BY CELIA CHANDLER
Copyright is held by the author.
SIX SLICK stone steps descending to the wet dock. No railing. No signage. No waiver. Jesus, they are a brave, trusting bunch. At the bottom, the captain with the unlikely Irish name, Sabba, takes her hand to bridge the gap from dock to deck. She clutches her Americano safety blanket in the other. She breathes again when she’s safely seated on the tourist bench.
Accepting that coffee from the dockside vendor 10 minutes ago, she noted the missing language: Caution, Contents Hot. Regardless, she took her usual protective measures: checking lid function, waiting, blowing, sipping. For 17 years, helping minimize client liability has been as natural as her innate impulse to limit her own risk.
But there she is on the ferry to Gola Island, a remote rock off the shore of the nearly-as-remote Wild Atlantic Way. The 15-minute crossing seems longer as she considers she’s only 25% through the trip’s shore-to-boat/boat-to-shore leaping.
Her 24/7 mental newscast of horribilizing has a new ticker-tape headline added to the one that’s been playing about charred lips and seared esophagi. This one says: Aspiring Writer Prioritizes Drink over Ending up in the Drink, Sues Ferryman. It’s below an on-camera interview with the tour organizer: “The Irish have jumped from ship to shore there for centuries. But we always knew this day could come. A clumsy and litigious visitor,” he’d say with a shrug.
She makes sure she’s second in line to disembark. Not first — she needs to model someone’s good technique — but soon enough to avoid losing her nerve. She refuses to approve an image of herself that wants to join her cerebral newsfeed: she’s on the floor of the boat’s cabin, unable to release herself from the fetal position, making the crossing with Sabba for the rest of her days. For god sake, get a grip on your imagination.
She steadies herself on land as her shaky lungs sip the water that hangs in the air as it has done all week. She’s been relieved to have had time off from imagining rain-laden trees crushing cars and their owners from the climate-change induced deluges they’ve had back in Toronto. That’s got mental worrying footage she can rebroadcast when she’s home. But not today. Mauzy weather does not weigh down branches and even if the clouds suddenly opened, on this barren island there are no big trees to fall.
She strolls with her fellow retreat-goers towards Eddie’s cafe. While others wander from the path to admire foliage or scenery, she stays on hard surface. Grass harbours ticks and ticks carry Lyme disease, she thinks to herself. She sidesteps greasy sheep manure on the asphalt, envisaging falling or getting dirty or both.
At Eddie’s, she’s offered bootleg liquor infused with a medley of herbs. She ignores the hint of allergic itch on the back of her tongue with each sip. There’s one thing that trumps risk aversion: affection for homemade libations. She smiles as her guts warm a little, fortifying her for the return ferry.
***
Celia Chandler won a Canadian Online Publishing Award for her series on her husband’s medically assisted death in 2020. That kickstarted her writing. Since then, she’s won the 2024 Eden Mills Non-Fiction Contest, and been shortlisted elsewhere, including the 2023 Amy MacRae Award for Memoir and the Porter House Review 2024-2025 Editor’s Prize. As well as being previously published by CommuterLit, she’s had work published in the Toronto Star, Gemini Magazine, Ariel Chart International Literary Journal, Months to Years, and Witcraft. Celia’s working on a book about mid-life reinvention called Lane Change and writes weekly from her laneway house at celiachandler.com.