the discrepancies in who we think others are, that we understand people more fully.

This argument, though it could have been kinder, gentler, led my mother and I to discover that my father needed a day of rest from work to be fully present for the fun and freedom we had both already gotten a jump on preparing for. This sent us to a bougie restaurant that night where my dad went back into the kitchen and saw the best aged beef of his entire life. He came singing back to the table, using the floweriest language I have ever heard applied to a dead animal.

After that, frick, did we explore on our journey, richly joyous. I watched my dad become friends with a musician, a park ranger, two servers, a singing woman, a chef who gave him an MTV tour of his kitchen and made free special plates not on the menu, a photographer traveling the country to capture rodeos, a dude from the Netherlands, a Chinese student, a young man who had been waiting for someone to care to share his trauma, every human on a trail or in a restaurant. I raced my mom to finish Pride and Prejudice. We befriended buffalo, wolves, grizzlies, moose. (Buffalo are severely underrated! Incredible creatures! Grizzlies are rightly rated—we met a gal named Raspberry who plopped booty first in a river while under the gaze of a few dozen onlookers. She was of coursedivine.) I wore bear spray on my waist and practiced pulling it out and firing. We laughed & sang. We cried & fought. We frolicked just like we like it. Does that all seem too simple? I don’t think so.

DOUBLE SHEET BEND (also known as the Double Becket Bend):

a more secure variation of the sheet bend. It is used to join two ropes that have a different rigidity or makeup.

That September day off of the coast of South Carolina, the rain continued to hound us for the money we owed it as we coasted through the mountainous waves to a dock that might not hold us. I was beaming like an idiot—spotlight on Mariah Carey in a reflective and sparkling diamond-covered dress on New Year’s Eve level of beaming. Water was pouring down my face as if the universe was having a tantrum directly on top of me, and I was screaming This is incredible! This is victory! I’m sure there is some deeper analysis that can be done on my personality to discover why adrenaline in the face of potential catastrophe thrilled me so. I’m sure there can be some deeper analysis on my family because we were laughing so hard. We’re the most functional team right now!

As the uneven, splintering dock came into view, my father’s degree of concentration and focus switched. He grew measured, only speaking when necessary, head constantly switching from one view to another to assess the state of the lines, our course, his crew’s readiness. His hands zipped between the wheel and lines, pulling them through and releasing them from clamps. My mother ran to starboard bow, grabbed the dock line and prepared to lasso a clutch in the storm. I took to the stern with my own line to tie to the dock after leaping a yard from the slippery deck to the bouncing dock. We launched in with speed, the fenders squeaking as they were pressed by the weight of the boat on one side and the dock on the other. And somehow, we managed it—my mother swinging the line around the clutch from 7-feet above it, my father leading us expertly. Even I, managing to secure three boat lines to the dock in less than 10 seconds and after jumping over the tumultuous sea.

Just as we began to celebrate, the storm gave us a sassy farewell, swaying its hips on the way out. The gray turned to a thick hazy blue and my Buddy, the sheepish shelty, came out from hiding in the cockpit. I set the self-timer on my camera, and I made my parents take a victory shot with me. It was all arm muscles and steely puckers.

HALF HITCH: an unsecure knot used in conjunction with other types of knots to create secure, strong knots.

We’re dysfunctional. We fight within a day of being on vacation. We’re fools. We sail through storms and call it joy. We hold grudges. We remember all of the times our siblings left us to be the only people in our generation in a room, or sometimes, in a country—at least it feels that way. We often look at others only in the light of how they can serve us and don’t even realize we’re doing it.

We see people only as they are to us—how life-altering it was when I began to see my parents as real humans ridden with their share of volcanic dreams, traumas, relationships, feelings, lives before I met them at 38. How it continues to be. So, how staggeringly amazing, how outrageously gracious is it that this flawed self can venture into bear-ridden forests toting bear spray and my parents, friends with qualities still to meet, beside me? I can frolic where the terrifying lives, leap outside the den like a ballerina jumping from boat to wood. I can understand my father more by feeling my own love for sailing. I can think of him as a little boy as I take martial arts. I remember that his anxiety quiets when he befriends the cashier or the waiter or the musician at a bar, even if it is mildly embarrassing to his ridiculous daughter. As a 21-year-old child-adult, I can fight with my parents and laugh about milkshakes in the same hour. We can wrangle a boat in a terrifying storm and fall in love with the chaos at the same time.

Drowning.

Alive.