🐬 The emotional roller coaster of life: dancing dolphins and bike theft

Letter 163

Jun 20, 2023

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Aloha fellow learn-it-all 👋

Greetings from Honolulu, Hawaii

Happy belated Dad’s day to all the Dads out there! It’s quite the task of raising the next generation of leaders for the world. I’m grateful to my dad for instilling my love of biking, swimming, and sailing from a young age. (Oh also equally important is our love for aged gouda cheese, pulpy OJ, and seedy bird bread. )

Anywho, I struggled to know which idea to write about this week, so I decided to choose the one I was most excited about. Spoiler alert: it includes dolphins.

Man oh man, Saturday was A day.

It started out pretty usual. I rolled out of bed a little later than normal to drive to the studio and get on my yoga mat at 8 AM for some Power Yinyasa. I still don’t have my crow pose down and am horrified of going upside down. I sat those poses out and opted for a child’s pose. My lower back and neck felt monumentally better after.

Once home, I made brunch for my roommate Emily and me. Four fried egg pancakes and toasted everything bagels spread with nature’s cream cheese (avocado). For dessert, a fruit salad cut up with papaya, kiwi, raspberries, and blueberries. Then I went for a stroll through the community garden to chitchat with the chickens and another friend. When I came home, Emily surprised me by reorganizing and cleaning the whole kitchen. What a sweetheart.

We checked the forecast and the wind looked swell for some sailing. I called my friend Sam to see if he was interested in joining. He biked over. After packing up a cooler and sun protection, the three of us biked into town over to Ala Moana along the Ala Wai canal. We’d never all biked together. It was such a cute crew with the colors of our bikes: pink, blue, and yellow. We locked all our bikes up next to the sailing club and rented out a Cal 20 sailboat.

To be honest, I haven’t rigged one of these boats in a while so that took a while to dust off the knowledge. Since Sam had never been on a sailboat before, we tasked him with being in charge of the vibes with the speaker.

The hardest part of sailing is always getting out of the harbor, especially when you don’t have an engine. The boat needs to use the splotchy wind pockets to get enough boat speed to steer around the gazillion obstacles of other boats. I made an unspoken promise with Emily that I’d take the helm to get us out, but that she’d steer us in. I know she wants to get better at this stressful part but she only can with reps.

After we got out of the channel and into the deeper blue water the wind picked up and it was a riot sailing upwind toward Diamond Head. I love that feeling of physically leaving the problems of everyday life on land and the privilege to channel presence onto the water. The presence led to thinking about my belly, so we got the snacks out with some crackers, clementines, carrots, and LaCroix.

Cal 20 sailboats aren’t meant to be sailed flat. They’re fastest while tilted over or “heeling over”. The more she heeled over, my stress levels immediately decreased, and I loosened my hair. My more novice crew understandably became on edge. I don’t blame them. Being on a slant takes some getting used to.

There was a perfect amount of breeze. Not too much, not too little. Just enough to have fun. I was steering into puffs to make us go even faster with Emily on the front smaller jib and I was on the bigger main sail. We were going so fast that some white water wake was at the front (bow) and back (stern). Then all of a sudden I saw a large grey object. I squinted and thought I just drove over a shark but then realized it was following along with the boat and then 10 more of these blobs surfaced too. They had dorsal fins and were a pod of Spinner dolphins! Small babies in the ’ohana too. I’d never seen dolphins off Waikiki, so I started gleefully shrieking in excitement. I was almost off the rocker nearly crushing my Pamplemousse beverage clasped between my knees.

I wanted this moment to last. I was afraid we’d lose them. Until I realized I was their fun facilitator.

They were dancing along the wake of the water that the sailboat was making. I was leading a group waterskiing playdate for them. I was trying to keep my composure while steering to keep it playful for them. I tacked around turning the boat downwind and made even more wake with more waves. Every time I saw their fin jump out, my stomach dropped lower to the sea.

They love having a thrill just like me. We are the same in that way.

My new flippant friends started going out deeper into the ocean and the boat became overpowered after I dumped the main. I couldn’t keep up, so I let them go.

