I roll from side to side, like a ship tossed on the waves. My mind lost somewhere between dream and wakefulness. These seas I’m sailing give me no peace. Pitched about by fear and doubt, I cling to the gunwales of the mattress, trying not to think about the doubts deep beneath us, frozen in cathedrals of ice.
Each passing year, the price of sleep becomes more dear. I am reminded of my parents, retiring at midnight, and rising before the sun. Is this what middle age brings, sleepless nights performing the calculus of money, while the children dream unfettered? They spent a life time patching holes in a leaking boat. Something I never understood until long after I had been delivered to the shore.
Now it is our turn. We plot, and plan, and keep our spreadsheets, recording credits and debits, and bills yet to come. All the while the boat lurches forward over the crest of the swell, before dropping into the valley of the next. These are the stories that went untold. The stories that were written in wrinkles across the faces that stared out of old photographs.
I know the shore is out there somewhere, beyond the crown of innumerable waves. There is no time for despair, no time but to put our strength into each pull, timing the rise, and fall of the waves, until our lives assume their rhythms. Our boat is strong, we have seen to that. There are no leaks springing through the hull, no waves breaking over the bowsprit. We are damn lucky, and have no reason to complain. Still, in the dark of the night, I look into the distance and see the lights of sleek yachts cutting through the waves, and can’t help but wonder, why not us?
We ply these waters through innumerable crossings, some placid, some rough. Yet each time the shore disappears from sight, the doubt returns, gnawing at my stomach. How much longer can our luck hold out? For surely it is luck. Even after all these years I cannot help but feel we have done nothing to deserve this.
Like children standing on the beach, we cannot grasp the immensity of the seas before us, or fathom its depths. In my mind I can see us as the children we were, and the children we still are. Picking stones off the beach, sending them skipping like dreams across the surface of the water, sending ripples out like messages radioed into the depth of space. Documenting our existence to an audience we hope is listening.
I don’t always succeed at it but I strive to live in oblivion. It’s not original but it’s foolproof.
I have always feared big water. I guess I’m too much of a control freak to be comfortable with the earth swishing around beneath me. Most of my nightmares take place on a shore, where waves grab me and drag me into the deep oblivion of unconsciousness.
i’m trying to find the balance between all of this — being the secure child i was and being responsible and not worrying worrying worrying.
Two words: Anti-depressants.
Or is that one word? Damn hyphens.
You can’t do this to me on a rainy, snowy Monday Tom. I might just climb in my oven now. Good thing it’s freshly vacuumed.
You vacuumed your oven again? It’s not even Thanksgiving. Did NPH stop over for a vacuuming party or something?
No one is getting in an oven until I know that secret!
TWO DOLLARS! I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!
BWAHAHAHA!!! I had totally forgotten about that movie! I think the paper boy was the best part.
I feel positively neglectful and immature when I read this.
Clearly I’m not operating on the same plane as you are.
My boat chuggs along, leaks springing every few minutes and I shove bits of ineffective old newspaper in the holes for temporary relief.
I’m GOING PLACES I tell you!
There’s no shame in being the captain of the ferry to Dufmanno Island.
I’m merely a stowaway on her ship, clinging to my life jacket.
What does that make ME (besides Fahhcked up)?
Ginger, or Marianne?
Beautiful, simply amazing. I will cling to this like a floatation device and remember that I am not alone out there. It gives me strength knowing you are out there, too.
Also, it’s the very reason why I will never go on a cruise. Also, I like hotel rooms. I would hate teeny tiny rooms that force me out to mingle with others. Eek. Others. Where’s my lifeboat built for one?
Got to go patch that raft, again. I think it’ll hold for another week.
me
I break out in hives at the merest mention of a cruise ship. I think I would seriously consider throwing myself overboard to escape. I watched Titanic, it seems like I’d have a 50-50 chance with the sharks.
I rather like a power boat analogy pushed to it’s limits. A bass boat. That’s how I sleep.
I snore like a bass boat, does that count?
Rarely do I find writing breath-taking, but there’s just no other way to descibe this.
Excuse me while I go skip some dreams into the cosmos.
You mean breath taking in a good way right? Not like snoring, or sucking wind after running a mile?
My God, that was beautiful! What a talented writer you are!
Welcome! You can stop by and praise me anytime you want!
(sound of head inflating)
You are an amazing writer. I think I may need to take some motion-sickness drugs.
Don’t.
Stop.
Don’t stop!
i just come here for the visual eye candy. psych! you’re writing is super swell, and the pics are damn nice too.
excuse me, but who the fuck wants a yacht? have they seen the cost of fuel lately?
Eye candy is my day job. Writing is just my hobby.
Oh wait, you were referring to the pics, and not me weren’t you?
p.s. I am even scared of canoes.
Gasp!
And you call yourself a Canadian?
Next thing you’ll tell us you don’t like Beer or Hockey!
Uuuuuhm… about the beer thing…
Yeah, can’t do it.
Hockey I am used to. I attend it, I passively watch it.
So I suppose that makes me approximately 1/3 Canadian, eh?