addendum

I should add that John is arguably MORE famous--or infamous--here in
Mossel Bay for our jailtime that he was in Port Elizabeth.

The Famous John Rand

This is a funny thing that happened while I was in Port Elizabeth.
For reason's unknown to me, a reporter decided to interview John for
the newspaper. The young dashing American solo sailor thing, I think.
So a whole squadron of reporters and camera people came down to the
docks, crossed the fishing boats and climbed aboard Dancyn.

It was quite a spectacle. And John was brilliant. They really didn't
know enough about sailing to ask the right questions, but John didn't
care, he's gone give his schpeal no matter what they asked him anyway,
which turned out great for the reporters.
Of course the lead reporter was this young dutch girl with stunning
eyes, so John, naturally tries to work her for a drink. Sorry to say
that didn't pan out, and she seemed so keen on him, too.

Anyway. It was funny because after the article came out in the paper
everyone saw it and kept asking him what he was famous for. Being
John, he would come up with some story of some sort. It was all a
good laugh. "The young American sailor goes where the wind takes
him." Great stuff. They've even got a video on there. Check it
out. My boy is good.

http://www.theherald.co.za/article.aspx?id=522666

Mossel Bay Departure

Should be leaving here on FRIDAY ... oooh. Well, a weather window is
a weather window. And it is a good one.
So I should be in be in Simon's Town within 48 hours of my departure
sometime in the afternnon - evening on friday.

Karen, can't wait to see you. And all those cruisers that I haven't
seen in months now. Kali - get your flute ready!

Here we go. This is the big one!

South African Rock

Beautiful, Tennessee-style sandstone (or Quartzite). I found it on a
run around the coast near this beautiful old lighthouse on a high
bluff. There was a coastal trail that headed under some crags and I
looked up to see how beautifully overhung and juggy they were, and
some good cracks and chimneys.
And as I had just run down the trail from the top of the bluffs, I
knew I should be able to set up topropes. What I needed was a belay.
But I didn't even have to hound John. He was was keen. So we set out
yesterday afternoon. The anchors were huge boulders on the top of the
bluff. The routes weren't long, but they were fun. There was a roof
I had to pull over using a finger lock that is a priceless memory now.
Oh it was perfect. I am so so happy to have been on good rock again,
and to find moves just within my ability. Great fun. I am floating
on air.
That and there is a good looking weather window coming this way. Soon.

Only One Thing ...

If I could keep only one possession . . .

. . . it would by my guitar.

Music is endless and eternal. You can carry it in your head or
express it loudly to the world. It is a relief from the tediums of
the mind. It calms and cleanses.

But it is also a door to endless mystery. One can play music forever
and forever find melodies and tunes that are new to him.

Through effort alone you grow. No matter what talent you start with,
you can always improve. This certainty is a bulkhead for happiness in
old age. I dream of being an old man, sitting on a backporch
somewhere in the country, with a guitar and a glass of sweet tea, and
a group of friends around to strum some tunes with.

Nothing ever remains the same long in my life, but today that is my
answer. Take my climbing shoes, my skis and my boat, my books, my
journals, my photos of the past. But I will fight for my guitar with
my last breath.

Sharkwater

There is a great white shark named Lola--and she lives in the
anchorage where I am in Mossel Bay. She patrols the western
breakwater. I haven't seen her,which could be a good thing or a bad
thing. And--if you believe this--i had to get IN THE WATER to clean
my hull. Crazy ... not really. Everyone swims here; no one is ever
attacked. Mind you, I did have a friend with me in the water, and
Laura in the kayak. Group supported operation. Sickly, we actually
were mildly disappointed not to see her. Morbid, but true. Watch the
movie "Sharkwater" and you will feel differently about sharks. They
simply don't kill humans. Five deaths a year. Coke machines kill
more people.

Great White Shark Bait, Seal Island, Mossel Bay, South Africa

 

 

