Out on the open water on a sailboat large enough to be categorized as a sloop. We’re on the Hudson River learning about both sailing and the environment. I’m here with a a Girl Scout troop, otherwise I wouldn’t have known about the sloop Clearwater at all. The origins of the Clearwater go back to Pete Seeger, who, apart from being a famous folk artist, was also an environmentalist. Based in Beacon, New York, the Clearwater is used in educational programs and it represents the only time I’ve been on an actual sailing ship. Call me Ishmael. Or not. You see, I was there as a volunteer. Specifically, a driver. My daughter’s troop had scheduled the trip and I was afforded free passage as chauffeur. I’d pretty much tucked this away into old memory banks until recent reading brought it to the surface.
Photo by by Anthony Pepitone; under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, via Wikimedia Commons
I support environmental causes in the ways a guy in my position can. We compost in our back yard. We recycle anything that we can figure out how to. We throw away one thirteen-gallon garbage bag every two weeks, and that’s sometimes half-empty. Being vegan helps. We don’t have a lot of money to give away, but lifestyle is the biggest way to try to help the planet. So I’m out here soaking up my Melville vibes on a river wide enough to be a lake. The Hudson, like all rivers, is worth saving. I used to cross under it daily through the Lincoln Tunnel, trying not to think of all that water flowing above my head. There was a reason I read on that long commute.
This blog, I guess, has become a repository for much of my past. I’m grateful to you indulgent readers who find any of this interesting. Still, I find human connections to places fascinating. While I’ve never considered the Hudson home, some of my early relatives likely did (more likely Hessians than Dutch, but I’m told we fought on the right side during the Revolutionary War). When I’ve had the opportunity to gaze out over the river without being in a rush, I’ve always felt a sense of belonging. An artwork I made from artifacts I gathered awaiting our turn to board the Clearwater now hangs in our front hall. Suddenly those twenty-something years feel like so long ago. Even so, the Hudson suggests something homey to me. Maybe it’s time to hire out a sloop again, go out on the river, and dream about belonging.
