Linda L

Introduces: protagonist, antagonist, setting, core wound, primary conflict. I’m planning another trip to Baja with my husband Tom. This time, though, requires a different kind of inquiry than my normal pre-trip research. Instead of going to Google and typing in “Bird species found on Isla San Benito” or “Gray whale behavior in Laguna San Ignacio”, I type “Travel regulations for human ashes”. I’m going on a natural history trip, living aboard a 95-foot sportfishing boat to explore the deserted coves and rugged shorelines of Baja. To revel in the extraordinary wildlife – blue whales, albatross, century plants, parrotfish. Tom and I had been naturalists on similar trips in years past, and Tom requested that his ashes be scattered in the Sea of Cortez. He died two years ago, and I am finally ready to take this final trip with him. The first result is “For domestic travel, the TSA allows you to bring cremated remains onto the plane either in your carry on or in your checked luggage.” Digging a little deeper, I got to “Of the “big three” American carriers, United Airlines and American Airlines require cremated remains to be transported with carry-on baggage.” I’m flying United Airlines from San Francisco to San Diego, where the boat trip begins, so I need to bring him with me as carry-on. TSA requires a copy of his death certificate and cremation paperwork. February 7, 2020 – Day One I arrive at SFO early, ready for the flight to San Diego, where the trip begins. I check my duffle bag stuffed with snorkel gear, rain gear, clothes for twelve days. I shift my weight from one foot to another while I wait in the TSA line, watching the agents, the other passengers. My precious cargo is cushioned in my rolling backpack, packed with my journal. After the roll-aboard goes down the conveyor belt and through x-ray, the TSA agent pulls my bag aside for a further security check. I brace myself for a lengthy explanation and inspection of the paperwork. I start to pull out the documents, hoping to get through this without bursting into tears. The agent is calm, respectful, and after my quiet “Those are my husband’s ashes”, he takes a quick look in the bag and waves me on without questions or paperwork. I take a deep breath, grab my bag and head for the gate. The flight is uneventful, just the nerves and speculations about what will happen on this trip. I sleep fitfully after the stress of packing. A friend picks me up at the airport and takes me to Fisherman’s Landing, the marina where Searcher is docked. I walk down the dock, breathing in the familiar salt air and climb up the portable stairs to get level with the deck. I step through the gap in the railing to board Searcher, this beautiful boat of memories. Celia, one of the owners, walks out of the salon and gives me a big hug, “Welcome back!”. “My god, it’s been so long, it’s so great to see you!” I say, smiling and squeezing her hands. I reach out and stroke the shiny teak railing with affection. Then Art, the other owner and captain, comes aboard, belting out, “Where have you been Lewis, we’ve been here!”. I always like it when he calls me by my last name, makes me feel like part of the crew. Despite my excitement and the anticipation for all the incredible experiences I know I’ll have over the next twelve days, I’m anxious. So many fears churning around in my head. Fear of seasickness, fear of asthma issues when snorkeling - Tom always had my back when things didn’t go well. I need to remember I’ve done it without him before, but that was a different life, different situation. I’m hoping this physical letting go, scattering of his ashes, will allow me to release his spirit. Yet, I’m afraid of that too. Other passengers start to come aboard - Trina from Marin, Barbara and Stan from England, just a few of the other twenty adventurers. People wander in and out of the salon after getting their cabins organized, grab some coffee, sit down to get oriented. I pull tight against the outer wall in one of the booths, rest my elbow on the table bordered with teak railing and a teal carpeted surface - it keeps the plates from sliding when the boat is rocking. Surrounded by people, I still feel alone. Trina sits down across from me, then Barbara and Stan join the six-person booth, the four of us strangers who will soon be friends as we explore Baja. “Where are you from?” Trina asks. “Half Moon Bay, CA.” I say, then take a sip of tea from the logo’ed Searcher mug. She asks “Have you seen whales before?” I want to say Yes, I’ve been out on boats watching whales for more than thirty years but try not to be arrogant and simply say “Yep, lots of times. They’re amazing!” Barbara asks me, “Have you been to Baja before?” “Many times, twelve times on Searcher“. Stan says “Wow!”, and I explain that my husband Tom and I used to lead these trips years ago. The subsequent questions get more challenging. “Where is he?” “Did he come with you this year?”