st augustine

Salt Run Story Fragment: Stillness Without and Within

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She had expected an orange horizon over Salt Run’s eastern dunes as a prelude to the sun’s arrival. But as she stepped up onto the deck, she was greeted instead by a dense fog rolling in over those same dunes, hiding any evidence of daybreak, hiding any evidence even of the waterway 100 meters from where she had moored her sloop.
 
This fog was a very big problem for her, one with classic domino consequences. She was scheduled to set sail early this morning; a must-do if she expected to anchor in Melbourne by dark. And, if she didn’t make Melbourne today, then she wouldn’t make West Palm on Tuesday, and then she wouldn’t make Miami on time, and so on all the way down the line of ports of call to Cienfuegos. A prearranged, prepaid drop-off to a contact at each port; assurances given; no way to update the other players: no phone numbers, no email addresses (too risky, she had maintained).
 
The fog would have been but a manageable inconvenience had she followed the itinerary she herself had drawn up and moored in St Augustine Harbor (well dredged, well lit, well marked, open) instead of this tributary (quieter, able to relax, catch up on sleep).
 
But, here she was, and the fact remained that she did not know Salt Run’s narrow channel well enough to maneuver safely in the very limited visibility available, especially not with this cargo. She rummaged through her memory for elements of a plan B, a trick to get her boat to the inlet blindly without grounding, but its futility was made evident by the spinning in her head of unrelated, random memory fragments and increasingly fantastic and frightening images of what might be her near future. She remained helplessly stuck in her mind’s dangerous gyre with only one small remaining rational part of her watching objectively as her nightmare unfolded. That part eventually concluded that there was nothing she could do presently to influence the course of upcoming events.
 
There was nothing to be done.
 
Nothing.
 
Oddly, the tension in her gut loosened. Her breathing deepened, slowed. She regained some control of her reasoning ability. She found that she was comforted by the silent fog that swirled about her. She lingered where she stood. She felt the Earth-bound cloud caress her face, her neck (moist, cool, refreshing). She became mesmerized by the sight of suspended water droplets in the beam of a deck light (millions – no, more – countless). She tracked the fog as it thickened here and thinned there and then reversed itself as it swirled and drifted southwestward slowly, slowly.
 
She heard a whispering somewhere below her, so she leaned over the railing to find its source. She saw that it was the current, and it spoke to her softly, unhurriedly, even as it slackened in the turning tide, its message further quieted in the heavy, water-thickened air. It told her that she was safe for now. It told her to ponder, for now, her place in this world of hers right here. It told her that this was enough for her for now.

Morning Moment on Matanzas Bay

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Sunrise is an hour away, though the sun won’t be seen by anyone in or around St. Augustine Harbor this morning: the incoming fog will see to that. The crews of the moored boats will slumber below decks longer than usual while the watery air muffles the usual a.m. sounds.
 
The Nasty Habit’s engine revs, then idles, then coughs and revs again, her captain endeavoring to keep her from drifting back into the inlet as he waits for the Bridge of Lion’s master to raise the bridge’s central section. The boat’s belly is fat with shrimp, both more so and sooner than most days, so she is heading home early, sated. The crew, to a man, is sharp awake and diligent in their duties, though each steals a look toward the buildings along the quay to the far side of the bridge, and each constructs his own day’s promise.

The Red Gate at the End of Marine Street

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My walk this morning has led me to Marine Street, which I take north till it ends at Bridge Street. At that intersection, I pause to decide whether to turn east toward the harbor or west toward the Lincolnville district, each direction a pleasant walk with its own distinct merits. As always, while waiting for some sign to make my choice, I am drawn to the concrete wall that faces me and encloses the grounds at Number 15 on the north side of Bridge Street. It is a high wall, six feet or so; ornate and old – blackened-with-moss old; wood-rotting, red-paint-peeling-door old. Flora, no longer tended, tests its boundaries. This side of the door, flowers have escaped the confines of their pots and have breached the straight edges of the red and white bricked entry way. From the other side, a few pink hibiscus flowers on a couple of rogue flag-pole straight branches make their debut, and a lone vine slithers over the wall’s top.

 Something influences me to turn left toward the water today and I do. Ahead, I can see oranges and yellows mixing in the eastern sky with the sun just now beginning its rise over Anastasia Island across the bay. The winds are light, so if I am lucky when I reach the sea wall, the sailboats and their masts will be reflected in the still harbor waters, always a delightful sight at the end to a good morning walk.

 Still, I wonder – as I wonder each time after turning this way or the other upon reaching Bridge Street – what would have happened had I first crossed to the other side of the road and tried the latch on that old red gate door; and what would have happened had the latch clicked and I pushed on the door and it actually opened; and what would I have seen on the other side of that gate then?