Marsha

I met Marsha on the bus. This is how I meet many of the ‘new people’ in my life these days. I spend almost an hour, usually with many of the same people.

I tend to be sort of cocooned, pulling out my book or my Nook and going into another world other than taking occasional glances outside to look at people or water or mountains, only emerging from my chrysalis stage at the last possible moment upon arrival at my stop. But every now and then, something spurs interaction in a less superficial way than the normal ‘excuse-me’ and ‘did you drop this’ sort of engagement.

I’d been riding the same morning bus with Marsha frequently since last time I made a routing change and other than nods and occasionally teaming up to help a newbie figure out their stop, we’d never spoken. But one morning we were standing next to each other in the queue and one of us commented on a particularly clueless set of riders the day before and it turns out Marsha is as much of a gabber as am I, so off we went.

She’s quite an interesting women. After spending x number of years serving as a crew member on private yachts and charters, she holds multiple certifications and now teaches at a maritime academy in Seattle. She has great stories of dealing with self-impressed sea dogs who consider themselves far too salty to accept guidance – or worse, grading and correction – by a ‘mere slip of a girl.’ Never mind that their sole path to qualifying for a higher paying job and more prestigious position in the maritime world passes through her evaluation of their grasp of the material. 

This is a woman who started her career working large private yachts for a captain who maintained about 50/50 gender division in his crews. She says she “kept my mouth shut and head down and just did the work,” and fortunately this guy was more interested in developing talent that checking out the local talent so under his tutelage she flourished.

She worked hard and was smart enough never to pass on an opportunity to learn or to assume more responsibility. And when she was ready to spend some time ashore, found a berth teaching other people what she had already learned.

She told me about dealing with gruff old duffs. And people who inexplicably ignored their lessons after ponying up several thousand dollars for the privilege. Go figure, but I’ve seen the same thing elsewhere. It kills me to have a class of twenty or so in a classroom in, say, Denver and realize that the guy who flew there from Hawaii or the gal from New Hampshire can’t be bothered to pay attention to the material. Marsha and I share that experience.

You might suppose that having both spent significant periods at sea – I was in the Navy during my formative years – we would spend our time together swapping yarns about exotic places or typhoons we’ve known and loved.

No, mostly we talk about teaching adults – actual or theoretical – in professional development courses. It’s shop talk between peers of a sort and I really enjoy our time together. It doesn’t hurt that she’s a truly nice person.