. I stutter, say “No,” as I glance away. Then, with a slight smile, “Well, actually, he is. He’s down in the stateroom, under my bunk in a shiny red, silk bag.” Art starts the orientation at eight PM. Paul and Marc, this year’s naturalists, gather everyone into the salon to talk about the details and logistics of the trip. I start to feel overwhelmed with memories, thinking about the people who are here for their first time, how I felt the first time I came on this boat some thirty years ago. I retreat from listening and gaze through the windows, picturing Tom when he was the one who gave this talk, him and me at the front of the salon introducing ourselves. I would have been wearing my ‘first day of the trip’ attire - a turquoise and gray striped shirt, collared, tucked into comfy blue jeans, my leather belt from college just barely fitting anymore. Tom was in his sage green vest, worn and frayed, the red-plaid flannel lining poking through in a few places. We stood in the galley, set off from the passengers. “Welcome everyone, I’m Tom and welcome aboard Searcher – hope you’re excited! Linda and me…” I interrupted with “It’s ‘Linda and I’”. Did I just do that? Correct him in front of all these people? After a sidewise glare and frown my way, he continued to explain the schedule of hiking, whale watching and snorkeling that would take place over the next twelve days. Why was I so arrogant to think I was smarter than he was? Quick to correct him? Bringing my focus back to tonight, I can’t help but be excited, and smile as I search the salon for Carol. A close friend of Tom’s and mine, she’s accompanying me for this personal ceremony of letting go. There to hold and support me. *** This wasn’t my first trip to Baja without Tom. Memorial Day 1994, 26 years ago, had been brilliant, perfect for the lazy day ahead. I looked forward to the evening, steaks and baked potatoes, just the two of us. The pyramid of charcoal briquets was ready to be lit when Tom said, “We need more lighter fluid, I’ll run to the store to buy some” and he drove away. I finished prepping dinner, made some fresh lemonade (it’s the slightest pinch of salt in the simple syrup that makes it special), then sat down to wait. And I waited. Tossed the tennis ball to the dogs (Bristol always brought it back. Vince just chased it, then left it where it fell.). Sat on the front porch for a while, glanced at my watch. I began looking out the window any time I heard a car approaching. What was taking so darn long? Was there a huge run on lighter fluid because it was Memorial Day? Then I started listening for sirens – checked that the phone was working. Had he been in an accident? More than two hours later he drove up to the house, trudged inside while gripping a rumpled brown bag with the lighter fluid, his eyes downcast. He headed directly to the backyard, saying “I need to talk to you” and guided me to sit next to him on our splintered picnic table bench. With no warning, he blurted out “I need to tell you I’m addicted to crack cocaine”. Stunned, I stared at him. I didn’t even know what crack was, but ‘addicted’ and ‘cocaine’ I understood, and my stomach dropped. My mind whirled and I tried to make sense of it. I thought back over the last months, and gradually the signs that I had missed came into focus. Individual events that didn’t seem significant on their own, but when added together revealed a problem. He had lost a lot of weight, looking rather slim for his normal bulk. Friends had asked me, “Tom looks great, how did he do it?” – now I knew. Every errand took longer than expected and he always eagerly volunteered for that quick run to Ralph’s to get a half gallon of milk that we didn’t really need right away. And the quick was never quick. His golf games stretched out to include drinks with his buddies afterwards. I should have paid attention the time there was a whale stranding and, instead of rushing to help with the necropsy, he stayed at the bar. He spent a lot of time in the backyard and in the garage. I thought he was spending quality time with the dogs. It was a place to smoke his drugs out of my sight. I asked him some questions – when did this start? Maybe he answered, “A couple months ago.” I hadn’t noticed that our meager savings account of about $2000 was now down to zero. “What?” I asked, another blow to my sense of security. “This was our account to pay our property taxes! How are we going to pay them now?” He seemed ashamed, embarrassed, and assured me that he would stop using, wouldn’t be spending any more on drugs. Taking him at his word, I assured him that I loved him, and we put the steaks on the grill. He told me about his addiction because while out getting the lighter fluid, he thought that some cops had seen him – using or buying I’m not sure. Convinced they followed him home, he expected they would come to arrest him. He wanted to warn me before they came to the door. We didn’t talk much while we ate, appetites dulled – his from the drugs? Mine from fear and pain. When time for bed, he decided to sleep in the living room, to be near the door when the police showed up. I climbed into our bed and tried to sleep. I must have dozed off, because he knocked on the door about 1am and softly said “They’re here.” My heart thumping, I pulled on some pants and went into the living room. I could see the flashing red and blue lights of the cop car right in front of the house. We stood in the living room, waiting for the knock. After several minutes, we saw the lights start moving, and the cars drove away. We looked at each other, not sure what to do or think. We hung out for a while, expecting them to come back, but I eventually went back to bed to try to sleep so I could go to work in the morning. They never came back, he never got arrested. Secretly glad that there had been this scare, I was sure that now he was “scared straight” and would stop using. That was the logical result. Lesson learned. Life can continue as normal.