 

two drafts of drafts

In the Jailhouse
Mossel Bay, South Africa

The short of it is that John and I went out with friends. We got
drunk. We walked home. Some Port police officers stopped us walking
home to tell us that we weren't allowed to drink (or be drunk
presumably) in the port. How the hell were we supposed to know that,
we argued. And what's more, we live here; you can't tell us we can't
go back to our boats. We have no where else to go. At this point
things got more heated than necessary and we were not so kindly asked
to get in the back of the truck. Which, very confusedly, we did.
After which, as we left, John decided this was all very very bad and
we should run for it. So he jumps out. He is far too drunk for such
daring, and drunk enough to try it. I jumped after him, but had no
feel for what we were trying to, but was confused, as we hadn't been
arrested or charged or anything. I just wanted a moment to think
before we went any farther. So I jumped, but abruptly stopped,
realizing it equated to "running from the cops" which I had NO
interest in doing.
John was taken down roughly and maced. His pants were ripped in half
and John is one of those men who prefer to NOT wear underwear. So,
maced, handcuffed, and half-naked we drive the long drive to South
African prison.
John is yelling and saying many rather nasty things which didn't make
us any friends. We had no passports on us. Normally we don't carry
them as it is too easy to be mugged and have them stolen, but it was a
shocking lapse on my part to not have a photocopy in my wallet. I
can't explain how or why it wasn't there. It is always there. I used
to have a copy sewn in my pants. And, now, when I desperately needed
it—it was gone, or removed. And this was grave.
So, why were we arrested? I don't know. Drunk in the port? Perhaps.
We were never given a breathalyzer to determine that we were drunk.
If that were the case, we should have been taken out of the port, not
arrested. (This could have happened if we had cooperated.) This is
what we were told we were being charged with. After we were maced,
again.
It is clear now we are going to jail. In South Africa, this is not a
pleasant realization. But there is nothing to be down. I was calm
and smiling. There was enough fuel on the fire already. I didn't
like the cops but I wasn't going to let them beneath my skin. We had
little power. They refused us a phone call and there was no way for
me to know if that was local protocol or not. I tried to secure a
private cell for the night, which was a most essential matter, and
failed, as the mace-happy officer should me a great pool of blood, and
says, "see what happens … ?" Indeed I did, but wasn't going to baulk
under such a blatant intimidation.
We were thrown in with 5 somalis, all asleep. I eyed them all
apprehensively. They were young, small. The cell was small but
decent. I didn't know what time it was, but I was keen to stay awake.
It was fruitless in the end. They were all good lads. They weren't
criminals, just immigrants with expired work permits.
We were given coffee and four pieces of bread in the morning and told
we'd have to wait for the immigration office. Only one hour the
officer said. Half a day passed. Friends of the Somalis brought them
a bucket of KFC, and they shared with John and me. It was divine
food. And really, who shares food in jail? This was alright.
We start to believe we are in for the whole weekend. We had been
warned, never get arrested on a Friday because they will keep you
until Monday. We were arrested on a Friday. So we settle in for the
haul, make small talk with the Somalis. Yet shockingly, in late
afternoon, we are ALL pulled out of the cell. The immigration officer
drove an hour to met us on his day off. Perhaps the officer felt bad
about the manner and nature of our arrest. He told us in no uncertain
terms that we had done nothing wrong. I repeat. THE POLICE OFFICER
SAID THAT WE HAD DONE NOTHING WRONG. I will say that this is not
true. It is inexcusable to be without a photocopy of your passport in
a foreign country, in my opinion.
We were released late on Saturday afternoon. Everyone is rather
infuriated about the incident and we are meeting with a lawyer and the
newspaper in a few days, though I am really not interested.

