Stuff. Fluff. Puff.

It was that moment full of promise.

You know the kind I am talking about.

It was on the boat, the Port Jefferson Ferry over to Bridgeport, Connecticut. Such a new experience. Park the Sentra, or the tin-bucket, as her mother called it years later when she approved putting in a few thousand to exchange it for the used Chrysler Le Baron convertible. Mother wanted a heavier car that could not kill you when a semi-truck hit you. So much heavier, anchored to the road. Nevermind the sun-rotted canvas top

So much power in that motor; the first Le Baron thing encountered, a ticket for running a stop sign because she could not stop it fast enough with all that horsepower behind it.

The Sentra, even new, putting along, had been dependable. It took her to college, a four-hour drive, two hours each way, for three years to get the doctorate. Through rainstorms and deep snows and a near fatal crash on an angled country shortcut through Amish country. She liked the red color. It reminded her of the 1966 Mustang that used to charge up and down the hills of Appalachia. But, now a more practical choice, looking into the future that lay before her. Empty years.

Or more practical years, or safe years, because after a divorce, one is still locked to a dream that has failed: if it were not a dream, what could it have been? The failure of a lifetime of work and of caring and sharing and growing. What to do when someone does not take the final step to age gracefully alongside you, rather looks back to find some imagined dystopia that L. Ron Hubbard offers or Peter Pan seeks with his Tinkerbell -- literally.

The ferry looks so white and sterile this morning, but full of people who have left their cars to sit on the upper decks, to talk and to laugh as the port's landmarks drift by. Actually, lakeside houses with multi-million dollar lives, a hobby boat bobbing in the water at the extension of every sculptured lawn.

It is difficult to travel alone in such a temporal voyage, because it gives one time to think and to wish for an alternative reality. A life of -- if I were him or her or him or her or even him or even her, I would have experienced so much life, rather being plagued with this longing to be up there observing, looking down at the passengers in a ferry making it's way out of the harbor at 8 in the morning.

But the camera is some comfort. One can take the pictures of these villas, and wish happiness for the inhabitants born into the privilege. And, find comfort in that. And, wonder if they appreciate their material possessions. And, wonder if they treasure those around them. And, then conclude that everything is not always what it seems. Perhaps, there has been some life's blood spelt in those lofty sculptured rooms with their chandelier windows.

Too fanciful.

Just sleepless nights to keep a hold of it all, like a flower hanging to a rock on a cliff in the high wind.

Or, filled with happiness. Peace. Contentment. sleeping late. Not one of their pleasure crafts out on the water.

Oh, we always have irony. It helps us to cope. With irony, one manages to fool one's self into believing one has done the right thing. It is a constant human occupation. And, everyone of course, concludes in the end that everything was done right. Aim for practicing all the human virtues that you can. Be dependable. Be a faithful. Respect others. Work hard. Support friends. Be a good wife. Be a good mother. Help others, all others around you, make it through hard times, be thankful for good times.

Her long list.

Who created this role for her?

Sometimes the best pictures are behind you. But, now, those villas seem like one long chain of isolated white flower boxes, hanging precariously on pine-stem cliffs. The bellowing wind brings on the smell of the water, and gulls dive and plunge around the boat, their wings washed cleaned and unfettered, glistening in the sun, trying to natch into a quick meal from the human droppings.

She fancies the gulls almost like herself, a ruminating ferry passenger scooping erratically into imagined lives clinging to alien nests in pine forests on a distant shore.

But soon the boat leaves the harbor, and it is out on the great expanse of water. Nothing to be seen or encounter but one's self. as one gazes into the smell of the lapping waves. Then it is best to leave the wake of passage, and to walk to the front rail, the eye arrested to possibilities, to claim adventuresome thoughts as the ferry plows through the watery expanse.

Just in time: to let go of the bathos -- to pause and reflect and feel good about one's self. To bath one's self in the cool warmth of the morning sun. And, to feel such an invigorating flush from the lovely touch of the morning breeze. Ah! To imagine what is beneath all the human activity. All is good.

The world seems endless when one is out on the water. It is a sabbatical of a sort. The engines purr. All hums around you with surety. A feeling of being thankful for just having survived. The future seems full of endless possibilities.

An excited child's voice rings through the electric air as something is discovered. Only the quietness is disturbed. She is reluctant to pull away her thoughts from the water, and look around to find the source of the amusement.

But only a silent walker now. A man in a summer blues, his silhouette separates itself from the metallic marine white of the boat.

He walks to the rail, about 10 feet over. He looks lonely. He glances over. Once, Twice. Three times. Such a new experience.

He apparently wants to talk.

She cannot. Her hand is locked around the rail. Afraid to let go of memory. She is still grieving over the loss of being sure about having done everything right.

And, years later, she still sees his promising gaze at the rail. And she commands him to "Come now. My wings are glistening wet in the sun. I am ready to wash away this loneliness and to dive into the deep unknown."

Stuff.

Fluff.

Puff.

The seagulls are hungry again this morning.