after all the time, effort, and expense i put into buying, refurbishing, and maintaining a 24-foot sailboat, turns out all i really needed was a fifty-nine dollar inflatable dinghy, purchased second-hand from a georgetown junkman. it was sarah's first swim since breaking her ankle, the easy in and out of being low in the water a feature of this vintage 1987 blow-up, which i dubbed david blowie. but there's nothing like boating to take one from pleasure to panic in a matter of minutes. maybe we jinxed ourselves by joking about squalls on a clear calm day, but when we got caught downwind as it started to blow, a pleasant paddle became an uphill battle to get back to the dock. we were never in any real danger and could have made land any time we wanted instead of struggling against wind and wave to make creeping headway, but it served as a vivid reminder of how quickly fortunes can turn. the only thing we can hope to control is how we react to change.