When I asked Victoria Mayer what she wanted me to say about her proffession on my website,
she said, “Say that I am a traveler. “
She really is, too. New York is far from her birthplace in Germany.
Maybe thats one of the many reasons she is liked so much by my brother Matt,
who has been all over the world and speaks many languages.
Victoria had never been out in my boat.
Although we have known each other for a while.
So we all decided to take a trip out into the East River at my favorite time of day.
It was a windy, choppy day.
Thunder storms had been sweeping around Brooklyn – a few hours ago it was pouring rain.
But now it seemed like the rain had moved elsewhere.
We pulled out of the wind, into the Bushwick Inlet. I guess the name is left over from when all of Greenpoint and Williamsburg were called Bushwick – or ‘Boswijck’ by the Dutch.
There are plans in the works to make a park around the inlet.
Today we have the place all to ourselves.
Meanwhile a concert was going on in another park in Williamsburg.
Matt had some friends who would be at the event.
But we thought it would be more fun to pull up and listen from the water.
We had dinner in the boat.
Victoria seemed a little uneasy as the boat sloshed and scraped against the broken pier.
We stayed in the boat,
while Matt shot some video from the pier.
“Don’t worry.” I told her,
“When the sun sets, the wind will die down.”
But the sun went down,
and the wind kept up,
and the waves and wakes held us against the pier.
We could hear the concert starting in the park.
We listened while the lights came up in the city.
The music seemed to be getting worse and worse and worse.
We unmored ourselves,
and drifted out into the little bay.
There were colored lights and a pavilion.
“This sounds like the soundtrack to ‘The Endless Story’.” said Victoria.
The tide had turned to the North.
So we padled back easly along the shore.
Victoria was feeling more comfortable now that we were free from the pier.
The city drifted by.
This is my new favorite spot to land:
the end of Java street in Greenpoint.
This is the view from there on any night.
-Marie Lorenz
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