thoughts on what lies behind

Days and days have passed by and I have said nothing.  I have written nothing.   My mind has moved in circles, wheeling around and around, and yet expanding nowhere.

And yet time has passed all the same.  Life hasn't stopped at all.

In spite of myself seeds are sprouting and what fruit may come seems full

Of promise.

 

I sit now at anchor far from anything familiar.  I have atlast stepped outside myself and my boundaries into. . .   what?  Dream?

What do we call it when what has been asked for, what has been seeked out, carved into being, what do we call it when we find ourselves a step beyond the brink?

Everything known behind, everything fearful yet desired just ahead lurking in shadowy possibility?  What is that place?   I can't name it, but I am there, there at last.

 

[I remember finishing the AT.  You would think it would be this exhilarating feeling, but it wasn't.   It was too many conflicting emotions negating each other.  The result was blaise, a sort of lacking of emotion.]

 

Years have seen my questing for this place.  I've come to the edge several times (Spain when my Mom died, Venezuela the next year).

What is there to save me back this time?  With trepidation I accept that there doesn't feel to be any hindrance before me,

Any device to deflect me from my purpose.

 

I admit now, now that I am enrapt in it, that I am nervous—is that the word—what, scared? 

I am uncomfortable.

It isn't failure.  I don't know what that would be.  But the loneliness, isolation, separation, rejection, the slow fading from the the awareness of those whom I love, and whom I depend upon for support.

To lose you to slow desiccation, to be forgotten owing to non or sparse contact, for the dusty, rusty relationship to be deemed not worth the effort.

This is hard for me to bare.

 

But more, it is selfish and personal—the daily loneliness.  No phone, no intimate knowledge of your recent events, no contact, no hugs or smiles,

Only strangers and tenuous conversation in garbled, mangled Spanish or French or what have you.

And I chose this life; I relish it.  And I fear it.

I have to go forward.  I will not retreat no-matter-what.  How much will I have to bare?

How much will the pleasure of crystal seas and brisk breezes repay the debt?

The spirit repays the body.

 

Now I am in Mexico.  The time has come at last.  I am here.   It has started.  I have two more phone calls to make: Wendy and my Pops.  Then the voices will be gone, only reiterations in my memory.

I don't even know when I will see Ben and Moriah again.

 

But I know that I really don't know anything.  I could hit a reef and sink and be home soon.   I could fall in love and never return.  I could find brothers, like Ben, along the path as I have done along this stretch so far.

The fear keeps me sane and balanced, aware.  This isn't a hedonistic foray as it may naively appear.   (There is the possibility that I will sail across the Pacific solo—a month, alone, on a small boat—30 days without a word, without a change.  Fun is hardly the word.   It drives men mad.)

 

Today I have crew.  And she is wonderful, a true delight.  So generous I can't purvey with words—a rare gem of a woman.   I am blessed beyond my rank to have had her aboard at all.  I don't know how long it will be before she flies away.   (Actually, by this reading, she already has.  Haha.)

But she sailed with me from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas.  Much light air and fluttering, much lazing and ease, much cocoa and late nights.

The windvane was a miracle—it opens a new world.  I can fathom long distances now in a new way.   It steered us the whole way.  (It's name is Herbert.)

 

We saw whales and dolphins, albatross, seals—ran over a sea turtle, poor guy.  I could get within a half inch of touching the dauphines.   So amazing how they dance beneath the bow and peer up at you with a smile, a curious knowing glance.

We read some good poetry and laughed a fair deal.

 

 

So be it.

Tonight I head out for Los Frailes and La Paz.  It should be some five days or more.   Worry after 12 days.  From Tuesday, 20^th.

 

Love you all.