the sailor

I love heights. As a toddler I climbed up and onto the furniture, as a child up onto the tallest slides and monkey bars in the playground, and as a New Yorker every visiting friend and relative was taken up a tall building; Empire State Building, Chrysler Building or pre-2001, the World Trade Center. I loved up. When my husband and I discussed learning a hobby together that was my first and only choice. Let’s learn to climb! But, as is often the case, reality reared its unpopular head. Ideally, beginner climbers should have a partner with less than a 25 kilo difference in weight. Me – short and small-boned. My climbing partner-to-be – at least a head and a half taller, big-boned and almost twice my weight. As climbing partners less than less than ideal. It wasn’t going to happen. I was deeply and bitterly disappointed. I did not have a Plan B. I was out of ideas and inspiration. In a white knight flash my husband came to the rescue. Let’s learn to sail! And so the course of our future was changed forever. After a rocky start with a sailing school on Lake Walen, we switched over to different teachers on Lake Constance. We received our lake sailing license in 2008, our ocean skipper license in 2020 and have been expanding our horizons ever since. Sailing has become the passion that dancing was, bringing me a joy that I once found on the stage. Sorry, climbing, maybe in my next life I will grow.