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Last week when on holiday it felt good to be back at sea, on water in a ship amongst seaman and sailors.
My father tells me my fondness for sailors water goes back to infancy. One day he was in charge of babysitting to give my mother a break – I was a very colicky baby. A friend invited him to go sailing. He decided to go, taking me along. He put me in the bunk in the bow. For the first time since birth I stopped screaming and I slept without crying.
When she found out what he did, my mother had a fit, but she couldn’t argue against the results. I think they considered selling me to the next freighter going up Lake Huron.
Perhaps it is because I am a ‘water sign’ (Cancer) that I like the water. I get car sick easily; movies with a lot of motion make me queasy. But the motion of a boat calms me right down. Last week during the ‘at-sea’ day I slept nearly 18 hours.
I grew up with boats – most of my family members had a boat of some sort. A few are sailors. Some of my fondest childhood memories are the summers I spent on the Great Lakes with my grandfather on his cabin cruiser.
In contrast, I don’t like to be IN large bodies of water. First of all I chill easily. But mostly from a neurotic sense that “something down below” will make a grab at me. And I am not talking sharks – I think it is about some uncanny water force or spirit wanting me to stay. Or I think about ghosts of the drowned who want to drag me down to the deep. I am the only one of my siblings who does not scuba dive; snorkeling often evokes a panic attack.
Thanks to Cliffie at Cliffie’s Notes, even the fish are now suspect of plotting some outrage.
But to be on the water – oh that is a joy like no other. A sail or a cruise is a spiritual event.
When I die I hope my ashes are spread on some beach at sunset, as the sun enters the sea. In a sense I will join the sea.
Perhaps that is why being in the water evokes emotions – I am in the presence of an Archetype – and in my grave.
