Tide and Current Taxi: 2013

Jasper’s Map

With Jasper Harvest Kim-Witthoft, Eunice Kim, and Debbie Tuch

August 26, 2013

When Jasper Harvest Kim-Witthoft found out that she was going out in the boat on Wednesday, she got right to work on her map.

“She always sees us looking at maps on our phones,” said Jasper’s mom. “It’s funny how quickly she learned to visualize space that way.”

I had never taken someone so small out in the boat before, and I was a little worried,

but Jasper is growing up around the water. Her dad takes her surfing,

and her mom is Eunice Kim; my friend from college and an undaunted explorer.

Also, we were going to have some moral support from a Tide and Current Taxi veteran.

Debbie Tuch met us around the bend at a little beach in Broad Channel.

Debbie has been hopping happily aboard my boats as long as I’ve been making them (about 20 years).

The day was pretty windy, and I didn’t want us to get too far out into the bay.

Jasper seemed pretty happy in the boat,

but sheÂ definitelyÂ wanted to be right next to her mom.

We passed under the A train,

and got to a little stretch of beach that runs along the tracks.

The wind was coming right at us, so I suggested that we walk along for a while why I pulled the boat by hand.

Jasper and Eunice were game.

It felt nice to walk along in the shallow water,

and the girls got to beach comb for a while.

Soon, Jasper found something more interesting than walking.

“Maybe it is time to draw our map.” Said Eunice.

“That is one thing about being a mom,” said Eunice,

“you kind of learn to set up camp anywhere.”

It was a great set up,

and soon Jasper went to work on it.

She had been talking all morning about going to a place called Mommy Island, and in the begginning of the drawing, I really thought that I could see it.

Then things got a little more abstract,

and Jasper lost interest in the world of representation.

I suppose you can only stay interested for so long,

and anyway it was time for lunch.

If you looked to the west, it was like we had the whole bay to ourselves,

but to the east, we were just a few feet from hundreds of people riding around on the A train.

It is my favorite kind of space in New York City;Â invisible, parallel, uninhabited,

We walked along in the water to see some more of our private world.

It was a big step for Jasper. She had never walked along in the salt water before. There were lots of new things squishing underfoot,

like thousands of sea snails making their way back into the water as the tide went out.

That was the fun thing about traveling with Jasper; all of my normal goals were put on hold as we helped Jasper experienceÂ new things,

like touching a snail for the first time.

It was like the whole day was dedicated to this very simple and profound act of perception.

We set Jasper up in the boat so that she could ride along while we walked, like a floating stroller.

We called it the ‘princess seat’,

and Jasper played the part beautifully,

making up stories in a sort-of-English accent.

There was one goal that I couldn’t quite let go of though, to reach the destination of Mommy Island.

We decided that Mommy Island was the one right off the coast of Broad Channel.

We paddled to it,

made landfall,

and drifted away.

This one small goal was enough to wipe Jasper out completely.

On the paddle back home, she fell sound asleep.

I think I remember doing that as a kid. Maybe it was fallingÂ asleepÂ in the bow of a littleÂ boatÂ that connected me to boats when I grew up.

I couldn’t help feeling a sense that I wanted to contribute something to Jasper’s grown up personality, even if I was only around her for a day.

It was like planting a little seed that would grow into a thought.

But who knows how those things really turn out. I saw Jasper when we were back in Brooklyn a few days later, and I’m not sure she even remembered the boat.