Chris’ Backstory & the Old Crew

One especially cold and foreboding night, the crew is huddled in a small cabin on Cuttyhunk still fuzzy about how they had come to their situation and anxious about where they are headed. The texture of the moment is quiet, even ominous and Chris senses that it is important to shift gears. Off-handedly, she says, “You never have heard where I come from.” The others were startled. They had always wondered, but had never raised it assuming great sensitivity.

Chris, “You need to know who I am.” She paused and then started to fill in the void.

“I was raised in a lean-to in a place with no name on the coast, the water’s edge, in the Carolina colony. It was a commune and I had no knowledge of my parents. All the children were raised by elderly men. Virtually all of the children were boys. I never did wonder why. All of our upbringing was framed for boys. They molded all behaviors and lessons for boys. There was no modeling for behaviors for girls. The emphasis was on being aggressive, competitive, and on drinking ‘like men.’ I was treated the same as the others – like a guy. I acted like a guy, and dressed like a guy. In time, it became clearer I was smaller. Smallish guys were cast out of the community, but I was able to stay by being more aggressive than the others. I often wondered what had happened to those who had simply vanished. We were told we were 'Cossacks.' Our leader, a bold, powerful, strident man, said we are thieves, raiders and mercenaries from a far-off land. We had escaped bondage and were a self-reliant band whose loyalties were to each other and only to each other. All of our days, every day, we spent training in the male disciplines. Combat, leadership, weapons, endurance and, rituals of discipline.”

Bud, Alan, Na, Nev and Rose sat as if mesmerized by the tale. They were silent.

Chris continued, “There was one very old woman who was permitted to live on the edge of the settlement. They called her the ‘witch.’ She would tell tales of the sea. She said it was magical. She would say the sea is a mistress and that all women of the sea are sisters. Her rants were full of enrapturing images of nature and particularly of the natural forces of the sea. The evidence of its power and fury would rage in from the sea periodically validating all her claims.”

A long pause follows, and then Chris begins again, “Somewhere in my middle teens, the others began treating me differently. There was some recognition that I was a girl and that began to reflect itself in their attitudes and expectations of me. It was unsettling and confusing. Comradery turned to distance. I remember it was a rather sudden change accompanied by whispers and behaviors that I could not understand. I was more and more isolated from my peers.

I ran away without a plan or a direction. To my knowledge, no one pursued me. I poked around in nearby ports. Worked in a chandlery and a sail loft. Very long days for food and little else. I was always near the sea and learned all that I could from every source. It was the fascination with the sea and where it might lead that kept me going. I observed everything I could about the ports, the sea, the ships, the language, and the sailors -- only to discover that women were unwelcome on the sea. If the door was to open for me, I would have to retain that male identity that my upbringing had created. Many seasons passed in Charleston before that remarkable Sunday when I approached you and was enlisted on the COMMERCE.”

The young members of the crew had no capacity to say anything sensitive. Nev did comment. He said, “It is the nature of each of us that we come to this adventure by different routes and motives. We are like the country we seek to create, full of difference. We come from different places and will certainly end up in different places, but for now, we are bound to each other. Let us celebrate that we found each other.”

The rest of this chapter is in the book.

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