The Old Man And His Blanket

So the other day Jody & I were landlocked in a traffic jam that could only be found in Los Angeles. Bumper to bumper cars, moving what seems to be backwards as we are trying to get to a party in a neighborhood we haven’t visited in 20 years or so.

Now I gotta tell ya, I was not in the best of moods.  My attitude had been left on the boat about 20 miles behind me.

As I sat there, I vented about all the little things that had gone wrong that day. Poor Jody sat there, forced by circumstances beyond her control, to listen to my tirade of bitching about problems we’d hit on our refit, people not paying their bills, and how we hadn’t had a day off in over five months. She did have the option to abandon ship (or vehicle in this instance), but the area we were in was not conducive to an evening stroll. Not if you meant to keep your wallet.

The third consecutive signal turned red just as I was about to cross the intersection of Adams and Hoover. I slammed on the brakes and watched in my rear view mirror as the kid with the backwards baseball cap in the car behind me almost slammed into me, and thought for the hundredth time that baseball caps were meant to be worn with the bill in front.  It added to my frustration.

And then, in mid-sentence, where I was about to launch into another tirade on just why life sucked so bad and how the world was falling in on me, I saw a man.

Now keep in mind this is an area where most people lock their doors and load an M-16 prior to transiting. Standing on the corner was a man who looked to be about in his late 50s. He was walking around the corner wearing a gray blanket with blue stripes on the ends, slung over his shoulders as a kind of shawl. It was a little cool out, as the sun had just set. Slung under his arm was a small gym bag, and it was pretty obvious these were his total assets.

Since we were stuck at the signal, I watched him, and for a brief second he looked up and our eyes met. I could see him quickly assess the year and cost of my vehicle, then his eyes returned to mine and he smiled. I swear I even saw an imperceptible smile in his eyes.

Just then a passerby said something to the man, and he turned and exchanged a greeting and a smile. He walked towards us around the corner and started down the street. As he walked, the smile stayed on his lips, and even more so, in his eyes. There was no doubt about the fact that this was a very happy individual.

All of a sudden I started to smile too. Jody looked at me as if I’d lost what few marbles I had left.

Here I was, sitting in a very nice vehicle, with a woman that loves me, after leaving my office, where I put together a magazine about the lifestyle that I love. I had driven past a yacht that I have lived on for almost 15 years and sailed the world on, and was on my way to a gathering of friends. And for the past 45 minutes I had been sniveling, bitching and moaning about how unfair life was treating me.

Then I see a man who has gathered all his belongings about him and was “cruising” through life pretty much the way we were when we were cruising on the Lost Soul.

So what’s all this got to do with sailing, you may well ask?

Simple, all of a sudden I had this epiphany! I knew why people who are cruising are happier than those who are stuck in “life” trying to escape. I knew why cruisers smile, and I knew why that man was smiling and I wasn’t. It was because everything that was important to his life was with him, and he didn’t have to worry about anything else. He had his world under control.

I, on the other hand, since leaving the world of cruising, have become enmeshed once again in the day-to-day fight trying to keep up with the civilization that is hitting me from every side.

Captain Woody had said something to that effect a couple weeks ago when we were sitting and enjoying a cold one down at the local watering hole. I asked him how he liked being back “in harness” and he told me that it was a lot easier “out there,” because all he had to worry about was keeping things within his reach in working order.  His only concerns were simple – what to eat, where to point the boat, and if something broke, he fixed it. The outside forces didn’t exist, except for the occasional storm, and even those came and went and were dealt with in a quick manner. Then they were over.

I have known for over three decades that the cruising life is what I love, and was lucky enough to live it for a full decade. Now I know why I love it and can’t wait to get back to it, thanks to a homeless man in an old blanket.