longer one
---------------------------------------

It was a light and easy 24 hour sail into Mossel Bay from Plettanburg
Bay. The anchorage is more secure, but not much. In fact the open
anchorage is perhaps the only detraction to perhaps my favorite South
African town. Mossel Bay is quiet and quaint and safe. You can walk
about town comfortably and the streets and shops are welcoming and
attractive. A bit like small town America. In fact it was this
comfort and hominess that would, in the end, lead to 'significant'
problems.
A few boats were already in the harbor that I knew, Buena Vida and
Blue Falcon, and my friend Errol completed a two-year circumnavigation
here, his home. My first day in port was some walking about and
seeing old faces. That afternoon / night John on Dancyn came in to
port and he was equally moved by the tranquility of the place. As we
made a tour of the shops the next day—organizing supplies and hardware
to shore up our vessels for the Cape—we decided a night out was in
order.
Strange, but I could really feel it. I was keen. I don't go out
much, and generally only go when dragged. But this time I was keen.
We enjoyed the end of the afternoon at the Havana Club drinking a $3
bottle of wine. I went off to a dinner on Buena Vida and that
encompassed the early evening, and drinking was, luckily, not
involved. When I fetched John from a Brai (South African bbq), he was
already going long. He was in good form indeed, and enjoying himself
as only John Rand can. I was with Kali and Cunnel from Buena Vida and
we laughed our way up the street from the yacht club to the first club
that our friends had recommended.
I should say, that just beyond the yacht club gate—a place with great
relevance to this story—we were past by a police car, whom John
quickly shouts good spiritedly to, and then asked if we could hope in
the back for a ride. This request was ignored at the time, but
granted enthusiastically as the moon rose and feel on the night to
come.
Everyone was having a fine time. It was great to relax,be out with
friends, to be so close to the Cape. We met with a guy we had only
met earlier that day, Hansi. He worked in the local chandlery and he
introduced us to his friend Laura, who was new into the professional
yacht crew business. We sat around a very comfortable room with a few
more bottles of $3 wine listening to John weave funny tales of SE Asia
cruising. It was all fine.
It was a fine night all in all. We went to the local dance club and
met up with the rest of the Buena Vida crew and danced for hours and
all were smiles. Our crowd left us as the night waned, and eventually
it was only John and I. And John still maintaining a level of high
cheer. It must be late; the night is done. I figured it was as good
a time to go as we would find. I found no complaints from my boy and
we took to the road home.
John wasn't negotiating the hill well; I sort of walked the front line
and he leaned in and that got us into the port. … where we found a
'sort of' guard at the corner. I told John to shut-the-hell-up as we
walked by, which of course did not happen. And only moments later as
we approached the gate to the yacht club, mere yards from our
dinghies, the cop car pulls up along side us. And here the fun
begins.

I figured there was nothing to fear. If I wasn't sober, I was quite
lucid and in control and decent in everyway. We haven't done anything
wrong; broken no laws (that we were aware of); we only went out for a
few drinks and were on our way home. The port police never seemed to
expect that we actually "lived" in the port. I would explain this and
all would be well. But it wasn't well.
First, they didn't want to hear it. "You are not allowed in the port
while drinking. You are drunk." I could hardly argue the point, and
yet, we had to. "We live here. If you just let us walk another
fifty meters we will hop in our dinghies and be gone. We aren't even
anchored in the port." At this point, I think, in hindsight, we quit
listening to each other. I didn't sense that things were sliding into
dangerous territory.

Mossel Bay

Sittin' in Mossel Bay. Nice town. A friend here plays a flute, and I
am going just now to meet her at the yacht club.
Weather is scheisse, so I'll be enjoying it here for a few days.
Nervous I won't make the Classics Regatta in Antigua, but don't worry
because there is nothing I can do about it.

Brillig is rolling like a top, bad easterly swell. Take me to shore!!

Desert Solitude - Revisited

I'm not sure whether I ever published this post, and I have been
thinking more about it recently, interesting, more from an
antagonistic view point. So I publish it again, but with some more
meandering thoughts mixed in. There is no resolution, just questions.

I wrote this while in Chagos Archepelago. I was there, in the very
middle of the Indian Ocean all alone for 2 weeks. It was a truly
surreal experience, and an experience of solitude that is--and ever
will be--unprecedented.

--------------------------

Desert Oasis, Desert Solitude_________

Christopher McCandliss (or Alexander Supertramp) as he lay dying in
his bus in the far reaches of Alaska wrote in his journal: "Happiness
must be shared." Sailing alone I spend a lot of time thinking about
the "cost" of solitude and a life lived alone. I sacrifice family and
relationships; comfort, ease, and safety; social, sexual, and mental
stimulation. . . but do I also sacrifice the experience of happiness
as well?
On the whole, I don't think so.
McCandliss had it wrong, or not wholly right, or he wasn't ready for
the experiences he faced. He was not completely wrong. "Happiness"
is a vagary in itself. Is it the comfort of love and the pleasure
of life? For some--for most, perhaps—but is that perhaps not a bit
superficial as a life goal? …your own pleasure, your own happiness? ..
Isn't life a bit more grand than all that, a bit more important? If
not, then McCandliss was right. He lost the sense of grander purpose,
of personal ideology, with the suffering of his solitude. The meaning
faded. How many times have I seen some marvel and looked around me to
see who had shared the experience, only to find myself alone, the
experience dimmed, diminished—no one there to empathize, to
corroborate. This is true and this is what McCandliss learned I
think. . . in the end. Beauty is magnified with solidarity. Alone,
experience cannot be qualified, quantified, or otherwise measured. It
is up to the soul alone to give the experience its value. And this is
an exceedingly fragile system, as doubt ever creeps into the folds of
history and memory. Did that really happen as I remember it? Only
you know … or do you?