FIRST ASSIGNMENT- write your story statement After her husband dies from cancer, the author retraces the voyages she and her husband used to take to Baja and its amazing wildlife. She carries with her his ashes to scatter in the beloved waters that inspired and restored their lives after he fought a battle with alcohol and addictions. She braids the experiences of that final trip with her memories of their forty-six years together filled with contrasts - times of boundless joy juxtaposed with times of anguish, and then grief at his death. SECOND ASSIGNMENT – sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. It came out of nowhere, with a grip so tight he couldn’t wiggle out of its grasp. Subtle. Try it this one time, you’ll feel great. Yes. He reaches out again. Then just one more time. Until it became his sole focus, an urge so relentless he was willing to lose everything. Not a conscious decision. Every day was going to be the day he stopped, quit. His intention was good. He really meant it that night at ten pm when he said I’ll stop. Then the prickly fingers started creeping up his back, tugging at his hairs, his eyes twitching, heart pounding. He paged his dealer, then drove down the dark alley. She shadowed him, struggling to keep her head above water as he was swept away, each wave taking him further away, like an intense rip current. She searched for ways to get him sober – closed their joint checking account, followed him to meetings, tried to prevent him from feeding the beast. He reached out to her for a lifeline, then succumbed to the fierce pull of the devil, and back into the depth of addiction. Again. THIRD ASSIGNMENT – create a breakout title The Scattering – scattered path, scattered life, scattered ashes The Ocean Kept Us Together Whale Watching Through Grief FOURTH ASSIGNMENT – develop two smart comparables for your book. You Left Early, by Louisa Young This memoir is one of few addiction stories told from the viewpoint of the person living and loving an alcoholic. The author and her partner had a shared passion, music, the same way my husband and I had a shared passion of the ocean and its wildlife. Refuge, by Terry Tempest Williams, is a mixture of a natural disaster linked with a personal loss. She weaves her and her mother’s love of birds and wetlands with the environmental loss of their habitat. FIFTH ASSIGNMENT – write your own hook line (logline) The ocean and colors of Baja were a constant in the lives of the author and her husband. In between whales and ocean adventures, the chaos of alcoholism and addictions sought to tear apart their lives. Midway through their 42-year marriage her husband became embroiled in the depths of alcoholism and addiction. Her struggle to support him in his attempts to get sober became her own struggle to maintain her sense of self. They each found their own way to recovery and had nineteen years more with the sustenance of nature before he died of cancer. This memoir weaves twelve days retracing the Baja trips they loved, on her way to scatter his ashes in the waters of the Sea of Cortez, with the odd yet inspiring lives they lived. SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: conflicts The inner conflict: It was an odd time for us. After ninety days in rehab, he could come home. Did I want him home? While he had been gone, I was finally able to relax. I could drive home from work without visualizing the chaos he might be creating. I could rest on the window seat reading, not wondering whether he had gone to his meeting or instead was out buying drugs. I could enter the house and know the TV would still be there, what little jewelry I had left would still be in the dresser drawer. I wasn’t ready to live again with the constant worry about relapse. There was still a distance, and lack of trust between us. Well, my lack of trust in him and his sobriety. Even the counselor suggested he transition to a sober living house. I found one near our house, and he moved into a home with ten other men working on their recovery. I met the house manager and was horrified to learn he only had one year of sobriety. How was someone so newly sober going to help Tom? There were house rules about chores. after a time they had to look for a job, they had to go to a certain number of meetings each week. I went to open AA meetings with him – he and his housemates in a van, I met them there. He earned off site visits, so after a meeting I drove just the two of us to our local coffee house, black coffee with a teaspoon of sugar for him, a decaf latte for me. Then I took him back to Sobriety House, dropped him off and drove home. Back to my own comfortable bed, peace and quiet. He walked into a home filled with strangers, a room with a few clothes and AA books. I felt a little guilty. We didn’t talk about how long he would need to stay there. Like our lives had turned into, it was one day at a time. He eventually earned the privilege to stay at our house overnight. The sex was intense. We were lying in bed one morning, snuggling, relaxing, when