Monday, June 29, 2009

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Just got back from an impromptu multi-class High School reunion of sorts and I am left feeling old and young all at the same time. I think I like it?! On my way to the reunion I thought to myself “I am going to get a chance to live the saying “If I knew then what I know now” BUT my miscalculation was destined to be… THEY NOW KNOW ALSO!

 

During the reunion, the smell of salt and nostalgia in the air got me to thinking of our collective life’s journey as an “armada of vessels traversing the sea of years”. Now truth be told, the smell of salt could have been a result of my wife’s Margarita, as along with the wisp of salt came a hint of lime, but never the less, I am gonna run with my “salt water, ships in the night” metaphor.

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Anyway…. there was a moment last night when left alone, encircled by the past and taking on water (actually Jack Daniels), that I started to see all of these people around me as an armada of vessels traversing the sea of years together, all having left port and set out in close proximity. All on different courses. All in a similar direction. All with the same destination. All now together once more for a mid-odyssey open ocean tethering and ration assessment. When I peered across my peers, I saw some vessels knotted together as expected. Some vessels regrouped having previously been out of site and range. Some I know veered in from troubled waters. Some even made it weathering a perfect storm. Some had witnessed smooth sailing or had scrambled to make things look as such…ship shape on deck whilst in the hull chaos reigned. How many remained Captain of their own ship? How many flew the pirate colors, the colors I for one find so slimming. How many amongst them widening amidships, heavy in the aft? How many were adrift or barely afloat? True some showed the scares of being run aground and some were graced with more baggy wrinkle than others. Some more barnacles. Some clearly had had the barnacles surgically removed and the baggy wrinkles refitted. Some clearly had found any port in a storm. Some many. Some just seemed to have banged against the rocks until the weather cleared. There were those sailing two sheets to the wind and navigating by a thumb in the air. Some clearly had been caught kissing the gunner’s daughter while others remained as battened down and squared away as ever. And though many loose cannon’s were noted and some vessels now flew under different colors, my armada was a welcomed sight indeed.

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So as I paused my personal voyage in the eye of the storm, standing about the scuttlebutt, swapping tall tales of white whales and mermaids, mid-sea triangles and Atlantis, our collective Arc of Visibility shortened by our vanishing angle inching ever closer to 360, Captain Jack instilled in me the courage to climb the main mast all the way to the crow’s nest, raise my looking glass to my unpatched eye and look out upon the final question looming ever larger on the horizon…will I go down with the ship? And if not, at Journey’s end, will I be walking the gangway or the plank and will Steve Perry be there to greet me or his imposter!? Don’t Stop Believin’!

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I for one believe next time I will opt for a sip of Sue’s Margarita, seeking instead the fiesta, for it appears in times of nostalgia, Captain Jack (Daniel’s) is akin to Davy Jones and some things are just too deep to fully fathom at this point in the wayfaring.

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Paddling on….life preserver firmly in grasp.

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The albinoTree