Hammah · Talk Story Bay People
My mother, Elsie I. Yates, came from Bay People. Her father, Charles Ireland, hunted ducks and pheasants and fished the freshwater ponds, the saltwater canals, the bay, and the ocean. My biggest thrill growing up was helping him train his two golden retrievers, and sitting in the stern as we trolled for snappers in the canal.
A separate garage on the property was filled with decoys, nets of every size and shape, and rods and reels. The shotguns were kept in a special closet.
My grandmother and mother would sit under a big willow tree cleaning the pellets out of ducks and pheasants. They cleaned fish, crabs, oysters, and clams, and the blackberries that grew wild on the islands in the bay.
My mother and I ran a Seaford skiff with a three-horse Evinrude. Our small boat leaked. My mother read up on fiberglass, and together we repaired the bottom. It never leaked again.
That was the first lesson, before I had words for it. When something breaks, you learn what it takes. Then you do the work.
I was born at home with a midwife. Soon after, my mother took me out on our motorboat. She wanted me to love the salt air. It stuck. So did the lesson.
By the time I was working Sundays in the boat house, I already knew the work was the good part.
The Boat House
Growing up on the Great South Bay on Long Island, it seemed like everyone had a boat. If you did not have one, you worked on one.
Every Sunday in my teens I worked for John O. Zimmerman. He had all of the essentials. A power boat. A sail boat. Several dinghies. A boat house heated in the winter.
Every work session brought new awareness. Cleaning bilges. Sanding every surface. Repairing lines. Tying the required knots. Learning where the line was drawn between basic and skilled. Basic meant you finished the job. Skilled meant years to master. Varnish took years. The sanding. The stroke. The feeling that told you when you were done.
The boat house had a saw. Left alone, a saw dulls and tears instead of cuts. The work tells you when it needs sharpening.
The work keeps it sharp.
The boat house had a gate. Its hinges needed tending too. Nothing there took care of itself. I loved it.
The Old School
The Bay Man knew things. Maintain the boats. Hunt. Fish. Dig clams. Open an oyster. Crack a crab. Read the water. Read the weather.
Passed down. Practiced. Earned.
Through the years, the skills got watered down. Some were lost. The new generation calls it balance. What they mean is comfort. Work is something to endure until the good part.
The good part is the work.
The craftsman does not fear the varnish. He applies it, sands it down, applies it again. The process is the product. The toil is what makes it right.
The Gate
Skip the work and you pay twice. Once in resistance. Again in what you never get: completion, satisfaction, a better self.
Everyone carries a gate. Behind it waits grief. Pain. Fear. Enough to flood the system if it all came through at once.
The gate hangs on hinges. Open when you choose. Close when you must. A healthy gate swings both ways. Feel it. Shut it. Go to work.
Hinges left untended seize. Rust takes its time. Then one day the gate falls, and everything behind it pours through at once. No timing. No choice. That is unhinged.
The unhinged are not broken. The gate is.
What they were managing is now managing them.
Accept Love
The work hangs the gate back up. One hinge at a time. One swing at a time.
Accept Love takes the pain with everything else. The extreme lessons. The ones that will not fit a schedule or a self-care routine. Open the gate. Let it through. Trust it to close.
The work is not punishment. The work is the path.
Aware, you see the rust. Accept, you pick up the oil can. Complete, the gate swings, the saw cuts clean, and the soul comes back.
Closing
The saw gets sharp by cutting.
The gate gets strong by swinging.
Gratitude. Excitement. Devotion.
Brad Yates hilevelhawaii@gmail.com
HiLevel Coaching Service
808.295.2136
www.BradYates.com