the phone rang. Tom said “let the answering machine pick it up” and I laid back down. As the recording started, I heard “This is Rick at Sobriety House….” and Tom jumped out of bed to grab the phone. He talked softly, so I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Back in our room, he said “I’ve been kicked out, I can’t go back.” Stunned, I asked why. He had relapsed, broken the rule of no drugs. Now what? He had nowhere to go. Were we back where we had been eight months ago? Could I welcome him back into our home, what had become again a safe place? How many times could we do this dance? The Secondary Conflict: Secrets are heavy to carry. When I first found out about my husbands struggle with drugs, I couldn’t tell anyone. We were viewed as a ‘perfect couple’. I pretended everything was okay. When he couldn’t show up to an event, I made excuses. And I couldn’t tell his family, who lived in a different state. As things got worse, one by one, situation by situation, I had to tell people, call his parents. There is a different reaction when you tell a friend your loved one has a drug addiction, versus if you tell them he has diabetes or cancer or other ‘legitimate’ disease. Some people pulled away, others embraced us. Navigating the various reactions added to the burden I already felt. FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. Searcher is a ninety-five foot sport fishing vessel, mahogany railings, bright white paint job with maroon trim. Staterooms to accommodate twenty-four passengers. When you hear ‘stateroom’, you probably think of a cruise ship; a room with beds, closet, bathroom at the minimum, windows and a balcony if you’re lucky. Staterooms on a sportfishing boat like “Searcher” are tiny, with bunk beds, an airline bathroom sized sink, and maybe a few shelves. Standing at the open door, bunks start immediately on the right side of the door. The head of the bunk is at the door, then 6 feet of bed and you’re at the end of the cabin. The bunks have comfy 4” think mattresses but are only about 32” wide. There are two bunks with space under the lower bunk for storage. A small net on the wall of each bunk works as the bedside table – lip balm, tissues, book, flashlight. There isn’t much headroom – it takes a couple tries to find the right technique to get into the bunk. Sit your butt on the edge while leaning forward, then tilt to the left and swing your legs up as you lay down. No sitting up once you’re in. There’s a small reading light at shoulder height, but so close as to partially blind you if you turn the wrong way. The bunk is just wide enough to be able to curl up a bit and roll over – as long as you don’t try to sit up as you’re doing it. There are heavy wool blankets for chilly days at the beginning of the trip, then as it gets hot and the air conditioning kicks in, the blankets help the transition from super-hot outdoors to cool inside temperature. The sheets (not the 400 thread count I’ve gotten used to) have a fitted bottom and tucked in top sheet – no hospital corners, and for me, by the end of the week, so twisted and balled that I’m fighting to find a place for my feet. I’m 5’5” and range from medium to large in size (depending on what year it is). I feel slightly claustrophobic in the bunk, but once lying down am ok. Tom was 6’2”, over 225 pounds, a big guy. The bunks weren’t long enough for him to completely stretch out, and his folding and turning to get into the bunk was like watching a pretzel being made by someone who has never made one before. The transition from a neat and organized cabin to total chaos started out gradually but exponentially grew each day. By San Ignacio, day four, the cabin was bedlam. Multiple changes of clothes as weather conditions changed, different hats, rain gear, camera gear, guidebooks, journals. We were always in and out of the cabin so quickly that clothes, books, outer wear, and bedding all began to blend into a tangled mess. One day I was on the flying bridge watching a beautiful pod of pilot whales traveling near the boat. Taking photos, I saw that the counter on the camera was at 35, only one more picture left. I reached into my pocket for a spare roll of film, and I had already used the two extras I started out with. I only had a few minutes before the whales came up again. I set down my camera, threaded my way through the other ten people and their cameras and binoculars on the bridge, climbed down the ladder to the main deck to rush through the salon, trying not to bump the person filling up their coffee mug, down the stairs (down 3, turn right, down 5 more, right turn) to the cabin, flung open the door, pushed aside this morning’s jacket, found the backpack with the film, pulled it out (how many rolls should I bring up with me?), shoved aside the pillow to find the light long sleeved shirt to protect me from afternoon sun, might as well get more sunscreen while I’m down here, then reversed my course to get back to my favored spot on the bridge. And I missed a whale breach while I was away.