Lighting up the lifelines

Oakland-Alameda Lighted Yacht Parade 2024, photo by Dwayne Sullivan

The Alameda-Oakland Lighted Boat Parade has become one of our favorite holiday traditions, a night when the estuary is aglow with all manner of water-craft, from kayaks and the Oakland-Alameda Ferry, to yachts and dragon boats and we’re in the middle of it with our own lit-up boat. But this year we’d cut our prep time a little short. We flew home from Seattle on the Friday night before the parade, then woke up and got cracking, decorating Espresso amid doing the laundry, figuring out what to eat, etc. et al. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was more tired than inspired. And a bit anxious.

It’s not unusual for me to feel a certain level of anxiousness before an event or show. But it’s more nervous anticipation, a kind of excitement that is rousing and stimulating. There can be care and concern and some worry in the mix, but that kind of excitement fuels effort. What I was feeling was something different, edged with worry and dread rather than suspense. And it wasn’t just that day, it had been coming around more frequently, messing with my sleep and my vibe, reminding me of a past self.

Years ago, I suffered from anxiety on the regular, which led me to a lot of searching and learning. Over time, I developed a fair number of resources. Anxiety became less frequent and far more containable. So, whatever the reason for its current resurgence — Hormone fluctuations? A resurfacing of my less than helpful patterns. Too much scrolling or generally living amid the acute uncertainty that is life right now? Or a combination of all these things — to have anxiety be so on top, again, was both bothersome and frustrating.

That Saturday, we were signed up to be on the water at 5:30pm so to the marina I went, my anxiety in there along with the eggnog and LED star projector. Kwame was busy rigging up his faux square mast with net lighting when I arrived, so I got to stringing colored lights around the lifelines. Our pals Janet and Jeff arrived a little later with their bluetooth speaker and ukuleles so we’d be able to serenade the judges as we motored by the yacht club. Every bit of prep was down to the wire, but we managed to get out on the water at the appointed time.

life·line /ˈlīfˌlīn/

noun

1. a thing on which someone or something depends or which provides a means of escape from a difficult situation.

2. a rope or line used for life-saving, typically one thrown to rescue someone in difficulties in water or one used by sailors to secure themselves to a boat.

There seemed to be more boats on the water this year than last, and some truly great ones: one sailboat had made itself into a loon, a Dragon boat was transformed into a lit-up crocodile, a quartet of dinghies played on the barrel of monkeys theme. Kwame's square-mast-on-a-folk-boat was a success even though a quarter of the lights on the square rig stopped working minutes after the start. We sang 'Feliz Navidad' and 'Last Christmas' and 'Jingle Bells,' broadcasting through one of the bluetooth speakers to the spectators lining the shore. There wasn’t time for anxiety between the water and lights and singing and seeing how stoked people were at the spectacle of it all.

Projects, I tell you — and what maybe the overriding theme of this Substack — can be lifelines.

Mission accomplished, we pulled into the dock and got to breaking things down, including my guard. As I was standing on deck amid ferrying gear to shore, my phone slipped out of my jacket pocket and into the water like a fish escaping.

"Was that...?" Janet, who was standing behind me, asked as I watched the device disappear.

"It was," I said.

I was too tired to react strongly. Replacing the phone was and would be its own hassle (it was insured but it boggles how many things want to confirm your identity by sending a security code to your phone). Back at the house, after warming up and eating some food, we had to laugh about that subtle and inevitable ‘plop’.

And there was a silver lining in being phoneless for a few days. Everywhere I went during that time, I was all there, fully in-person, not listening to something or reading an email or the troubling headlines, or checking the weather. A primer in how not to fuel anxiety once it was up. This feeling of presence was familiar, too, and far more welcome.

I kept thinking of one small, mundane moment from one of my first trips to India, a time before smartphones, when numbers and directions were scrawled in a notebook and only a few people back in the states had information about my whereabouts. When it was time to fly home, I hired a driver to take me to the Bangalore airport and along the route, he stopped at a little chai stand along the highway to buy some smokes. We both ordered tea and a couple of the sweet dry biscuits that were made in the UK but went well with the strong, sweet, milky tea. I sat on a little plastic stool set in the dirt to wait for mine, watching a motley parade of traffic go by — vans and large trucks piled with sticks and more than one ox-driven cart — the air filled with translucent purple and blue dragonflies. When the chaiwala brought me my tea, he held the top of the hot coup with his fingertips, carefully and expertly transferring it to my hand before turning to go back to his boiling pot. Something about the scene — calm, ordinary — felt suspended in time, and its image stayed with me as much as anthing else from that trip. I know being someplace exotic is always cause for paying better attention, but I think that mundane moment was so resonant because I was allthere for it, completely unplugged. In that moment, as the next, and this one, there was nothing else.

As I waited for my replacement phone to arrive, I did feel somewhat calmer, likely becuase I was surrendered to the situation like I was on that trip, sitting on the side of the road, waiting for my ride to be ready. I was offline when I wasn’t home, and I showed up in person at the brick-and-mortar store to confirm my identity, waiting in line and talking to real people instead of dealing with bots. I wondered briefly if I could live without a phone longer term? Probably so, though I’m not going to try just now. A phone, used wisely, is its own lifeline. But if the anxiety ramps up again I know setting it aside unless needed might be a first step.