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Shooting Up The Sea
“There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.”
I found the rumble of the diesel oddly comforting, like the purring growl of a big cat. We motored on calm seas 3 miles straight out until there was only sea and sky. I had the helm, getting the feel of the tiller. It serves as a wheel and resembles an oversized oar. Push to port to turn starboard, as needed to hold or change course. An almost constant thing with the boat pushed by wind and current. Adjust and readjust, like life in that way.
It was a plank of unfinished teak wood, broad where in came up from the rudder then curved and tapered to the working end, about a hand and a half wide.
If there comes a storm the man at the tiller must stand strong. On his feet with both hands to it, chest high for best leverage. Pushing against the overpowering force of an agitated sea.
With the pull of moon drawn tides and waves grown strong on their long uninterrupted journey to a unseen shore. With the wind whistling past your ears and horizontal rain in your face. With the confused blending of waves coming from all directions. Breaking white water across beam and bow, coming in a teeth rattling thud that makes you tense your grip and tests your faith. On a boat so small with the sea so vast.
Brave the roaring 40's in the Southern Ocean and lash yourself to the tiller to be tossed and thrown like a wet rag doll, surfing waves big as houses, heading up the Triton's lip to the crest and then down to the brief respite of the trough until the next and the next and the next one come. With no sleep, rest or reprieve until at its whim the storm blows itself out. Exhilarated after the slow bullet passes.
“You ready to go sailing,” Joe shouted, snapping me out of my reverie.
“Hell yeah, what do you want me to do?”
He told me to stand by while he went below to kill the engine.
The sudden silence was complete and deeper than any I had ever felt before. Sweetened only by the gentle lap of waves against the hull and spiced by the taste of the salty wind. The sound of a different world, a world I was at home in. The feeling as strong and immediate as a shot of smack to the brain, but even more comforting.
Because there had been some unidentifiable yet essential thing missing before that moment.
On land I didn't fit in. Never felt quite at home. People were careful with me because they could sense my discomfort. I withdrew deep into myself. I read The Idiot instead of Civics 101. Beat poetry and Leonard Cohen,Richard Farina and Camus and Kurt Vonnegut instead of Math. Of women I was ignorant and shy in an angst-ed teenage way. Never could find the words quite right to say. A displaced person between places.
Leaving the inexplicable America had helped. Europeans made much more sense. They had time to learn about what matters. Through war and plague, earthquake and typhoon. The falsehoods couldn't endure the realities of ruin, rebuilding and realization. Americans subscribe to a whole herd of disbelief's that they don't even know enough about to question. Work until your head explodes; get as much stuff as you can, even if it kills you; poets aren't necessary, we don't need all that jazz;
I'll have time later; what's good for General Motors is good for the country; we will die for your lies and never know it. Ad infinite nausuem.
The sea is a mystery found and another one opened. I left my baggage ashore. It could never quite make the transition anyway. Why worry about then, with all this wonderful now around.
Joe told me how to unfurl the mainsail and I did it. Unsnapped the brass eyelets on the canvas cover and let loose a line to free the unfurling. At first we were still, but not for long as the wind started popping the canvas making more and more pockets until at last it filled and we were taken by the wind.
Another shot, stronger than the first. Better than, longer than morphine. In the wind, destination unknown. The beginning of a new life for me.
****
Copyright 2013
Marcus Stein
