The idea of joining the Coast Guard was first planted during a wild and beautiful sail on a one-hundred year old boat, Ziska , that I helped bring home from Alaska to Washington in 2019. During this voyage, many distress calls came over the radio - especially in the north - and we heard the Coast Guard talk people through very difficult situations. It was comforting to know that the Coast Guard was close(ish) by. When we were further offshore and hit by rough weather, it was harder being out of range of help. After this trip, I started volunteering for the nearby Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue station, and we sometimes did training operations with the local Coast Guard station. This sparked my interest even more. I had been working for the provincial government for three years - great work with wonderful people - but after some big personal losses, I really felt the need for a change. I submitted my application to the Coast Guard and forgot about it till I got a phone call inv...
Today, I decided to do something constructive. There is a certain reckless insanity that comes over a person after a very painful experience, so I decided to make the most of it and do something perhaps a little crazy. I made lots of Valentine's Day cards and gave them out to all the saddest looking people on Rideau street and in the mall downtown. It was fun! There was an old, depressed-looking hunchback (how much more pathetic does it get than that?) who shuffled by me, and I hid one in his bag when he wasn't looking. I gave another to a very fat lady who looked at me suspiciously, then realizing what it was, burst out laughing and yelled out her thanks. There was a skinny girl who looked like a bean-pole (correction: she looked more like an upright knitting needle—even a tape-worm would have abandoned her), who was crying her eyes out, and I gave her one too. I can't remember all of them, but I gave a couple out in a coffee shop, a number to people sitting alone in the m...
The waves keep on coming, one after another, hour after hour. Sometimes we glided smoothly over gleaming sea hills while at other times, giant crashing waves fought around us for hours. Ups and downs! Lifting the boat high and then sending it flying back down a watery slope. Somewhat like life :) Troubles and thrills. Ups and downs. Problems and solutions. Forks in the road, and decisions to be made. Mysteries and sorting-outs. Questions and answers. It seems never-ending! When one thing passes, the next looms up. Thinking about the waves out at sea helped me realize that the trick isn't trying for there to be no problems, mysteries and questions. There's no point in being angry and frightened by the next wave. Or trying to figure out just how we're going to get over a wave that hasn't even arrived yet. How will we make it over this monster? What is past the horizon? That's just part of it - not knowing and not being able to see, yet believing, having faith tha...
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