But there is more to life than this wink and the smile, the "hey, did
you see that??...amazing eh!—the life of solidarity and love. There
is a depth to certain experiences that is perhaps bolstered by
solitude—one is forced to commune only with his environment. One is
forced to accept his account of his memories and experiences. And one
is confronted by the precise dimensions of self. And there one
learns—or I have learned—that those 'precise' dimensions are hazy at
best. And the question returns yet again: If I forgo the happiness of
communal love, solidarity with family and friends and the peace of
security, even the dream of a wife and family—what am I living for?
Woe… this is where I can't be a generalist; I can only speak for
myself. I am living out the ideals of my personal dreams. My ideals
are growth, perpetual change, perpetual challenge, compassion for
everything, ultimate non-judgementality, and ultimate duality. (Don't
dwell on what this means.) But what you should notice is what is
absent: happiness. Nor was raising a family part of my dreams. I
strive to be better, not happier. Smarter, stronger, more
experienced, less naïve, more forgiving, more accepting, more at peace
(in the midst of chaos). Yes, peace means more to me than happiness.

It is when I tire or am weak that I think on happiness. Or is it then
that I lose happiness. The irony is that I am happy (Is that why I
don't value it?) (This is a vicious circle again: what does happiness
mean? Am I happy being alone or not?)
But I feel the weight of growing old, the weight of the seemingly
infinite denials I have suffered from the women I so wished to love.
I believe that it is these rejections make up ¾ or my suffering, and a
larger portion of my self-deprecations. Women are at once my greatest
love and the cruelest blade … that I repeatedly impale myself upon.
Just as my wounds heal I meet another set of rapturous eyes and I draw
ever-ready blade once again. I have lived this cycle since I was 15.
I grow weary of it.
If I were wiling to sacrifice my dreams, things could be different. I
have known love, been loved. And I have walked away, continued on my
way. And I don't regret those choices. I just want everything. I
want "the one" who shares my heart and my dreams. To me that would be
happiness.

But what then would I lose? Would I lose my drive, my introspection,
my peace? I fear this, though less as the years pass. I am so
content, I sometimes fear such a change. Yet change, I know is
inevitable. I won't—I think—sail forever. Solitude I couldn't bare
in the mountains as I can at sea. Even in extreme solitude, one
cannot escape solidarity. One man alone on a vast sea doesn't feel
that way,instead he feels a part of the sea, a part of the vast
pregnant world around him. This is the solidarity and communion of
extreme solitude. And it is potent. But is it unique to the sea,
where you feel the inevitability of solitude? You can't jump in your
car and head to the bar to meet friends.

I think I am coming around to the idea that I am willing to suffer for
experiences that, for me, transcend the mundane, experiences that
recast my soul in their wake. I wish to see things that make me
tremble. I am currently in the midst of an experience of this sort,
and I may call it happiness, but in truth it is Awe. Akin to
epiphany. But I am alone, shockingly alone.

I don't know what is right or wrong. I know what I have done—what I
have chosen—and why. I know I will continue as I always have, alone
if necessary. I only hope I don't find regret in the days further
ahead, when I am too old to bare solitude as an ideal to some "higher
motivation". What will I ever have accomplished? Will I ever know?
As a test, I have always used the allegory of a man lying in his death
bed. What does he see when the veil comes over him? …what mattered in
his life? I try to live with that in mind. Building experiences,
memories, not wasting the time. But I also find that the women I have
loved are always at the top of those memories. In short, feeling
loved. I have loved more women than I have been loved by, and the
latter are the ones that stay with me.

A Long Short Passage

This is an older entry that I never properly finished, but I am
throwing it up now before to much time goes on and I forget again.

A LONG SHORT PASSAGE __________
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to Richards Bay, South Africa.

This passage was noteworthy in several ways, and none of them
particularly becoming. I am quite sure that it is my slowest passage
to date, and that perhaps by a considerable magnitude. It took 22
days to manage 1600 miles. I was running 30, 40 and 50 mile days.
These are shocking numbers, nearly unprecedented for me. Indeed I had
light wind, very. But in my eagerness to be far offshore I completely
lost the fine, south-running Mozambique Current and entered a sort of
counter-current flowing north—against me. Having no wind, I was
nearly stopped in place, often sailing 1.5 – 2 knots.
I sailed so slow in fact that I did something very fun. When some
dolphins came along I tethered myself to a lazy sheet and threw myself
over the side. It was great fun because the usual haunting sense of
being alone in the deep ocean water was completely alleviated with the
presence of the dolphins. No fear of sharks with them around. They
talked amongst themselves and paid me some attention—not as much as I
would have hoped—but they were paired up, so I reckon they had other
things on their minds. It felt great to be at peace drifting behind
my boat. I felt weightless, like I might imagine an astronaut to feel
in space—because that was all there was. Space. Endless, vast blue,
bottomless blue. There is nothing like the blue of endless,
bottomless sea. The comfort of the dolphins allowed me to open myself
and surrender to it. That is, until I saw some of those strange
deep-water looking animals, the bizarre sort, square-shaped,
translucent things, looked like crystalline crowns … most strange.
The trance was broken; time to get out.

