Maxi 95 and Our Adventures
Hilary doesn’t yet visit me in my dreams but she will. When time enough passes that she and I should have seen each other by now, she will appear to fulfill that timetable. I wonder if she’ll speak or just be present, communicating by her heat next to my face.
Seattle, WA, 14-JUL-2019 – The radar is installed and working, so is the new autohelm.
Continue reading “One last round with Hilary”
Jennifer is starting a memoir about our time sailing with Hilary. This is a four-minute piece, when read out loud, that Jennifer wrote for a seminar she attended. The event described took place in 2016.
Date: Friday, May 3, 2019 at 1:35 PM
Topic: rough draft 4 minutes memoir
Hilary is my mother.
At the deepest extent of our swing we were in over 60 feet, but when the tide reversed we had drifted and settled such that our keel was two feet above the bottom. The next low was forecast to be three feet lower, so John and I set up a double anchor system, one off the bow in deeper water and the Danforth off the stern in shallower. We could thus pull ourselves out into deeper water if the clearance between the bottom of the keel and the ground grew too nervous-making for me. Positioned in this way, with the golden sun filtering down through the clear water and hints of fantastic wildlife just around every bush and boulder, John started the task of fixing the Webasto heater.
I was looking through the binoculars at shore watching for bears or another wolverine, and Hilary was puttering in her way: untying the stopper knots in the jib sheets and coiling the lines into kinks. Why not let her, I thought, as we weren’t traveling that day and it was so serene and lovely.
Continue reading “rough draft 4 minutes memoir”At 7:42 pm, Atlanta time, Jennifer sent a text: ‘‘30 breaths per minute, hard, normal is 12-15.’’ At 7:54pm, ‘‘37 bpm.’’
Lake Union, Seattle, WA, 5:30 am PT, 12-Apr-2019 – At 6:03 am this morning, Atlanta time, with Jennifer holding her hand, Hilary drew her last breath and breathed no more.
Her passing was as Jennifer has hoped, peaceful and quiet. Jennifer was with her and Hilary was not afraid.
7-APR-2019, Port Townsend, WA – Contranym – a word that is its own opposite. The noun mangle and verb mangle are life at the moment. A mangle is a machine with rollers that smooth cloth. I think of them as the wringer rollers on a washing machine, or the machines that iron sheets in a hotel. The verb is to destroy usually by twisting and cutting.
Hilary is dying. It blots out much of what I intended to write about.
Continue reading “Life is a Mangle”She stood in front of the temple and spread herself upon the wind, thinner and thinner, until only the wind remained.
Apollo referring to Hera in Star Trek episode 33, Who Mourns for Adonis
Decatur, GA, 19-FEB-2019 – At times I’ve written that the true subject of this blog is Hilary.
I received this email from Dyna Kohler, the Doyenne of the Atlanta Orthographic Spelling Bee. Dyna saw a picture of our dinghy, the Hilary Hoffmann stored on Caro Babbo’s foredeck.
I am really dumbfounded now to learn Hilary’s full name. Hilary Hoffman, did she walk the Camino in Spain in 2003? If so, I met her.…
Continue reading “Hilary, Spelling and the Camino; GPS, the Bahamas, and when will we ever get home to Caro Babbo.”Decatur, GA, 23-NOV-2018 – There is no joy working on these houses. We won’t get the first two done before we head north for Christmas. Jennifer won’t be going to Berlin.
We might get one house done, the second underway, and the third, perhaps, contracted to completion before we return to Atlanta in January.
Our, well, at least my life revolves around Caro Babbo.
Continue reading “Stuck in the ATL”Decatur, GA 14-JUL-2018 – Everyone, I’m sorry we’ve been out of touch.
We went a few weeks with no internet, except for the Iridium, which does terrible internet. I did not write posts to be posted when we received internet and still haven’t set up the facility to post by email. I don’t feel like a slug, but apparently have been.
It has been a busy time, divided amongst sailing, motoring, and surprisingly, engaging in social activities with people we’ve met before and people we’ve met for the first time. Continue reading “Sorry to be out of touch.”
Feb 1, 2018, Port Townsend, WA – January was the longest month I remember in my entire life. Longer than months when I was a small child slogging through the school year waiting for summer vacation.
It was a month of unexpected travel, traversing the country and working on non-boat projects. It was also a month full of activities and friends: an unexpected sailor on his way to pickup replacement boat parts and a medieval music performance in a Victorian church in a Victorian Seaport. Continue reading “An Unending Month”
Decatur, GA USA, 6-NOV-2017 – Two months. I’ve never gone two months without posting.
I write enough about Hilary that this blog might be called Caro Babbo and Hilary, and so this post will primarily be about Hilary.
When I started writing this blog, Hilary was far along in her Alzheimer’s dementia, but she retained a lovely personality and was the star of Caro Babbo, remembered, loved and called to by everyone we met. Truly, Jennifer and I were known as the two people with Hilary.
By the time we left this year in May 2017, Hilary was disappearing. Hilary’s world was smaller and people we met would take Jennifer or me aside to tell us this was too much for two people to handle. Continue reading “Hilary in Atlanta”
27-AUG-2017, just outside Pender Harbour – We’ve come to realize that the adventure is over for the year.
It is warm here, in the 20sC, 70sF. We haven’t worn foulies or even long trousers in a couple of days. The locals tell us its only rained for four days since May: It has been a glorious summer. Continue reading “Adventure over, Home waters”
