Sails
You have become my language, You exist, and I exist. And we tend towards each other like great stars inexorably drawn, always seeking the other. We trace these patterns together - constellations and motion and light - like celestial navigators steering a course. Hand to tiller, sextant cast aside. I know now where we are, in this great expanse of ocean.
But let us sail a dangerous ocean. Not for me, the gentle hills and waters of the ancients, where Xenophon's men cried 'thalatta thalatta!' in the Attic tongue, where Agamemnon stood in sacrificial numbness for that touch of wind upon the face that brought the ships to Troy. I want to steer this ship on the routes of the old whalers and trawlers, high in the northern latitudes. Let us set a westerly course. Let us cast aside this island and go in search of cod. We will set our sails and run close to the wind, rejoicing in the vicious interplay of air, spray, steerage. She does cut through the waves well, this boat of ours! She forgives our untrained, fumbling moves, our shoddy ropework, our inelegant gybes. And we will also sit hove-to on the long Icelandic shelf, one taking soundings and the other baiting the line.
There will be a return, of course. We must throw our lines to the harbour and examine our catch. We cannot turn like Moitessier forever into the ocean. Fresh water in the basin, floors that do not lurch beneath our steps - wild and strange sensations for bodies accustomed to the movement of waves, cresting wine-dark over us at the bow. Soon enough, our eyes will cease to follow the clouds, our skin will forget the terrible cold of the Atlantic wind. We will delight in warm, homely things and find ourselves again on the land. Yes, it is not good to be too long out of place. It is not good to be lost at sea.