The passage was good for peace and music. For the first time in my
life I enjoyed the use of a single-sideband radio, or an HF, or SSB.
I came to really look forward to my afternoon contact with the living
world through a weather net. At 5 pm a man in Durban named Roy Cook
comes on frequency 8101 and discusses weather with any sailors who
listen in. The weather wasn't terribly useful, as nothing excepting a
typhoon would affect my course, but hearing a friendly voice was a
great balm. I will always hear Roy saying, "bu-bye … bu-bye." In his
particular way.
At last I got wind, and when I least wanted it. Just coming into S.
African waters, a southerly gale blew up and forced me aside. I
turned into Richard's Bay instead of Durban as was my intended
landfall. In the end it would take over a month before the weather
was suitable for me to leave again. In that time however, I accrued
some friends and memories that I shall carry with me forever.
Providence indeed.

Plettenburg Bay Sea Lions

 

The little black specks are the sea lions. There were 150 or so barking up a storm, lounging in the sun, and totally left in peace. There were no boats, no tourists, no fishermen. Nothing but lots of sea birds and me and Carrol, the little rowing dinghy.

Plettenburg Bay, S. Africa ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬___________

Crossing from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic via South Africa is a
unique bit of sailing. It is the wrong way. Most often westerlies
and south-westerlies are blowing. However, these are often creating a
very dangerous swell and can be unpleasant to severely dangerous.
Yet to go east to west, you have to be fanatical about the weather.
Every morning I wake, boil a cup of "ghetto mocha" (coffee + hot
chocolate) and sit down at the computer to download weather files. I
was able to buy a little flash drive modem and put a cell phone sim
card in it, and thereby have wireless internet on my boat—when in
port, that is.
I download what are called grib files, a picture of a geographical
area—in this case S.Africa—with contour lines of barometric pressure
and small wind arrows indicating the direction and strength of wind.
I use a five day forecast, but the weather is so extreme here, that
the predictions change rapidly. But it is the best guide
available—and there are certain things that are known.
So with this wx info, I look for the opportunity of south-easterly or
easterly winds. These are the most favorable to me, heading west
toward Cape Town. These are winds mostly associated with high
pressure, and it has been a summer of sparing little high pres. So it
has been slow.
But when a window does open, I have to go like hell, because—forget
what the forecast says—it could close anytime. And to get stuck in a
sw'ly, would mean to turn around or heave-to—neither are good choices.
This means I often have to come into port at night, because you have
to come in whenever you arrive—there is no waiting here. This goes
against my rules of seamanship—NEVER ENTER NEW PORTS AT NIGHT. Here
the risk is too high to wait.

So the sailing has been strange, not like the island hopping of the S.
Pacific. And there have been no "nice" anchorages, just industrial
ports, dirty, big and busy. I have come through Richards Bay to
Durban, East London, and Port Elisabeth. That was the SE coast. Now
I am on the south coast, more rocky and beautiful, and it offers a few
capes that are safe refuge if you were caught in a sw'ly.
Plettenburg Bay is one of those. I used it as an intermediate between
Port Elisabeth and Mossel bay. I had a window too short for Mossel
Bay, but by making to Plet Bay, I have cut in half the distance to
Mossel bay that I'll have to cover in the next wx window. And what is
more—It is beautiful here!!

This is the prettiest anchorage I've seen since Chagos in the middle
of the Indian Ocean. It is a wide exposed bay, no protection except
for westerlies and sw'lies, but the rock escarpment to the south of me
is stunning, and crawling with sealions. I can hear them barking and
howling from my boat. I got the dinghy out and rowed over to see
them, perhaps 150 sealions lying upon the shelving rocks above the
smashing of the swell. The rocks remind me of the Channel Islands,
off the coast of Monterrey Bay, California, like Catalina. Very
beautiful.
The anc is rolly, but the peace is worth it. When the weather goes
calm again I will have to leave, as the protection here is limited to
the westerlies, but I am well pleased. There is no one hear. The
time alone was good to mull over things in my mind. I was in a low
mood; my heart was sore. But, having reception, I was able to skype a
friend and find solace. Amazing, the modern age of sailing. Ha.

