C
old fingers stroking my warm face.
I awake with a jerk that causes an internal explosion. My expression makes Janek try to help me up.
“Have you slept alright on the couch?”
He retains his supportive arm round my back.
“Has it already been five hours?”
I look at the clock above the small bookcase next to me, to assure myself I’m not being tricked out of sleep. It is 7 a.m.
“You’ll get used to it!”
He wants to help me to stand.
I indicate that I can manage, despite my body probably needing a helping hand after a few hours’ sleep on a narrow, hard bunk on a rolling boat. White sea foam splatters the round porthole on my right and leaves salt stains on the glass.
On deck, Nora sits behind the wheel and Bo in the cockpit. He nods now and then.
“You can go below and lie down a bit, now, Bo,” Nora says and extends his water bottle to him.
He salutes her and goes down to his bunk.
The wind cools my skin when the sun’s first rays reach it.
I observe Nora as she stands with her feet apart on deck at the bucket and wash station. She collects a little water in the bucket, rinses her face and brushes her teeth.
I do the same. For in unknown territory, it is wise to follow the one you instinctively trust.
A gust of wind causes the boat to unexpectedly turn to the right.
I fall headlong to the floor. I try to get up but the boat’s constant movement and my broken body seems to completely hinder my memorised motor skills.
My body is blank, zeroed. Injured and in need of stability, recuperation and rest.
Instead I stagger on and try to get my balance. I attempt to find some way that works for this invalided body upon a rocking vessel. A way that manages this challenge that life has placed in my path.
It doesn’t take long before my mind takes over the pain I feel in my body.
A fury grows within me. It is directed toward Janek who brought me on this swaying boat in my condition.
He ought to have known better. It ought to be his responsibility as captain to deny people with unhealed broken bones to travel with him on his unsteady vessel. And this is just the beginning of the week… but a few days is something I should manage… and then we’ll be on land again.
Dry land. Firm and stable. Not gangling, fragile and unstable on a huge open sea where the tiniest wave or puff of wind can make this floating form rock, sway, roll violently to right and left or perhaps even capsize, sink…
I ought to be able to manage a week. If it doesn’t take longer or become worse. I think if a storm blows up we need to wear our harnesses as Janek showed us, so we don’t fall overboard…
My anxious thoughts colour my response when Janek calls my name.
“Are you alright?”
He raises his cap and looks at me from behind black sunglasses.
“Yes, I’m alright. My body is in a lot of pain just now since I’ve fallen a few times, but I will soon learn to find my boat balance.”
I try to smile, to please, to not be any trouble to anyone.
“You’ll get used to it. You’ll manage.”
He pats my head and indicates with his hand that I should sit on the bench in front of the wheel he stands behind.
I continue to not find any trust in his well-meant words.
“If it takes a week, we ought to arrive in five days…”
He interrupts with, “I can teach you some knots before breakfast, if you’d like, or is there something else you’d like to learn or to know?”
“I feel the most important thing I need to learn is how to be able to move on the boat without too much pain. The boat’s constant rocking and sudden movements are, just now, the greatest ordeal for me.”
He nods and says quietly he’s going below to record our position in the log.
I defy the pain and stretch my slouched spine.
The bow moves up and down, following the soft wind.
Something appeals to me, catches my attention. I stretch myself a bit more.
Furthest forward there seems to be a little place to sit. In my haste, I get up a bit too quickly, sit again and breathe through the pain with my left hand on the right side of my upper body.
Try once again and bring myself to my feet slowly.
I make it halfway to the bow before I fall again. I remain lying.
An inner cursing rant. An outer purple-red bruise on my left arm.
Trying to raise a body that feels entirely non-raise able. With faltering steps I force myself to start again from the beginning.
To forget everything, I learned once upon a time long ago, to relearn it all again.
I exhale when my body lands on the little boards in the railing furthest forward in the bow.
My feet dangle and I laugh when the saltwater tickles my feet in the wave’s valley.
The sea is beneath me, around me. It embraces me and rocks me safely. Its enormous energy quivers in every little cell.
The wind blows warm in my face.
It blows away all the worry I recently felt inundated with.
My body is still in pain but an acceptancy now exists. This acceptancy makes the pain feel bearable, nearly trivial.
Perhaps I won’t get used to it, nor find a way that works for my condition here on the boat. I don’t know that yet. But what I do know is that I have found a place I want to be.
A place I’ve been seeking for a long time.
A place where it feels permitted to simply be.