A curious attraction

We spent some time Saturday at the Wooden Boat Show on Bainbridge. It was small, but well attended, and a lovely feast for the eyes. It's always been amazing to me, how even the simplest things on boats --especially wooden ones-- can be so appealing.

Perhaps it's because I have seafaring men on both sides of my family? My father was in the Navy, and his father stowed away on a boat when he was 12 and was a sailor for the rest of his life. (Is now the time to mention that my father's most damning expletive was to call someone "a son of a sea-cook"?) And my great-grandfather on my mother's side captained a steamboat on the Mississippi River.

You'd think all those genes would manifest themselves as a love of boating -- or at least of seafood! But no, it's more a matter of what my eyes love than what my body loves. This must be another example of the hunger I spoke of two days ago: though my eyes hunger for the sea and all that's associated with it, my heart prefers to be safely on land (for the most part, though I have been known to enjoy canoeing) and my stomach definitely prefers land creatures to sea creatures. Which makes me think about something my daughter said recently, about the difference between the men she's attracted to, and the men she actually dates. Attraction: such a curious thing... You'd think the two hungers would have more in common with each other. Makes me think of that line from Paul's letter to the Romans: "For I don't do the good I want to do, but instead do the evil that I don't want to do..." Must be something about how we are "fearfully and wonderfully made!"