Seventy miles to Mossel bay, and roughly the same around Cape Agullas
to Simons Town—where I'll check out. Simons town is a sort of twin
city to Cape Town, but cheaper with a boat. Two hops to go. And then
to sea again. My first crossing of the Atlantic and what lies beyond.

--
Jonah Manning
S/V BRILLIG

Online Journal: www.jonahmanning.name
Email - bellyofthewhale.gmail.com
South African Cell Phone:
international: [+27] 711797523
local: 0711797523

Address:
Jonah Manning
c/o Charles Manning
751 Mallet Hill Rd
Apt 13105
Columbia, South Carolina, 29223
USA

Emergency contact:
Dibble Manning
phone: 001 - 803 - 787 - 4352
email:cmann1960@aol.com>
also check addresss in "to" column

Sirens of South Africa___________

I had my heart dashed on the rocks by a woman with silver-blue eyes.
She didn't do anything wrong, I suppose. Is it wrong to lure a man in
with such a gaze—is it conscious? I don't know, but she did. And she
did nothing else. She left me to the swell of my heart to be swept to
her, only to be smashed against an immovable shore, a stalward rock,
unaffected.
I wonder how many men have lost themselves to that gaze? … How many
have been crushed by her rigid passivity?
Not quite drowned, I crawled to the safety and lonely solitude of my
boat, slipped the lines and sailed for safer waters, those waters
without enchanting eyes to steal what heart I still have left.
The old saying goes that the greatest risk to the sailor is the shore.
Until now I haven't understood the depth of it truth. Danger goes
beyond, rocks and tide. A heart is a ship ever in uncharted water,
ever piloted with a desperate and wild helm, who desires the dangerous
waters and plies for them, to his own doom and demise. And does so
again and again, until his vessel is a shell and wraith of its former
grandeur.
Can a heart be renewed as easily as a caravel can be replanked? One must hope.

I am not so far gone as all that. My heart rejoices with each trip to
and from the safe waters of solitude. But the dashing seems eternal
now, as the years have passed. I have learned nothing from my
failures. I am the same man at 32 as I was at 22, not as brash
perhaps, but nearly as naïve. And capable of more harm.
I am unsure whether I have grown or regressed. In fact, as a man to a
woman, I am altogether lost to what I am and am not. I am little more
than a history of failures. The few victories I have I hold as
marvels, mysteries, inexplicably at odds with my experiences at large.
And those who shared them with me I revere more than the combined
majesty of the world.
Yet they are the seeds that grow in my hopes and dreams. Have I the
endurance to perpetually dust off and carry on? … hold my head up high
after yet another plastering? … I have thus far, but my heart starts
to feel its age. Some dreams are now reaching conclusion, and others
are on the brink of beginning. The gravity of starting on yet another
stage of life alone hangs heavily like the tolling of a bell. And I
have no alternatives, no plan other than my dreams, no recourse—only a
single-minded determination to pursue what drives me.
I never meant to do all this alone. But I have never put up a "help
wanted" sign for a lover and companion. I could, and it works easily
enough. In Thailand and the Philippines I could be married within a
week. And to a woman who would truly love me and care for me
exceptionally well. And yet I refuse all of these avenues. Why??
I don't know for sure … not what I want. Bluntly put, I want a
partner, not a servant. More balance.

I fail, perpetually, to turn the hearts of those I see spirit in,
those I dream could share my life, and I there. To this failure, I am
no closer to understanding than I was when I was fifteen. Then it was
Elise Caskey, and her bottomless, unforgettable eyes. In Port
Elisabeth it were eyes as similar as any I can remember in between,
destructive eyes.

--
Jonah Manning
S/V BRILLIG

Online Journal: www.jonahmanning.name
Email - bellyofthewhale.gmail.com
South African Cell Phone:
international: [+27] 711797523
local: 0711797523

Address:
Jonah Manning
c/o Charles Manning
751 Mallet Hill Rd
Apt 13105
Columbia, South Carolina, 29223
USA

Emergency contact:
Dibble Manning
phone: 001 - 803 - 787 - 4352
email:cmann1960@aol.com>
also check addresss in "to" column