Halfway. That’s where my husband is right now. Halfway across the ocean, exactly 637 nautical miles, on the way from Norfolk, Virginia to Tortola, B.V.I. After a week’s delay of the start of the race (more like a flotilla), the boats in the annual Carib1500 race left port on Monday morning, November 8th. If all goes as planned, they should be back on dry land some time next Tuesday.
Following the boats on a satellite tracker map is amazing but also takes my breath away. I think back to AP English class and the line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “Water, water everywhere, and nor any drop to drink.” Well, Peter and his buddies have water everywhere, but believe me they are not thirsty or starving.
They are on the Ilene – the 43’ boat owned by our good friends Roger and Ilene Karlebach. It’s a guys trip with Roger as captain and the flesh and blood Ilene back home in NYC. She’s getting ready to fly down next week to meet them at the finish. She and Roger will then spend the winter in the Caribbean on the boat. Not bad, eh? You can follow their blog at Ilene the Boat.
In our family we never do anything halfway. That’s why I’m so proud of Peter and of all our children. At work, in relationships, in values and commitments to causes: we are a “give it all you’ve got” kind of family. This was true when Melissa put one foot in front of the other and kept going through heat and exhaustion to finish her first marathon in Chicago in October. This is true right now for Carrie who has been in Haiti working for Hopital Albert Schweitzer since May. (And yes, that’s near the center of last month’s cholera outbreak.) And it is true for Phil whose newest recorded songs will finally be out next Tuesday, November 16th.
Looking back, we can spot the halfway point in any endeavor. It’s just that it can’t be measured as neatly as the nautical miles from Virginia to Tortola. In the middle of a project, a relationship, or a life, we don’t really know that we are halfway. Some undertakings finish abruptly and unexpectedly. Other goals seem to keep receding into the horizon causing us to readjust our timeline. Halfway is only an illusion when it comes to real life.
Next week I will be teaching a class along with twenty other rabbis at an event here called Sweet Tastes of Torah. The topic I chose months ago is Crossing the Yabok River: Judaism and Mid-Life Self Acceptance. It will focus on Jacob and his mid-life return to his home to enter the next stage of his spiritual and family journey. I love this episode in the Torah as he struggles to reconcile his past and his future and emerges with both a blessing and a limp. Breakthroughs are not without hurts and wounds.
So my determined husband passes the halfway mark out among the rolling waves of the Atlantic. And here at home, I am taking the measure of my past and future. I cannot yet see the final destination, but I hope to set my sails and harness the power of the spiritual wind, the “ruach,” that will carry me to a place of blessing.
