HORIZON
/THERE WAS A TIME when I could water ski. Today, with arthritic hands and carrying extra ballast, I doubt that I could hold on to the rope tight enough and long enough to pop out of the water. That's okay. I have no desire to be on skis anyway. It's not the proverbial sour grapes; I've moved on to other thrilling endeavors--like reading a newspaper or two each morning and tuning in to hear of the latest antics from D.C. Sometimes that feels like trying to hold on tight while being dragged face-first through the wake of long boat powered by two big Evinrudes.
I loved being around my Uncle David. He was oh so funny and fun. I remember being his caddy for a few rounds of golf when I was a kid. One summer, during college, I worked in his concrete construction company. But the best memory of all was going sailing with him on his sailboat. Skimming across the water without the roar of engines or the smell of fuel exhaust, the sails full of wind; this was the boating life for me. That day I vowed that one day I would have a sailboat.
Decades later, My Amazing Missus and I set sail for the first time on our Catalina sailboat, named (by the previous owner) "Trust Me II". People often asked, "What happened to Trust Me I?" I would explain that I covered that in my marriage proposal to her.
my amazing missus battening down the hatchs after a sail aboard trust me II
Sailing and marriage do take some trust; and repentance and forgiveness and courage and teamwork. You have to balance the white-knuckling, fraught, terrifying moments of changing winds and choppy waters with those that are blissful, serene and sublime. Occasionally, in precarious sailing moments, I would remind her and myself that I had three sailing certifications including costal cruising and navigation. But certificates don't matter when the boat is heeled over, keel up, and on the edge of its beam, speeding across the waves. The combination of thrills and terrors demands a return to calm. So a gentle turn into the wind puts on the brakes.
Once nerves and winds calmed, I might quote Captain Jack Sparrow just to reassure her: "The seas may be rough but I am the Captain! No matter how difficult, I will always prevail." She would give me a look as if to say, "Whatever floats your boat 'Captain'."
In the first sailing class you learn that a boat under sail (no engine running) always has right-of-way over a "power" boat. I raised my hand and asked the instructor if a guy with a six-pack or so of refreshing beverage in him, driving his boat full throttle across the lake, is aware of that rule. "Absolutely not!" our instructor warned.
Moral: You can know the rules, you can seek to follow the rules, but watch out for the guy whose t-shirt reads: Boats-Booze-Babes.
It feels like these days, the rules made by men are applied arbitrarily and only as they suit the desired ends of the power-brandishers. But when it comes to the ultimate, unshakeable rules of nature: the winds and the waves will have the final say.
A bit of sailing wisdom from a crusty old sailor named Scully, who ran a floating seafood joint/sailboat rental on a decrepit ship called the "Barnacle", to a guy named Jack (played by John Candy) renting a sailboat in a movie called "Summer Rental".
Scully:
She'll make ya rich, or she'll feed ya to the fishes. If she wants you to dance, sonny boy, you've got to follow her lead.
Jack:
Didn't I read that on your bathroom wall?
Scully:
Yes. And it's as true today as when I hung it there.
There was a guy whose boat's home slip was near ours. Even when he wasn't sailing, often times you could find him on his boat there at the dock, maybe doing some cleaning or straightening up the lines. Sometimes he would be sitting, reading and smoking his pipe. When we would pass by whether going out to sail or returning home he would say: "Fair winds and following seas." It's apparently a sort of sailor's blessing for well wishes. If you've been on a sailboat, it rings true. It's something I long for at this stage of the journey.
Once more, a quote from the quotable Captain Jack Sparrow: "The problem is not the problem. Your attitude about the problem is the problem."
I know, I know, Captain Jack. But these days it sure seems like the problem is the problem.
You've probably heard someone say, "This too shall pass." It's a very future focused sentiment isn't it? While I tend to get mired in the muck of the moment, I'm fascinated by that thing artists call the horizon line. Being on the water makes the horizon line so clear and straight. Depending on where the line is--high or low--in a picture, it gives us the feeling of being near or far from that moving target of a line. And even though it keeps its distance from us we still move toward it and all that it promises; over there beyond the horizon.
“Now bring me that horizon. ”
Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets and one of his poems that I've been reading a lot lately is "Aristotle". Each time we would go on a sail, there was a pushing from the dock and raising of the sails--a beginning. There was middle part--the adventure, the fun, the drama. And there was the return to the harbor and the routines of life. Mr. Collins in this poem pays homage to Aristotle's observations of well-told stories having a beginning, a middle and an ending. So, I'm thinking for a moment about each of our stories and our Story.
Aristotle
BY BILLY COLLINS
This is the beginning.
Almost anything can happen.
This is where you find
the creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land,
the first word of Paradise Lost on an empty page.
Think of an egg, the letter A,
a woman ironing on a bare stage
as the heavy curtain rises.
This is the very beginning.
The first-person narrator introduces himself,
tells us about his lineage.
The mezzo-soprano stands in the wings.
Here the climbers are studying a map
or pulling on their long woolen socks.
This is early on, years before the Ark, dawn.
The profile of an animal is being smeared
on the wall of a cave,
and you have not yet learned to crawl.
This is the opening, the gambit,
a pawn moving forward an inch.
This is your first night with her,
your first night without her.
This is the first part
where the wheels begin to turn,
where the elevator begins its ascent,
before the doors lurch apart.
This is the middle.
Things have had time to get complicated,
messy, really. Nothing is simple anymore.
Cities have sprouted up along the rivers
teeming with people at cross-purposes—
a million schemes, a million wild looks.
Disappointment unshoulders his knapsack
here and pitches his ragged tent.
This is the sticky part where the plot congeals,
where the action suddenly reverses
or swerves off in an outrageous direction.
Here the narrator devotes a long paragraph
to why Miriam does not want Edward's child.
Someone hides a letter under a pillow.
Here the aria rises to a pitch,
a song of betrayal, salted with revenge.
And the climbing party is stuck on a ledge
halfway up the mountain.
This is the bridge, the painful modulation.
This is the thick of things.
So much is crowded into the middle—
the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados,
Russian uniforms, noisy parties,
lakeside kisses, arguments heard through a wall—
too much to name, too much to think about.
And this is the end,
the car running out of road,
the river losing its name in an ocean,
the long nose of the photographed horse
touching the white electronic line.
This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade,
the empty wheelchair,
and pigeons floating down in the evening.
Here the stage is littered with bodies,
the narrator leads the characters to their cells,
and the climbers are in their graves.
It is me hitting the period
and you closing the book.
It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen
and St. Clement with an anchor around his neck.
This is the final bit
thinning away to nothing.
This is the end, according to Aristotle,
what we have all been waiting for,
what everything comes down to,
the destination we cannot help imagining,
a streak of light in the sky,
a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.
