The Sailing Trip

I can’t remember how old I was or what year in school, but by this time it was obvious, that I wasn’t fitting in anywhere, wasn’t at home in myself, in school, with family, or with friends.

Floundering quietly, and getting into little bits of trouble, that looking back were very minor, but my family liked to use them as examples of how difficult I was.

In comparison to some of my peers, my bad behavior was mild at best.

There was some sort of writing contest for a sailing trip on one of the old sailing schooners that had been redone.

Discovery or something it was called. I had always been a reader and had a decent vocabulary. On a whim I applied an essay to the contest, I vaguely recalled writing that I thought the trip would help me take a turn in my life for the better.

I was picked, and my mother, I remember being elated. But she was always elated in a manner that I found overwhelming and frightening.

Her smile to me was like a sharp and cutting laser and could wound with its brightness. Her blinding smile.

Once I confessed to her that I was afraid that I felt as though I didn’t actually exist, that I was a ghost somehow. That I was low status, and my life was never going to materialize.

She smiled at me, her radiant smile with her perfect feminine features, and bright blue eyes, and said, “Oh, I am sorry that you feel that way, I have never felt that way. I don’t at all understand what you mean, maybe you should talk to someone about that. I don’t have any answers.”

I was still very young, so her response cut deeply.

My parents were never listeners or instructors, I always felt like a roommate with them, a roommate that didn’t pay rent and was a burden.

But I won this little writing essay and a month-long trip on a sailing schooner.

There was a wine and cheese night at the local Maritime Museum, all the teachers and local to-dos were there.

I remember my mother bought me an outfit for it, which was nearly unheard of, my mother rarely if ever bought us clothing, though she would primp for herself without thought.

The outfit was fine, but I just remember her, her looking so beautiful and smiling her dagger smile and talking with people, and I just slunk off into a corner defeated.

I didn’t want to talk with anyone, I did not want to mingle, and I didn’t want any hors d’oeuvres being passed around on trays.

I stood up in a corner against one of the huge blocks of the granite wall of the building, and remember my mother coming over, and smiling through her teeth at me.

“What is your problem? Talk to people, MINGLE.”

There was nothing I could do, trapped by the crowd, cowed by her.

Her face smiling at me and no warmth or concern behind it.

I didn’t end up going on the sailing trip, I don’t recall how I backed out of it, and I don’t remember anyone objecting or trying to encourage me to go. I just remember that night in the Maritime Museum and the grip of my mother’s smile.