Sailing....

People who know me are well aware of the fact that I'm not the biggest fan of getting wet (read: I don't like swimming).  When I was younger, I loved to swim. In fact my parents had to make at least a weekly trip to the pool so that I could fulfill my personal swimming quota. I can't say when exactly I became disinterested with swimming. It may be when I was around eleven and my parents put in a pond out in the back of our property. It was a deep pond and you really couldn't swim in it on your own. Instead you needed to use a life jacket (at the very least). Often times we used inner tubes and lazily floated around the pond, drifting from one end to the other, wherever the wind may push us. And it was fun, for a little bit of time.

One thing my parents (or anyone who knows me) have never had to tell me has been to 'use my imagination.' That sort of thing seems to come rather instinctively to me and more than likely, my parents would be telling me to come back to reality instead. So, after an hour of just floating around I would start getting bored and my imagination would inevitably kick in. After kicking myself over to the dock I would climb up out of the water, onto the dock dragging my inner tube behind. Once there, I would gather the necessary supplies: an oar, two three other inner tubes, each slightly smaller than the other.

 

Each inner tube would be stacked on top of one another, pushed off the dock, the oar tossed into the water within the same vicinity (thank goodness the oars floated) and then..."Abandon ship!" A cannonball off the end of the dock and into the water I would go; swimming over to the pile of inner tubes I would climb up on top, grab the oar and then my imagination would begin taking over. I would spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the shoreline for whatever my imagination needed me to find.

 

At this juncture, you may be expecting a segue into an epic adventure or a brief outline of my aquatic experience(s) but here I must disappoint. Growing up in the hills of Pennsylvania, open water is a hard commodity to come by so to suffice it to say my aquatic experiences are rather lacking. Perhaps this is why I eventually lost interest in swimming and have preferred to stay on dry land.

 

Another reason could be because most every experience that I have had in a boat revolves around running out of gas, the boat taking on vast amounts of water, or watching my Dad have to be rescued by the park rangers or PA Fish and Boat Commission because of the boat being caught out in the water and needed to be towed in to shore.

 

Granted, these experiences are worth relishing and do create great stories, but they do also have the adverse effect of dampening the adventurous spirit as far as water-oriented recreation is concerned. However, they have not quenched the spirit completely.

 

Should I have the opportunity to learn from an experienced and qualified instructor, I would love to learn the proper way to Captain a sailboat. To me, nothing else requires a diverse blend of orienteering, strategy, physical strength, coordination, patience, cunning and communication than sailing. Additionally, I find the whole boat and sails and wind with an incredible sky in the background or the battle of your wit pitted against the angst of Mother Nature indelibly romantic.

 

 Perhaps, even more intriguing I find the metaphor of sailing most appealing, especially as I contemplate the next steps in my life and career.  

 

From the shore, sailboats look ever so calm and collected, listlessly, silently gliding across the water. They move in a way that makes them appear to be standing still...up until you take your eyes off them. When you turn back you find that the boat has moved a good distance away from your original frame of reference. On the boat, however, is a different story. On the boat, you are constantly checking the direction of the wind, adjusting for every slight crosswind or change in direction, praying that the sails stay full and you can advance to your destination without incident. Strategy comes into play when the wind direction changes and you need to cut the boat, or change the direction of the sails in such a way so as to continue to propel you toward your intended destination. Sometimes the wind dies down and you can do nothing but sit for the wind to pick back up and power your boat to wherever you need to go (unless, of course, you cheat and have a motor mounted on the back of your boat...but let us, for the sake of the metaphor, assume we are elitist snobs and abhor the use of motors on a sail boat).

 

Orienteering is self explanatory - how else will you know which direction to go? Water is flat, boring and the topography - at least on top - does not change or if it does, it does not stay permanent.

 

I can't find a better current description of my life.

 

Growing older has provided me with the experience and ingenuity of keeping myself moving forward, to a destination that seems to change but it is still the same - dry land. A place to dock, my place of mooring, etc. etc. I have passed many marinas in the Bay of life, but I keep going. Trusting that the wind that powers my sails is also the wind that is taking me in the right direction.  And I believe that it is.

 

I have to believe that; otherwise the whole journey is pointless.