crew · quarters
@sheb
i tried to feel the size of the world once. i failed completely. in 2014, when i was 35, i sailed to hawaii because it felt like a calling. that's the clean version. the fuller version is: i loved adventure, i trusted strange invitations from the universe, and i had not yet developed a healthy suspicion of paper plates full of fireworks. the boat was a 40-foot beneteau. at the beginning, she was the biggest boat i'd ever been on. solid hull, good sails, autopilot, watermaker, enough berths for four adult males. everything we needed for an eighteen-day passage. there were four of us: paul, the owner. mark, the hired captain. tyler, the cook. and me, the crew. she would surf the trade swells until she crested the wave and seemed to slide down the back of it. then, in the trough, she'd do this little wiggle, like she could feel the next wave building from behind. she felt alive. then came the fourth of july. and with it, a plan. not necessarily a good plan. but a plan with spirit. i was leaning down with a paper plate full of fireworks, trying to light them and place them gently into the pacific, because apparently even the middle of the ocean deserves a festive neighborhood association. then i fell. shock first. then panic. then disbelief. i tried to grab the fishing lines we were dragging behind the boat, which turned out to be a bad idea. parachord burning through your hands is a very direct form of education. luckily, the rest of the crew saw everything happen and warned me about the hooks at the end of those lines. there are moments in life when your entire philosophy becomes very simple. mine was: watch out for the hooks. the first image i remember clearly is the sailboat sailing away from me. not dramatically. not cruelly. just sailing. the wind was still the wind. the boat was still the boat. and i was suddenly not on it. then i saw her turn. and the fear loosened. i could see they were coming back. i was going to live. once rescue was obvious, something strange happened. fear gave way to relief. relief gave way to wonder. wonder gave way to curiosity. i was floating in the pacific ocean, farther from land than my body knew how to understand. so i tried to understand it anyway. i listened. i looked at the horizon. i felt the water holding me up. i wanted to use every sense i had. i wanted to feel how far away land was. i wanted my body to understand the size of the world. i put my head under and opened my eyes. and there it was. nothing. just blue. a blurry gradient from light to dark. i wanted revelation. i wanted my senses to stretch all the way to the edge of the world. i wanted to feel the distance to land, the curve of the planet, the size of the thing i was inside of. but i couldn't. it was too big. the world was so far outside the range of me that i felt silly for even trying. and then, somehow, that feeling opened. i was tiny. easily missed. easily forgotten. a little head in a big ocean. but i wasn't separate from it. i was in it. held by it. made of it. too small to measure the world, but not outside the world. and with that sense of nothing, i got everything. then the boat came back. quite undramatically, actually. after briefly communing with planetary scale, i was hauled aboard like a damp raccoon with opinions. for a day or two, i was embarrassed. it is a strange thing to be the guy who fell off the boat. especially when the ocean has just handed you a mystical experience and everyone else mostly remembers the splash. but i make light of things easily. eventually, so did they. years later, that moment still lives in me. not as fear. as scale. i came back knowing i was small. not in a sad way. in a true way. and the truth made me feel connected. also, i no longer recommend fireworks as a flotation-adjacent activity.
i tried to feel the size of the world once. i failed completely. in 2014, when i was 35, i sailed to hawaii because it felt like a calling. that's the clean version. the fuller version is: i loved adventure, i trusted strange invitations from the universe, and i had not yet developed a healthy suspicion of paper plates full of fireworks. the boat was a 40-foot beneteau. at the beginning, she was the biggest boat i'd ever been on. solid hull, good sails, autopilot, watermaker, enough berths for four adult males. everything we needed for an eighteen-day passage. there were four of us: paul, the owner. mark, the hired captain. tyler, the cook. and me, the crew. she would surf the trade swells until she crested the wave and seemed to slide down the back of it. then, in the trough, she'd do this little wiggle, like she could feel the next wave building from behind. she felt alive. then came the fourth of july. and with it, a plan. not necessarily a good plan. but a plan with spirit. i was leaning down with a paper plate full of fireworks, trying to light them and place them gently into the pacific, because apparently even the middle of the ocean deserves a festive neighborhood association. then i fell. shock first. then panic. then disbelief. i tried to grab the fishing lines we were dragging behind the boat, which turned out to be a bad idea. parachord burning through your hands is a very direct form of education. luckily, the rest of the crew saw everything happen and warned me about the hooks at the end of those lines. there are moments in life when your entire philosophy becomes very simple. mine was: watch out for the hooks. the first image i remember clearly is the sailboat sailing away from me. not dramatically. not cruelly. just sailing. the wind was still the wind. the boat was still the boat. and i was suddenly not on it. then i saw her turn. and the fear loosened. i could see they were coming back. i was going to live. once rescue was obvious, something strange happened. fear gave way to relief. relief gave way to wonder. wonder gave way to curiosity. i was floating in the pacific ocean, farther from land than my body knew how to understand. so i tried to understand it anyway. i listened. i looked at the horizon. i felt the water holding me up. i wanted to use every sense i had. i wanted to feel how far away land was. i wanted my body to understand the size of the world. i put my head under and opened my eyes. and there it was. nothing. just blue. a blurry gradient from light to dark. i wanted revelation. i wanted my senses to stretch all the way to the edge of the world. i wanted to feel the distance to land, the curve of the planet, the size of the thing i was inside of. but i couldn't. it was too big. the world was so far outside the range of me that i felt silly for even trying. and then, somehow, that feeling opened. i was tiny. easily missed. easily forgotten. a little head in a big ocean. but i wasn't separate from it. i was in it. held by it. made of it. too small to measure the world, but not outside the world. and with that sense of nothing, i got everything. then the boat came back. quite undramatically, actually. after briefly communing with planetary scale, i was hauled aboard like a damp raccoon with opinions. for a day or two, i was embarrassed. it is a strange thing to be the guy who fell off the boat. especially when the ocean has just handed you a mystical experience and everyone else mostly remembers the splash. but i make light of things easily. eventually, so did they. years later, that moment still lives in me. not as fear. as scale. i came back knowing i was small. not in a sad way. in a true way. and the truth made me feel connected. also, i no longer recommend fireworks as a flotation-adjacent activity.