Tales of the Underway

A part of an old letter I wrote to a friend while in the midst of my second underway last year:


"At night I go up to those same weather decks & listen to the silence. No one else is out. It’s just me, the indigo night sky twinkling with stars, & the waves beneath me. The masts are akin to sentinels keeping me safe from the vast, cold ocean surrounding me. The Milky Way reveals itself to me: seeing our universe with such clarity is remarkable. Sometimes I hear the call of the sea, the Sirens calling for me to join them in eternal slumber. I do not listen; I am not yet ready for the long sleep. Moments like those remind me what life is all about. Listening to the waves be broken by the ship as she carries me forward. In those moments I feel completely separate from the world. Watching a young universe with an even younger planet hosting the infant civilization that is humanity. My worries drift away as my consciousness separates from my being. In that moment I exist outside of time, united briefly with the universal soul. One with all beings: living & not living. Those that exist in the present, those that had once existed, & those that will one day exist: to me they are all the same."

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