Emily, Sam, and I were all giggling together. What a hoot that was. We all looked at each other and knew we just witnessed something spectacular. I wish I could take the gleeful energy from that moment and ration it into my life on the gloomy days that are without delight.

Once we were out of snacks, Emily steered us in. The wind died and there were no boats around to give us a tow, so it took a lot of patience. Emily did a great job with a smooth docking. After de-rigging the boat, I raced to the bathroom, came out, and saw both Sam and Emily frowning at me. I told them to get those sad looks off their shmools until Sam lifted the torn chord that used to be wrapped around Bumblebee, my road bike. I thought they were joshing me. I walked out to see with my own eyes. They weren’t. My bike was gone. I couldn’t believe it.

How could I go from this lucky elated feeling of delight from dolphins an hour ago evaporating to this unlucky state of wishing I couldn’t feel at all?

I just bought this bike for myself at Christmas six months ago and now he was gone?? It was parked right next to Emily and Sam’s but mine was the chosen one. I lived in Amsterdam for 5 months in 2017 and never had my bike Herby stolen.

This happened in broad daylight at Ala Moana Beach Park, where I have fond memories of completing my triathlon there a month prior. I feel violated to have something that I cherished stolen.

Me and Bumblebee had a good run though. I’m grateful I got to bike up Tantalus a couple of days earlier and take this epic shot of Bumblebee (on the left). A houseless person left behind a spray-painted bike without brakes and crooked wheels in place of my bike. They upgraded without my consent. 😞

All I wanted to do was go cry in bed alone, but I had no energy to even shed a tear because of my hunger. So, we sat down to eat at the sailing club.

The waitress could tell from my windblown hair with my wingdings curling out, pink cheeks, and my urgency for ice water that I was out on the water, “You just finish sailing?”

“Yes, we did. It was fun. We even saw a pod of dolphins.” I said trying to stay positive with eye contact on the condensation gliding down my cup as she refilled it.

“Oh really?! No way! They’re not around here this season usually. You are the luckiest girl in the world. I haven’t seen them yet myself.” - said the waitress in an annoyingly happy manner

…. I didn’t feel so lucky. I just got one of the loves in my life stolen! How can life be such a roller coaster like this?!

My sass eased after my hanger dissolved. The round of Shirley Temples, coconut shrimp, and Mahi Mahi burger helped. Sam was robbed of his childhood since he never enjoyed a Shirley Temple before. My summers in Michigan consisted of swim meets and/ or sailing until exhaustion with a Shirley Temple after (with extra cherry juice if I was lucky).

Sam and Emily consoled me by sharing stories of how they’ve had bikes stolen. I sat there in my mopey state wishing I didn’t feel this way. We splurged and split a lava cake and that did the trick. That was a naughty touch at the end, but honestly, my younger self wishes I got a few of those to eat instead of the burger. It was such a treat. It’s my favorite dessert. The textures leave my mouth delectably satisfied with the cold ice cream melting in my mouth next to the hot lava chocolate. It was scrumptious.

After dinner, I rented and rode a wonky teal blue city bike back home to my hale. Pedaling down Kalakaua Avenue through Waikiki, I passed the slews of rambunctious shoppers on a Saturday summer evening. The tourists on the same Biki bikes thought I was one of them. I wasn’t.

This bike was so much slower. I could tell my friends were riding slower to let me keep up. This three-speed fat-tired non-aerodynamic mode of transportation made me miss having the speedy skinny tires with too many gears on Bumblebee.

Once home, we cannonballed into the pool. It was the perfect temperature. Emily did her backflip. We felt high on life. As I was floating, I allowed my attention to leave the biking saga. I looked down at my wrinkly hands and started questioning why my hands were less pruny than Sam's but more pruny than Emily’s and whether the lights we saw in the sky were stars or planes. Time slipped away in the pool until being chilly once the sunset.

After taking a steamy shower, I brewed a pot of dreamy calming blue tea. Sitting around sipping tea on the lanai, Emily brought out a coloring book and we filled in a mosaic rooster with psychedelic colors and started writing down some lines of rhymes: “The light of the pool makes the tiles look cool.”

