B
o dishes up pasta with pesto on the small wooden table in the cockpit and Nora arrives with a can of olives.
“Olives?”
Janek picks up the olive can from the table.
“Which cupboard did you find these in?”
“In the corner cupboard.”
Nora awaits a delayed answer.
“We can use this can but what’s in the corner cupboard is not to be used on this voyage.”
Janek places the can on the table again.
“I thought I was clear about that during my walkthrough of the galley.” he mumbles, opens the olive can and places several on his pasta.
The sail rustles in the wind.
The sun has already gone down and Janek and I will have the first nightshift between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m.
Plates and glasses from supper clink and clatter in the sink below deck.
It sounds as though a door is banging.
Janek calls down to Bo and Nora to close the toilet door with the hasp, like he’d shown during his walkthrough of the boat.
The banging soon subsides, Bo’s head pops up and he apologises for forgetting.
Then the clatter of dishes also quietens and Nora comes on deck with her toothbrush. She stands at the ‘wash station’ on deck, brushes her teeth, then rinses her mouth and face with sea water with the aid of a bucket attached to the railing on the port side.
Expertly she dips the bucket so that the water fills it slowly. Janek has explained that it is best to keep to the surface and not go deep, as it can then fill too quickly, become too heavy and perhaps loosen from the railing.
My memory takes me back to a footpath in Nepal and a sign placed at a river with potable water: ‘Scoop only on the surface. Deeper down it’s muddier.’
The sign showed me a message that urged travellers to be attentive and to not enter one’s mental processes’ din and mud.
But a hiker I’d joined the last few kilometres suggested the sign’s purpose was to enlighten thirsty wayfarers how best to get clean water in their cup.
I was used to reading life’s tidings when no-one else seemed to do so.
I was accustomed to go where no-one else dared and used to keeping my eyes open even though I didn’t want to see the truth being revealed.
This was my true spirit’s blessing and my person’s curse.
Bo comes with his guitar and sits beside me. Janek exhorts him to go down again and try to get some sleep before he and Nora replace us at 2 a.m.
Bo obediently goes below deck.
The door of the head starts to bang again. Janek sighs and shakes his head.
I go down to fetch the only sweater I have with me. A colourful knitted hoodie in wool I had bought from some children selling their knitted handwork in one of Nepal’s mountain villages. That was now long ago, before Bali, before I met Janek, before life decided to no longer have any mercy.
I fasten the toilet door and go up on deck.
“I remember that sweater! You had it on one evening in Bali, on the beach.”
He pats the hood on my head.
“Do you have a jacket with you?” he continues.
“No, unfortunately. I have a good wind and rain jacket at home I could easily have brought if I’d known I’d be sailing with you.”
I pull the drawstring a bit under my chin as the wind is blowing colder.
“I’m glad you came with us. Having you with me on my boat is something I’ve wished for since we first met.”
He hops up behind me and says he can massage my shoulders if I’d like.
I don’t have time to answer before he starts.
It isn’t comfortable and hurts my body too much for me to relax. As usual, I feel responsible for how the other person feels, rather than my responsibility to how I feel, so I say nothing but allow him to continue kneading my tense trapezius muscles.
The waves rock the boat more than they’ve done since we left harbour this morning.
In the darkness, the harbour and yesterday already seem far away.
Far away from home. A home I had been seeking for so long.
A home where I could finally settle down.
A home where the foundation was not built upon false illusions from the fears of the mind.
The home I sought was to be found only in my heart.
But I did not know that at this time.
As, at this time, I did not value now.
The sea is as black as the star-speckled sky.
Janek pulls on a red and white sailing jacket with his name on the breast and various company names on the sleeves and back. I assume they’ve sponsored sailing races he has participated in. He sits across from me in the cockpit. The lantern’s dull light makes his face look different, desperate in some manner. Perhaps, though, it is the darkness that makes me misinterpret. Perhaps I am projecting my own fatigue and weakened condition on him.
A vulnerable position, where I dare not rely on my intuitive feelings.
Because that reliance could mean I must be strong and stand up for myself.
The hours seem long when we relate to one another our previous relations that have ended.
To discuss this on a rocking boat in the middle of the night with someone I have little confidence in yet, is probably the last thing I desire.
But I don’t want to be unfriendly, don’t want it to become an uncomfortable ambiance. So I converse politely and superficially, just like those who did not know better taught me to. Those whom I believed acted out of what was best for us children and whom I long believed knew the truth.
Those I would soon question in silence.
Those I would need to leave in order to find my own answers.
A journey so long and so filled with challenges, who could ever know that the answers I sought could be found so closely.
Closer than what anybody but I myself could arrive at.
Within.