# 53 PUPPY - WE SELL THE BOAT

Scooter to Mom, “Why are we sitting in the cockpit of Jim’s boat, not ours?”

“Was ours.”

“Wazzars? What kind of boat is a Wazzars? That’s our Bayliner Bodega, there, next to us. It has our name on it.

“Not ours now,” I said, sipping on coffee offered by our slip-mate, Jim.

“Notars? Wazzars? Are we playing a teaching game but you’re not telling?”

“We are aboard Jim’s boat because PineAweigh was ours but isn’t now. We are waiting for the new owners to come get her. Here, look, this is the picture I took yesterday of you on PineAweigh. Today we need permission to go aboard.

“Is this a good thing?” Scooter asked with his eyes. She pauses, that is, I do.

“It is a good thing, Scooter. The people who have bought her are delightful. They will take very good care of PineAweigh. We have enjoyed the boat for twenty-five years, so you know, it isn’t easy letting her go. We have seven logbooks filled with the fun and frustration of cruising for months at a time with and without friends, and always with dogs, from Puget to Desolation Sounds and everywhere in-between. Yeah, it’s a little hard. But it is good.

“Was I there when you adopted PineAweigh?”

“You are three, Scooter. We bought PineAweigh twenty-five years ago. We love her. She’s practically family.

“Right. But was I there?”

“What time is it, Scooter?” I checked my phone. It was nearly time for the new owners to arrive.

“Time to eat? Time to find the ball Jim hides in his saloon? Time to board PineAweigh?

“Kairos, Scooter. You think time as Kairos, the Greek concept of time as a qualitative moment.

Perhaps it was good that as a Seminary student I studied Greek. I love this about Scooter. Time is qualitative. Like any ordinary dog, though ordinary he isn’t, Scooter doesn’t have a clear concept of Chronos, that ticking of measured time, Scooter thinks Event. He can tell, by the fading of a scent, that measured time is passing, but he thinks ‘event.’ 

The ancient Greek archer knew Kairos as the moment, the event, when the perfect opening appeared for an arrow to be sent to the target: Kairos! “Now!” 

Like the archer pulling the bowstring, Scooter is in the moment, cuddled next to me. We’re not aboard PineAweigh, which is confusing, but that’s okay because he is here, now, next to me, living quality, not quantity. Kairos. What could be better. I, however, am checking the clock, checking numbers, Chronos, watching the dock, waiting for the time, quantitative, when the new owners of PineAweigh will appear, and take our boat away.

We will greet them fondly. We will remind them of where starter keys are hidden, of a myriad of things they need to remember about the boat, about the water between where they are and where they are going. We will watch their departure. In time, we will return by car to our home.

“Mom,” Scooter says from his car-seat, once settled.

“Humm?”

“Are you and Dad sad?”

“A little, yes.”

“Mom, when I am what you call “twenty-five,” would you sell me?”

“Oh, Scooter! Family members with beating hearts, soft tongues, fierce voices, and furry coats are never for sale.”