After boredom from coloring came, Emily and Sam started strumming on guitars. I pulled up the Bon Iver song “Re: Stacks” they were playing to sing along. We took intermittent snack breaks. They were so enthusiastic to eat the burnt chocolate chip cookies I baked. Dipping in milk helped. My shame dissolved.

At the end of the day, I looked back and had a sad thought thinking about Bumblebee, but I wouldn't take it back. I wanted to bike that day.

That's just how life goes sometimes. And that's what makes it exciting always as a surprise. You never know what you're gonna get. You can feel high on life and lucky as heck in one moment with spinner dolphins dancing around you. And then an hour later, have one of your favorite possessions stolen in broad daylight from one of your favorite parks.

Life is an emotional roller coaster. And that's what makes it fun.

Two lessons from this Saturday story:

Lock your bike with more than a cable cord with a U-Lock even if you are in a safe area
Have friends that buy you your favorite things and spend time with you so you don’t have to be sad alone. For me, that was Shirley Temples and lava cake.

📜🖋 Poetry Corner

In honor of Dad's Day, this beautiful poem from Mary Oliver's Poem for my Father's Ghost:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Now is my father
A traveler, like all the bold men
He talked of, endlessly
And with boundless admiration,
over the supper table,
Or gazing up from his white pillow—
Book on his lap, always, until
Even that grew too heavy to hold.
Now is my father free of all binding fevers.

Now is my father
Traveling where there is no road.
Finally, he could not lift a hand
To cover his eyes.

Now he climbs to the eye of the river,
He strides through the Dakotas,
He disappears into the mountains. And though he looks
Cold and hungry as any man

At the end of a questing season,
He is one of them now:
He cannot be stopped.

Now is my father
Walking the wind
Sniffing the deep Pacific
That begins at the end of the world.

Vanished from us utterly,
Now is my father circling the deepest forest -
Then turning into the last red campfire burning
In the final hills,

Where chieftains, warriors and heroes
Rise and make him welcome
Recognizing, under the shambles of his body,
A brother who has walked his thousand miles.

🎧Listening

I wanna come home to roses
And dirty little notes on Post-its
And when my hair starts turning gray
He'll say I'm like a fine wine, better with age
I guess I learned it from my parents
That true love starts with friendship
A kiss on the forehead, a date night
Fake an apology after a fight
I need a man who's patient and kind
Gets out of the car and holds the door
I wanna slow dance in the living room like
We're 18 at senior prom and grow
Old with someone who makes me feel young
I need a man who loves me like
My father loves my mom

A bit about Jax: her full name is Jaclyn Cole Miskanic. She was born 3 months after me in 1996 on Cinco de Mayo in Atlantic City, NY. Her singing career took off auditioning on the 14th season of American Idol.

🎥 Watching

I love this music video and dream about the day of being able to play a beautiful song like this on the piano. Perhaps this summer when I am in northern Michigan I’ll dust off my keyboard. :)

Also this video of Jax showing and singing this song with her parents brings tears to my eyes. It’s priceless.

🔍Idiom to define

Off your rocker (idiom): a person is behaving in a very strange, insane, or silly way. Someone who behaves oddly or has weird ideas.

History of idiom

From Grammarist:

The terms off one’s rocker and off one’s trolley came into use in the 1890s and are both most probably related to the operation of a trolley. Trolleys operate by running along overhead electric cables that attach to a metal arm on top of the cab. In the early days of mass transportation, these arms would often lurch off the electric cable. Once disconnected from the electric cable, a trolley has no source of power. Many believe that off one’s rocker is somehow related to the rocking chair. However, the fact that both off one’s rocker and off one’s trolley came into use at the same time, there seems to be a strong correlation.

🌟Quote to inspire

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

📸 Photos of the Week

🙏Shoutouts

to Emily and Sam for being such lovely friends in my life

I appreciate you reading this!

If ideas resonated, I’d love you to 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 letter 162 🎨 How Pouring Paint Taught me to Surrender

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