Henna

Unexpected small things. The tiniest juxtapositions. They feed my soul. And inspire Hump Day Shorts.

Saturday I went to my local farmer’s market. Despite the 95-degree humid morning. Even if I don’t need cheese, corn, or fish, I go. I find cheese, corn, and zucchini. But no fish this Saturday. The people at the market are there by choice – vendors and shoppers. Present by choice makes for a light-hearted, friendly atmosphere. In the middle of this little buzzing commerce, I saw a girl sitting across from a woman. They were close together, and I thought it was probably a face painting stand. Moving in to see the artwork, I saw the woman was drawing a henna design on the little girl’s foot.

While I don’t have a bucket list on paper, having a henna design on my hand is something that often rumbles in the back of my head. I haven’t searched out a henna artist; rather she just appeared on this hot sticky morning. And even though this was intended to be a quick corn and zucchini stop, I sat down and ordered my design.

My henna artist grew up in India. She kind of chuckled when I asked how she learned to do this. It would seem while a little girl growing up in Iowa makes great mud pies from the rain and good, black Iowa dirt, a little girl in India creates henna paste from plants that grow in her backyard. Henna powder, lemon juice, sugar, and eucalyptus oil create the paste used to make these temporary tattoos. Henna design is a finer art than that of globbing mud bowls together.

In ten minutes, I walked away with a piece of art on the back of my hand. And little bits of knowledge about this person and her culture. I love Indian food; she still cooks Indian food every day. She makes her own cheese for sag paneer -- spinach with cheese, and she suggested a new Indian restaurant for me to try. As a follower of Jainism, she is a vegetarian, and the mainstay of her religious beliefs is the honoring of all life, plus absolute peace. Quite contrary to my growing up on a farm where our livelihood relied fair and square on the animals we raised to eat. Absolute peace. Did she fight with her brothers and sisters? I wondered but didn't ask. She was she and I am me.

Honestly, I never go to the market just for vegetables.

Narrow Boat Navigation through Stratford Canal Bridges & Locks

Boats with rudders are steered from the stern of the boat, from the back end. Instead of a steering wheel like we had while sailing with friends 20 years ago in the Caribbean and in the Greek Ionian islands, our narrow boat on the Stratford Canal in England had a three-foot horizontal piece of wood, about waist high to me, pointing toward the bow of the boat. With the steering wheel, the boat went the way you turned the wheel. Not so with the narrow boat. I haven’t researched the rudder to understand the logistics of what’s happening underwater. I just tried to remember as best as I could this if-then statement for the canals: If, for instance, the boat is heading toward the right-hand side bank, then you push the rudder hard in that direction so as not to crash into the bank. I thought this would be the toughest lesson. It wasn’t. Thinking in reverse while steering kicked in pretty quickly.

When we took possession of the “Teddington,” the engineers gave us a walk-through of the boat – focusing largely on the interior. How to flush the toilet. How to make sure the motor runs 5 hours a day so the battery has enough power to keep lights on at night. And to operate the pump that helps flush the toilet. How to fill the water tank with water every day. So there is always enough water to flush the toilet.

As far as traveling, our top speed would be about 4 mph – only the pace of a fast walk. When we come to a lock, we were to slow down and give ourselves time to line the boat up with the opening. With a beautiful English accent, this grandfatherly gentleman smoothly explained how to best navigate into the locks: “Look up the gunnels on one side of the boat and keep that side about an inch-and-a-half way from the wall. If you do this, you don’t have to worry about having enough space on the other side to clear the wall. You’ll be fine.”

That was so straight forward I nearly laughed. Actually, I think we may have started to laugh but then realized he was dead serious. And this was his best advice to us: From the back of a 48-foot boat, using a rudder to steer, stay one-and-a-half inches from the side of the lock. Our boat measured 6’10” wide. Once in the locks, we had about three or four inches between us and either wall.

I was determined to man all aspects of this journey, including captaining the boat, steering down the canal, and operating the locks. I took the rudder the first day, within the first hour. I felt if I didn’t do it soon, I would lose courage altogether. Hence, this action shot in my new red rain coat.

I don’t recall the details of this particular event. Yes, I might have bumped a wall. Yes, it might have been a bit loud. Perhaps this is the one in which I yelled, "Bill, what do I do?" And he replied, "I don't know! You're the captain!"

My maneuvering techniques through bridges and into locks were sometimes noisy ones, but I maneuvered many of them as perfectly as Dad backing a tractor hitch to within an inch of the hole in a wagon tongue.

Back on solid ground, what I remember most is that the bridges and locks were forgiving. Once in the vicinity of the entrance, a little gas – and perhaps a little scraping – would result in perfection. Eventually.

Happy Hump Day.