🛩️ A Time of Turbulence: Reflections from a Red-Eye

Letter 167

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Aloha fellow learn-it-all 👋

Greetings from somewhere in the middle of one of Michigan’s five Great Lakes!

I left yesterday on a 50-foot Frers boat with the nickname “Large Marge” alongside ten other salty sailors traversing roughly 260 nautical miles across Lake Huron from Port Huron to the lower peninsula’s northernmost point at Mackinac Island. I haven’t sailed this since 2020. This is my fifth time racing to Mackinac Island. I perused the archives and found this oldie of 20yo me:

Featured above in 2016, it was my 3rd race, 2nd time sailing through a thunderstorm, and 1st time earning a flag. It was the last race I sailed on my dad’s J120 “Nauti Boys” before it was struck by lightning. More on this once another time :)

Anywho, oh how wholesome it is to be back where I grew up. Swimming in the pool I learned to blow bubbles. Getting milk out of the fridge I ate Cheerios from every morning, apart from sweet cereal Fridays. In that case, it was Lucky Charms. This bed here I get the most magical slumber in. Here’s the pool I biked a mile and swam in every morning from 7-9 AM from ages 7-17.

I didn’t love it back then but now I realize how good I had it. It’s my favorite pool ever.

This week, I’ll be sharing about an experience from right after I shipped last week’s love letter to Hawaii.

Now, let’s dive into letter 167 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!

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❓Question to think about

What good can come from turbulence?

🖊️ Writing

I got about 1 hour of sleep on my red-eye from Seattle to Detroit. That was until I was jolted awake from what I thought was a dream that I was back on Disney’s Hollywood Studios Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

No no, it was worse than a subconscious nightmare of being on that nauseating ride.

I peeked my eye mask off and realized I was on a plane and my stomach was dropping because it literally was being dropped. I nudged my headphone off my right ear playing my sleepy sad music to hear the flight attendants telling us to buckle our seatbelts.

Photo by shawnanggg on Unsplash

In that flash of a moment, I looked at the overweight Tiger’s fan fellow to my left and the petite college student twenty-something to my right and thought:

“Is this the end?”

I felt fear pierce my heart as that thought provoked my heart to jump out of its chest even more than the stomach drop did in the first place.

Then I took a breath and realized what was in my control. I asked myself:

“Do I like how I’m living?”

Yes, 100% yes.

And then I allowed my thoughts of gratitude to soothe me. I am blessed to be on a plane to go from one beautiful place full of people I love to another beautiful place full of people I love. The life that I have lived so far has been rich with love and experiences that I care about. I could cherish the lessons, moments, and memories of these past 27 years for a lifetime and be content with all that has happened. I’ve had a fun run that I am proud of.

Sure I could take more action on more projects and have so many adventures that I wish I could go on with loved ones.

But at that moment, I felt at peace.

I took a breath and felt the love and gifts from the people in my life as I went down a mental list of them in my head while loosening the grip on the now warm metal buckle at my belly button. I painted a pretty picture with the essence of this life is across projects and people that I love.

I am grateful to be living this life.

I still have so many questions I want to answer. I realized on that plane ride, life isn’t just about finding answers, it’s about admiring the questions and being okay without answers. I know I’ll have regrets since as I’ve written before regrets are inevitable, but I stand by my choices. They made me who I am today, and I love that young Padawan.

So for now I’m going to keep going!

📜🖋 Poetry Corner

If I Had Known BY ALICE MOORE DUNBAR-NELSON

Source: Violets and Other Tales (1895)

If I had known
Two years ago how drear this life should be,
And crowd upon itself allstrangely sad,
Mayhap another song would burst from out my lips,
Overflowing with the happiness of future hopes;
Mayhap another throb than that of joy.
Have stirred my soul into its inmost depths,
If I had known.

If I had known,
Two years ago the impotence of love,
The vainness of a kiss, how barren a caress,
Mayhap my soul to higher things have soarn,
Nor clung to earthly loves and tender dreams,
But ever up aloft into the blue empyrean,
And there to master all the world of mind,
If I had known.

If I had known there’d be turbulence ahead on the adventures of my life that are aligned with my life, I would still go for it.

🎧Listening

I wish that I had all the answers
And I could walk you down your road
For all the times, those times you feel like you don't matter
There's just one thing you gotta know

You better believe, you better believe that my father said to me
Just give it some time, look for a sign
And you'll be just fine

They say that nothing last forever
They say that good times fade away
And I know, I know that sometimes it ain't easy
But I know, you'll be okay

This song was coincidentally playing when I woke up from my sleep on the plane in turbulence. That was surreal. I felt more at peace. I am grateful for the serenity that can come from music.

🔍Word to define

Turbulence: violent or unsteady movement of air or water, or of some other fluid.

Late Middle English: from Old French, or from late Latin turbulentia, from turbulentus ‘full of commotion’

🌟Quotes to inspire

"A talent grows by being used, and withers if it is not used. Closing the gap between expectation and reality can be painful, but it has to be done sooner or later. The fact is that millions of young people would like to write, but what they dream of is the published book, often skipping over the months and years of very hard work necessary to achieve that end..."

— Beligian- American poet and novelist May Sarton (the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton) from The House by the Sea.

Note to self: when I first started writing online for myself after college, it was because I wanted to publish a book and had zero writing practice. I am grateful today to be showing up weekly to get better at writing to conquer the fear that tells me I need to go to writing school to prove myself a writer.

📸 Selfies of the Week

Photo (1): The best pickup crew from the airport: Paisley, Polo, Christina (aka my mom).

Photo (2): No cavity club! I had a dental appointment 7 hours after landing in Michigan to see the best dentist in the whole wide world! (my dad).

Photo (3): Gearing up for some more turbulence in life ahead. Nothing is stopping me!

🙏Shoutouts

• To my dad’s friend Amien for having me on his boat for this race. Large Marge is a beaut and I haven’t sailed on her since this race in 2020.

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I appreciate you reading this!

If ideas resonated, I’d love you to press the heart button, leave a comment, reply to this email, or send me a message on Twitter @JenVermet. If you forgot who I am, I welcome you to my online home.

Never stop learning 😁

Mahalo 🌺

Jen

PS - in case you missed last week’s love letter to Hawaii

PPS - if you have any interest in seeing where the boat I’m sailing on actually is, you can look it up by downloading the “Yellow Brick” app on your phone, add the 99th Baview Mackinac Race, and follow “Margaret Rintoul IV”. There are over 200 boats racing and is an exciting time to be alive!

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