Winter

I took my Laser down to the club and put it in the rack this week. The lake has been ice free for a number of weeks. I’ve been working out. I have a wetsuit and neoprene boots. Why is drizzle a deterrent?

I’m amazed at the challenge of a rainy day in the spring. Suddenly 50 plus degrees seems cold rather than the warmest it’s been in months.  Hypothermia seems more of a threat in the rain than it did a few weeks ago in the sleet storm we had.

Gaining strength, endurance and skill for Laser sailing is a cyclical process. We need to stress our bodies and intellects, and then we need to rest and recuperate. My inclination is to be more motivated to indulge in the rest and recuperation than in the stress.

Now I’m as excited to get on the water on a warm spring day as any Laser sailor, but I find it harder and harder to get the cycle of activity established early enough in the winter so that the first month of sailing isn’t all about ibuprofen and rebooting my sailing head.

It was snowing huge fluffy flakes the other morning and I stood at my bedroom window watching it pile up on the wooden fence and turn the street white. Underneath the window, my regatta Laser sits on its dolly under a wooden “A” frame covered by a brown plastic tarp. The flakes started to coat the cover white.

As I stood there contemplating the quietness, a couple of neighborhood squirrels poked their heads into the few remaining leaves that hang over the fence, they seemed to find something worth eating in the mostly bare branches.

I gave up frostbiting a couple of winters ago; well, maybe gave up is too absolute a way to describe my slowly resolving ambivalence. Let me try that again, I let the last two winters slip by without feeling the pull to go out and freeze my hands and feet while trying to manage a Laser with too many clothes on to be nimble or balanced.

I loved sailing all winter. I’m one of those people who enjoy the snow and cold weather. I moved to New England after a couple of years in Santa Barbara, CA because I thought that just two seasons, one fog and one no-fog, were a sure way to rot my brain. I still miss the year-round biking and the avocados on my backyard tree, but god I love the snow and the spring that follows.