A
t once I remembered it as though it was yesterday. It was exactly like this I had imagined my trip to Atlantis. A journey in the world of my imagination I did as a fifteen-year-old.
This trip was recorded in a school essay that won first prize for the year’s short story among seven middle-schools in the country. I wrote and turned it in, in the belief it was a school assignment for our teacher. That it would be read by everyone was nothing I had counted on, nor appreciated the implications of.
My writing was then, as now, honest and disclosing. And I decided then to never again allow anyone to take part of what I wrote. The consequences were not worth the price of a little cash. At that time, my self-integrity was of great consequence to my mental self-image and established identification.
But that was then. Prior to myself realising that it doesn’t matter much of what others think of or appreciate about me. Prior to my writing being permeated by a deeper, more spiritual dimension. Prior to the desire to share what comes from the heart existed.
A starry night where the moonlight gleams in the water before my boat that nearly noiselessly moves forward on an open, bottomless ocean.
Just like that, exactly like now, was how I visualised it before me more than ten years ago.
Atlantis was the mystical city under the sea where an enlightened race of people lived in peace and togetherness with one another.
I crossed the Atlantic alone in my boat. And rode on the back of a sperm whale to the lost city below the surface.
I faced storms, exactly like now. But in the story, no fear is included. Only courage and an invincible determination to reach my goal – Atlantis.
What I didn’t know then was that what I actually was searching for, even in the story, was truth. Truth beyond illusion.
The city under the sea I had read about in a book I’d leafed through at the library, an illusory city that caught my interest. I created my own vision of how it would have been to live there with enlightened people.
My toes touch the cold saltwater. The cool wind dries my watery eyes.
A shooting star. A quiet prayer.
I don’t know why I’m crying. Perhaps because life is so indescribably magical and beautiful. Maybe for all the times I was too ignorant, too overshadowed by ego to appreciate it. Maybe for all those who search in the ‘wrong’ place. Or for all those who search in the ‘right’ place and need to suffer the pain that implies.
I cry for human suffering.
Nora’s whistling reaches me through the whispering night’s wind and the ocean’s foaming roar.
She waves to me to come to where she stands behind the wheel.
I know she does not want me to sit at my place in the bow after dusk in case I happen to fall asleep there.
My feet are submerged now when the bow plunges into the waves.
The wind rattles the sail and rustles constantly in my ears. A rustling that has gone on for a week now.
Saltwater runs from my nose when I nod off.
I climb down from my place and stagger off on wet, unsteady feet towards Nora in the cockpit. She says I can go below and sleep if I want to. I answer I am OK and try to smile, but it becomes a stiff grimace.
What comes out of my mouth is both incoherent and without either logic or sense.
I claim to be incredibly tired at the same time as I am full of energy. I’m sad and happy. Warm, cold, hungry and full. None of what I say or sense feels relevant now.
As if nothing is real. As if the whale at any time may come and fetch me to take me on its back to the city under the sea.
On the way into the unknown deep, I lose myself completely, literally. Now, only faith can save me.
How can I sail through Samsara’s ocean, a suffering ocean while anchored in reality, when the goal of my journey is anchored in nothing, in emptiness beyond shape.
“Let it go, Valentina.”
Nora places her jacket around me and pulls up the hood to protect my wet head from the growing night wind.
“Let what go?” I ask, though I know the answer.
“What you’re thinking of. I’ve noticed you seem to brood about something lately. Just let it go.”
“I just feel a bit lost right now. As if I’ve prayed for something I no longer know if I want to have it. As if I’m desperately grasping some past that I begin to believe was a grand illusion… as if something inside me is disappearing but is fighting tooth and nail for its survival.”
I try to explain something she has never thought about.
We remain silent a moment before she replies.
“I’ve spent more time at sea than I’ve spent on dry land. I love the sea and have probably never seen myself quite blending into human’s built-up society structures. The ocean touches my heart in a way very few can. You are one of those few and it gives me hope for humankind when I meet fearless souls like you.”
She spreads a blanket over my bare legs and lights the little lantern on the table in front of us.
“Do you never feel lost when you’re alone out at sea, with no structured lifestyle?” I ask the question I know the answer to.
But this question is posed for a different purpose. One that I don’t yet know. The question is asked because she carries another answer I seek, that she will soon share with me.
“No. I’m grateful for my journey. I live one day at a time on my boat and let the wind take me where it wants.”
She pauses, watches me and shares the wisdom I’ve waited for her to divulge.
“One can only be lost if one has set a goal for the journey.”