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BallastApril 08, 2008 This past weekend the sun actually came out and felt warm enough on my neck that I decided snow and ice were gone for this year. We didn't have much, and what we did get was early in the winter, but boy, did we get rain. Northern New England got snow -- friends in Vermont and New Hampshire report that in places they've still got two feet on the ground, and not long ago it was so deep that three- and four-rail fences looked to have only one rail. Uhura Mazda is a light pickup with only four cylinders and no four-wheel drive, and in slippery conditions with no load in the back she can and will spin on a dime. This is an admirable skill in horses but a liability in motor vehicles, so back in December Jim Lobdell surveyed the collection of mechanical stuff and building supplies around the boat barn and spotted two forks from a long-gone forklift. They're L-shaped and heavy as, uh, lead? These he lifted with the tractor and deposited in Uhura Mazda's bed. We anchored them more or less in place with a wood block at one end and a cinder block at the other (note to self: next year get two wood blocks and two cinder blocks). These did the trick: I didn't fishtail once on the ice, though I did almost get stuck once in some deep mud, and I had to pay more attention to speed bumps than I usually do. Unladen, Uhura skims over speed bumps. With the two forks in the back, it felt like the axle was going to break if I didn't slow down. So on Saturday I drove out to the boat barn, found an accessible but not in-the-way spot in the scrub, backed Uhura into it, and let down the tailgate. I have no idea what each of these forks weighs, but they are heavy muthas -- lifting one without mechanical help is forget it unless you're Arnold Schwarzenegger in his heyday, and maybe even he couldn't have done it, but sliding them one by one out of the truck bed was not beyond the capacity of a reasonably strong fifty-something barn rat, so I did it solo. Very carefully, mind you: if one of them landed wrong on your foot, it could break bones and lay you up for weeks. Now, with nothing in the bed but a crumpled soda can, a broken snow scraper, and some residue of the manure I hauled for my neighbors a few days ago, I'm once again flying over speed bumps. Actually today I'm flying over speed bumps on a bicycle because Uhura's in the shop having her ball joints replaced -- ball joints that may have been prematurely worn out flying over speed bumps but I prefer to blame the dirt roads of Martha's Vineyard, particularly the very rough section of the Stoney Hill Road. I avoid this stretch whenever possible but it's a handy shortcut from the barn to State Road and sometimes when I'm in a hurry I use it. Very slowly, need I say. Flying over those moguls is an Rx for mega suspension problems, sooner rather than later, unless you're driving a Sherman tank or the SUV equivalent. My ballast has served me well, but I can't help noticing that "ballast" and "baggage" have a few things in common: they scan the same, they both begin with b, and they'll both weigh down a pickup bed. I've had a somewhat adversarial relationship with baggage most of my adult life, as evidenced by the recurring baggage dreams I had in my twenties and early thirties: getting into a panic because my train was about to pull out of the station and I couldn't run for it because I had too much stuff, that kind of thing. "Baggage" has a somewhat negative connotation these days, both in my head and in the wider world. It's not the same as "luggage." (Maybe "baggage" is excess luggage?) Having too much baggage is a liability. With ballast, however, the problem is having too little. When I say that someone "doesn't have her daggerboard in the water," I mean she's all over the map, can't get any traction -- is (usually) putting out a lot of effort but not making much headway. Daggerboards and ballast serve pretty much the same purpose: they help keep your load balanced and your boat on an even keel. (When you sail a Sunfish or other board boat, your body is your ballast.) When a sailor of my acquaintance told me I had a deep keel, I was flattered. Ballast and baggage might easily be mistaken for each other. One person's baggage might be another person's ballast, and vice versa. Not only that, today's ballast might be tomorrow's baggage, or vice versa. Winter's ballast turned into spring's baggage, and that's why those two mighty forks are once again waiting in the scrub near the boat barn. If we have two feet of snow this weekend, I'll be cussing myself for jettisoning my ballast too soon. It probably won't happen. The real ballast/baggage yin/yang going round in my head has to do with the horse. (When I'm thinking "ballast," her name is Allie. When I'm thinking "baggage," it's "the horse.") For years Allie and barn chores and riding kept me on an even keel. I'm not kidding when I say I couldn't have written Mud of the Place without it. Ballast for sure. These days I sometimes rail against the expense, in time as well as money -- time and money being, pretty much, two ways of looking at the same thing, allocation of resources. The time that goes into making money to support not just Allie but my involvement in horses: it's huge, and it's time that isn't going into writing, or anything writing-related. If I had more time, would I have done a better job of selling Mud of the Place? (Five-figure advance, prestigious publisher, sit back till it's time for the book tour?) Would Squatters' Speakeasy be long since done by now? Well, maybe yes and maybe no and maybe should-bes and could-have-beens are just another kind of baggage. That's why I don't know if it's time to get out of horses, and why part of my ballast these days is something I learned long ago: "When in doubt, don't." Another part is the title song from an early Sweet Honey in the Rock album: "B'lieve I'll run on, see what the end's gonna be." Because until I get to where I'm going, I won't know I'm on the right track.
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