As summer has been dwindling down, restlessness has set in. Wanting to hold onto the warmth a bit longer, the cooler evenings warn that is not to be. It has generally been a pretty spectacular season of boating as well as deepening friendships in our little corner of the world on at the marina reminding me that family can be made in many different ways. D Dock is the quirky community we inhabit for six months a year. Beginning in April or May, week after week, we show up in various configurations; some to stay aboard for days on end, while the rest of us congregate on long weekends. Impromptu parties and potluck dinners organically evolve as the sun sets behind the Zakim Bridge. Invariably there are gaps on the dock each week as one friend or another departs on an adventure for days or weeks and like a temporary tooth crown, a visitor is plopped in to fill the gap. But no boat pulls into or out of D dock without extra hands and a welcoming face to handle lines.
Each year, friendships of years are renewed and relative newbies like we are (7 years in various slips on D dock does not begin to constitute an old timer) are invited into the scene. Birthdays are celebrated, wedding pictures are ohhed and ahhed over, and we grieve with those who lose a friend or relative. Melanie's check-ups are watched over, and the pictures of the California clan are admired. Cheery sendoffs are shouted as some head to high school or college reunions . We know the status of children, and grandchildren, and parents we may never see in person. But when we do, their stories come back from the accumulation of lazy afternoons sharing food, drink, and conversation on the back of a boat.
Through the summer, D dock is a moveable feast—literally. On a Friday night someone suggests an overnight trip to a nearby harbor; before you know it, a scouting party is on their way, setting up a new camp with different scenery. With sailboats leaving early, power boaters always dock first to help with lines on each arrival. A Sunday afternoon may find dock boats tucked behind a Boston Harbor Island rafted together as folks scamper over gunnels moving from boat to boat passing food or drinks on the way.
And in the meantime, problems are solved, or at least discussed at length—politics, the economy, the Red Sox, families, friends, books, planets and stars and oh yes, the Red Sox. When a mechanical problem crops up, (and they crop up often on boats) men converge while a few women cheer from the sidelines as the problem is diagnosed. Tools are shared and our resident mechanic extraordinaire Rick is put into service. In fact, no task is too small to receive advice, encouragement, or extra hands. Food, food, endless food is consumed and potlucks can form with the tiniest hint.
Of course, we all have other lives but D dock is a place we can leave that all behind or bring it if we wish. But while I love this summer community, it makes me miss my family so far away. I would like to for them to know these friends who, for the most part, they have met only briefly. It makes me hunger for those days when my grandparents lived a block away and I could run back and forth—knowing their home as well as I knew my own. Even with Skype video chatting, every few months in not often enough to see our children and grandchildren—to have the regular easy flow and exchanges that seem to happen in our summer world on the dock.
Too soon, boats will gradually leave taking their crew to their far flung homes around Boston. (With the exception of our October Sky friends who will come back next summer with months of adventure to share.) Sprinkled with a few gatherings in the months to come, we will be Facebook friends for winter and early spring until we converge again. Still, at least for now, we have a few more weeks to savor our time together, and I have time to book those flights for a California Halloween.
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