It’s Sunday morning early, the nearly full moon has not yet set and I am struck by how bright it is shining down on the water here in St Martin. We have been here for less than a week but I am getting itchy to move on to another island. It’s hard for me to stay in one place for very long, not because I am bored by this beautiful place (did I say I love baguettes?) but because there is just so much more I want to do and our time aboard is short.
This year, for a variety of reasons, Brenda can’t stay aboard for all that long, only about 2 ½ months and then she will head home. We got off to a late start this year, not getting aboard until the end of January and Brenda has a weaving conference in mid-April in TN that she’d like to attend. I’d prefer for her to stick around longer but can’t fault her for wanting to kick her “land season” off with a special weaving event.
Yes, I am ready to head to St Barts but we can’t go quite yet as my sail, the one with the snowbound part on order, won’t be ready until mid-week. After that, further south, weather permitting.
Yesterday, Saturday, was Market Day in Margiot, on the French side, and Brenda and I enjoyed browsing the stalls in the town square. It was a riot of color set against the backdrop of the old fort overlooking the harbor.
The stalls were set up so close to each other that making your way through the market was like winding through a sort of technicolor maze with brightly colored sheets billowing in the trades.
The sights and smells were intoxicating with a some vendors selling a dizzying array of Caribbean spices. We wanted to buy one of each and would have had we not been short of cash. 
We had lunch at a lovely little bistro overlooking the park and took advantage of the WiFi to call our boys Rob and Chris. It was really nice to catch up with them.
The other evening we went over to the Dutch side to have ice cream at we were told was “the place” for such things. It was a round building with a carousel out back, overlooking the harbor. Inside the main building was decorated with a series of large mosaic murals set in the wall. Each was based on an old photo celebrating ice cream. Celebrate away. I agree, Ice cream is good.
As I studied each image I was struck by the level of detail that went into their design. These images, when viewed casually, from afar, looked so simple. A little girl eating an icecream cone. 
A boy getting an ice cream cone from a cart. Simple? Yes?
And yet, when explored closely, there’s more than meets the eye as it’s actually made up of countless tiny pieces that contribute to the whole. Perhaps it’s like life. Thousands, or millions of little decisions or pieces that bring each of us to where we are today. 
Many little pieces of tile. Up close, hard to say what it is. Stand back and it becomes clear…good or bad.
I bring this up because here we are, Brenda and me, now into our fifth winter cruising together, months away from our 40th wedding anniversary, and a life together that has turned out in ways that I could never have dreamed of back in High School when we were first dating. It’s been over 45 years that we’ve been hanging out together and I frankly find it amazing that we have found ourselves together in this place after all these years. A thousand little pieces of tile…
Think about what life was like when you were 16 or 17. If you were like me, well it wasn’t a particularly flattering picture. One particular image that stands out to me is what I wore to our first prom. Me, resplendent with shoulder length straight blond hair, powder blue tux with dark blue piping and a ruffled shirt with a clip-on (of course) bow tie.
Sounds hideous and it was but we chose that particular “outfit” and color because the color matched Brenda’s slinky little blue dress. Her dress stood the test of time. My tux, not so much? However, we did have to match, right?
I worked for much of my career for someone who once said to me “it’s all about what you decide to spend your time on that matters”, and as I sit here under the light of a full moon in St Martin I can’t help but feel that I have been very lucky and have chosen well. Yes, I am perhaps luckier than anyone deserves to be as I have stumbled through a life with Brenda that has turned out so well.
Go ahead and call me out on such a sappy post but I do feel particularly blessed to be where I am today, both figuratively and literally. If someone had said to me way back when I stood on the front porch of Brenda’s parent’s home in Weston CT, where Brenda’s father Jack had left me after he answered the door and closing it again with me still on the porch, as he said “Brenda will be right out”, this isn’t the picture I would have had in my mind. Perhaps it was the shoulder length hair and un-tucked shirt. But here we are, me retired early and cruising the Caribbean with Brenda. I expect that I would have said something like “yeah right, first I have to get through algebra”. Yes, and Brenda saved me there too.
But, against all odds, here I am in St Martin aboard Pandora with Brenda after all those years. And, as luck would have it, we are visiting a French island and it’s nearly Valentine’s Day. Is that perfect or what?
“So, Bob, what’s the plan for Valentine’s day?” Well, since you’ve asked, Brenda and I will be celebrating with our good cruising friends Bill and Maureen at a lovely little French restaurant in Grand Case.
However, just to be sure that the evening isn’t completely perfect, we will anchor out and scramble our way up the beach (I sure hope that there’s a dock) to make our way to dinner and back to Pandora again. I sure hope that there isn’t a north swell running. Brenda wouldn’t like that.
Seriously though, I can’t believe how much has happened over the nearly half century that Brenda and I have been hanging out together. And, to torture the image just a bit more, all the pieces of our picture, the tiny pieces of glass that have gone into our mosaic have made for a pretty nice picture from my viewpoint.
Who would have guessed, on this day so long ago that we’d be here today. 
So many little decisions that we make every day, usually not even giving most of them any real thought. All those tiny pieces put in place that bring us to where we are.
I particularly wonder about what decisions might bring someone to own a yacht like this. Is he happy? 
This owner must be pleased with himself to name his boat Rapture, I would think.
Or what about this guy looking toward the future…
I guess I’ll never know how it’s going to turn out but for sure, I am pretty happy at how things have gone so far. I sure hope my luck holds out a while longer.
Had anyone told me, back in high school algebra class (she sat two rows ahead and to the left of me) and thinking about asking Brenda “out”, that I’d be sitting in St Martin, with Brenda, aboard Pandora, I would have laughed. Don’t forget, I was the guy with that powder blue tux.
I wonder what the future holds and sure hope that my luck continues to hold out. I guess it’s mine to mess up. It is, after all, all about choices. Those tiny pieces we all put in place…
“OMG Bob, stop it already! I think I am going to puke. You are such a sap…”
I know, I know, but that’s my story and I am sticking to it. Fingers crossed that I don’t mess up too much. So far, so good.
Lucky me, indeed.
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