Chicago Tug: Quiet

There is a large sailboat anchored in the distance. The sun set directly in front of it, obscured somewhat by the northern boundary of Burton Island’s forest. The lake calmed down from all the July 4th activities as the sun set. The wind died as it often does on summer twilights. I sit here on Carrie Rose, our 32foot Nordic Tug, and hear the gulls on their guano stained island become raucous.

There are still a few terns fishing and an occasional osprey appears, dives, talons a fish, and disappears over the trees. They are the best — talk about surgical strikes — well, that is an osprey. It has taken me years of observation to appreciate how good they are. They are more focused than your average gull.

But these are pleasant distractions. I glance again at the distant sailboat and see its anchor light growing brighter in the darkening sky. I know what type it is from its profile. It is a Gozzard, custom built in Ontario, Canada. They are delightfully quirky. Full of little touches that mimic sailing ships of yore.

It is a plaintive image, almost melancholy. An image reminiscent of a tea hut built deep in the back of a garden, built by its owner for solitary contemplation. Of course, I do not know anything of the true life of the sailboat, just as I know nothing of the soul that required the isolated tea hut to be built.

But I think I know of their motivations. Quiet is a nonrenewable resource. There is only so much of it, it is rare and getting rarer. Cherish every moment.

In chanoyu, the way of tea, we break the stillness with the shuffling of feet on tatami; with a tap of the chashaku (tea scoop) on the chawan (tea bowl); with the steaming furo (kettle) of water; and with the winds in the pines. So calculated are these sounds that I am not even sure they are sounds at all.

The night moves on. The wind fills in. It is lapping against the hull. Venus and Saturn are companions just above the western horizon, and the moon’s glow is in the east. I also turn on my anchor light, as do the boats moored around me. We float under a vast canopy of stars, which when I try to enjoy them outside, the hum of famished mosquitos brings me back to earthly concerns after wandering through the emptiness of space.

It is a southerly breeze tonight and Burton Island protects us from the white caps I see developing to the east. Carrie Rose and the distant sailboat that started this reverie will be comfortable tonight. And in the morning, the sun will come up behind us and I wonder what thoughts the captain (for I know they will rise early) will have when they see us highlighted in the sun’s morning glow, in the quiet of the dawn.