Second Best Day of the Year

Hundreds of flags luffing from dozens of towering masts and their standing rigging cut autumn afternoon as we wound our way through the labyrinth of tents and fixed docks and temporary floating docks, my friend saying for the dozenth time that today was the second best day of the year, second only to yesterday, the first day of the annual sailboat show in Annapolis. Sharp sun poured through cloudless sky drenching crisp air with reminders of summer and promises of distant spring. I followed him through the crowd, only half listening to his thoughts on the remaining preparations for our December ocean passage south, my mind elsewhere, on her, she who had horizoned from the periphery of life into the center of my thoughts, she who might either be my future or, like so many others, ultimately no one at all, at least for me. I knew I was projecting. We always do, at first. We cannot help it. It is how we first imagine another in our life. At the end of a dock we found ourselves beside a fifty-foot sailing yacht whose grey hull announced its name, Revolution, its price tag featuring six zeroes. Nudging my friend, I said, I’ve never seen a more appropriate name, revolution is what this boat will foment. My friend said nothing at all. We walked away, my thoughts turning from the wealth of the masters to the only riches that mattered to me.