“You are a walking catastrophe!”
The Swedish equivalent of this were the exact words my father used, when I talked to him about an hour ago. It is now late Sunday night and I am sitting in my bed licking my wounds. I am a walking catastrophe, a bundle of hybris, a wandering menace. Who lets me out on the streets, tell me anybody?
Frida, Skye’s dance partner and her boyfriend Kristache came to visit me today. They were on Sunday Adventures that had brought them to my island of Tjörn. They called me and I asked -House or boat?, upon which they both answered -Boat!
-Great, said I, let’s meet there and sit and chill while the sun goes down.
The evening was warm and there was no wind blowing. The seagulls were all sitting on the cliffs tired from fishing and enjoying one of the last summer days. So I met them by the boat and we cabbed down and had some cozy times. Off course I had brought some candy, and the boat key, in case they wanted to take a little tour along the close coast of our boat place. This is an area I know well, I know where the grounds are, I know on what sides to drive of the buoys and I know how to handle meeting another boat out at sea. All cool. Let’s go out for a mere quarter of an hour, just hear the sound and smell the smell of the sea and the engine.
Skye and I had been out a few weeks before, we had done so well, we were ever so careful and made sure everything was done right. So what was there to fear? We went out, had the coziest of times, talked, laughed, drove slowly and calmly. It was all going so well. Relaxing into it I stood up driving, they were sitting in the front, I was standing through the hole in the ceiling with my foot on the wheel, as my father always does. Swimmingly, I thought, it is going swimmingly.
After twenty minutes we turned and went back the same way we came from, the sun was setting, the sky showed off in brilliant pinks, oranges and blues, and the sea did it’s best to reflect it all in it’s mirror. It was so beautiful. When we were about three minutes away from landing the boat, I heard a POW, and I jumped high and disappeared into the boat. Frida said later when we came home, she had turned around and couldn’t see me- the boat had filled up with evaporated water- the motor had overheated completely and stopped!
They hurried back into the rear of the boat and we were all giggling nervously, pending between astonishment and stress, how could this have happened?
Kristian was quite calm though, his experience with old car motors told him we had very little to worry about, the engine was too hot and exhausted, and it needed us to wait for it to calm down and get cool again. I went through everything in my head, had I forgotten some elementary thing before starting the motor? Had I accidentally pushed some button? Or was this just my nature with technical things, just the way it goes when I believe too much in my own ability?
You are so able, my boyfriend tells me, you make things happen. That is a beautiful compliment, and yes, I had made this happen, but how?
Kristian asked me, is there a pump going, cooling down the engine? There it was, thought I. When I steered the boat with my foot, I had accidentally toughed the key with my foot, turned off the electricity and stopped the cold seawater pumping through the system. Motor overheated, in minutes. Of course. How stupid isn’t that?
The big problem was that, now, we were stuck at sea really close to our final destination, but a little too far from land to shout to anyone, and oh, my phone was turned off yesterday from an unpaid bill. And none of my friends had a phone with them. Kristian found a vent to screw that let the excess steam out of the unhappy motor. It sighed and everything was quiet and very warm. We took the lid off the hot engine and warmed our sea-cold hands over it. It was hot enough to cook a whole family dinner on. Too bad we didn’t have any eggs.
A man looked out from a balcony and saw us sitting there, after half an hour. My voice carried clear and strong over the still water. -Do you have a phone we could use? -Yes, but how on earth do you think I could get it to you?
That is a problem, thought I. So we needed to try and start the engine and drive to him, to get the phone. The engine started…for five seconds. After about ten little spurts of five-second motor startings, we had drifted close enough for him to take hold of the front of the boat, let us ashore, and I called my dad.
-You are a walking catastrophe, Mimi. He just sighed the words, as if he had somehow anticipated a phone call from me, having made his boat explode or burn up, or crashed against some rock. He knew it could happen and that it has always been a risk he had to take, in his eagerness to teach me to use his most faithful and loved companion. Mmm-hmm, thought I, so that’s why he told me these things so many times, he wasn’t just being daddy-like. He actually thought it was something likely to happen, as I was involved. Of course. Did you accidentally turn off the electricity? Yes. I thought so.
Then I called my mom. She just said, Go home, see you later. But, shoudn’t I stay til you get here? No, just go home. These tired voices, they didn’t even let me clean up my own mess. Now the neighbour and his even more able son, were going to go out and pull our little dunk-dunk-dunk-boat with their freaking bathtub of a soul-less boat, to our boat-place. I was put out of service.
But Frida comforted me, as I was half laughing, half worrying, she had left her wallet in a shopping mall sofa earlier in the day, and she had called her landlord earlier this month apologizing for an unpaid rent that wasn’t unpaid, actually paid for for months to go. We are walking catastrophes, many of us, there are more from the planet I came from.
Now I’m at home, thinking about my mess. Even when I plan to be careful, there’s something frighteningly adventurous inside of me, something that makes me think I am too able. Sure, this thing makes me pull together big projects and make them happen, this thing pushes me on and makes me the person people like to be around, things are not boring in my near surroundings.
But what have I learned today? Will I most likely make the same mistake again? No. I will most definitely not make the exact same mistake again. That key will be as watched as a baby taking it’s first few steps. But there are endless possibilities to Mistakes Makeable. There are versions of the same mistakes, there are other vehicles I can think about driving, other routes I can think about taking.
I am moving to New York in seven days. Bigger city- more possibilities, more chances. This island turned out to not be Mimi-proof. Is New York City Mimi-proof? Most likely not.
