Sailing In The Same Boat Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Sailing In The Same Boat. Here they are! All 46 of them:

I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea - whether it is to sail or to watch it - we are going back from whence we came. [Remarks at the Dinner for the America's Cup Crews, September 14 1962]
John F. Kennedy
You may be in the same boat as others, but you have the power to sail in a different direction.
Matshona Dhliwayo
All reality is a game. Physics at its most fundamental, the very fabric of our universe, results directly from the interaction of certain fairly simple rules, and chance; the same description may be applied to the best, most elefant and both intellectually and aesthetically satisfying games. By being unknowable, by resulting from events which, at the sub-atomic level, cannot be fully predicted, the future remains makkeable, and retains the possibility of change, the hope of coming to prevail; victory, to use an unfashionable word. In this, the future is a game; time is one of the rules. Generally, all the best mechanistic games - those which can be played in any sense "perfectly", such as a grid, Prallian scope, 'nkraytle, chess, Farnic dimensions - can be traced to civilisations lacking a realistic view of the universe (let alone the reality). They are also, I might add, invariably pre-machine-sentience societies. The very first-rank games acknowledge the element of chance, even if they rightly restrict raw luck. To attempt to construct a game on any other lines, no matter how complicated and subtle the rules are, and regardless of the scale and differentiation of the playing volume and the variety of the powers and attibutes of the pieces, is inevitably to schackle oneself to a conspectus which is not merely socially but techno-philosophically lagging several ages behind our own. As a historical exercise it might have some value, As a work of the intellect, it's just a waste of time. If you want to make something old-fashioned, why not build a wooden sailing boat, or a steam engine? They're just as complicated and demanding as a mechanistic game, and you'll keep fit at the same time.
Iain Banks (The Player of Games (Culture #2))
The hemulen woke up slowly and recognised himself and wished he had been someone he didn't know. He felt even tireder than when he went to bed, and here it was -- another day which would go on until evening and then there would be another one and another one which would be the same as all days are when they are lived by a hemulen. He crept under the bedcover and buried his nose in the pillow, then he shifted his stomach to the edge of the bed where the sheets were cool. He took possession of the whole bed with outstretched arms and legs he was waiting for a nice dream that wouldn't come. He curled up and made himself small but it didn't help a bit. He tried being the hemulen that everybody like, he tried being the hemulen that no one liked. But however hard he tried he remained a hemulen doing his best without anything really coming off. In the end he got up and pulled on his trousers. The Hemulen didn't like getting dressed and undressed, it gave him a feeling that the days passed without anything of importance happening. Even so, he spent the whole day arranging, organising and directing things from morning till night! All around him there were people living slipshod and aimless lives, wherever he looked there was something to be put to rights and he worked his fingers to the bone trying to get them to see how they ought to live. It's as though they don't want to live well, the Hemulen thought sadly as he brushed his teeth. He looked at the photograph of himself with his boat which was been taken when the boat was launched. It was a beautiful picture but it made him feel even sadder. I ought to learn how to sail, the Hemulen thought. But I've never got enough time... Moominvalley in November Chapter 5, THE HEMULEN
Tove Jansson (Moominvalley in November (The Moomins, #9))
Song of myself I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine, One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest the same, A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and hospitable down by the Oconee I live, A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth, A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian, A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye; At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland, At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking, At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch, Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (loving their big proportions,) Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat, A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest, A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons, Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion, A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker, Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest. I resist any thing better than my own diversity, Breathe the air but leave plenty after me, And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
Walt Whitman
One thing at a time, as in the days when I was building Joshua. If I had wanted to build all the boat at once, the enormity of the task would have crushed me. I had to put all I had into the hull alone, without thinking about the rest. It would follow . . . with the help of the gods. Sailing non-stop around the world is the same. I do not think anyone has the means of pulling it off—at the start.
Bernard Moitessier (The Long Way)
After an orange cloud — formed as a result of a dust storm over the Sahara and caught up by air currents — reached the Philippines and settled there with rain, I understood that we are all sailing in the same boat.
Vladimir Kovalyov
My mother once told me that trauma is like Lord of the Rings. You go through this crazy, life-altering thing that almost kills you (like say having to drop the one ring into Mount Doom), and that thing by definition cannot possibly be understood by someone who hasn’t gone through it. They can sympathize sure, but they’ll never really know, and more than likely they’ll expect you to move on from the thing fairly quickly. And they can’t be blamed, people are just like that, but that’s not how it works. Some lucky people are like Sam. They can go straight home, get married, have a whole bunch of curly headed Hobbit babies and pick up their gardening right where they left off, content to forget the whole thing and live out their days in peace. Lots of people however, are like Frodo, and they don’t come home the same person they were when they left, and everything is more horrible and more hard then it ever was before. The old wounds sting and the ghost of the weight of the one ring still weighs heavy on their minds, and they don’t fit in at home anymore, so they get on boats go sailing away to the Undying West to look for the sort of peace that can only come from within. Frodos can’t cope, and most of us are Frodos when we start out. But if we move past the urge to hide or lash out, my mother always told me, we can become Pippin and Merry. They never ignored what had happened to them, but they were malleable and receptive to change. They became civic leaders and great storytellers; they we able to turn all that fear and anger and grief into narratives that others could delight in and learn from, and they used the skills they had learned in battle to protect their homeland. They were fortified by what had happened to them, they wore it like armor and used it to their advantage. It is our trauma that turns us into guardians, my mother told me, it is suffering that strengthens our skin and softens our hearts, and if we learn to live with the ghosts of what had been done to us, we just may be able to save others from the same fate.
S.T. Gibson
So coming back from a journey, or after an illness, before habits had spun themselves across the surface, one felt that same unreality, which was so startling; felt something emerge. Life was most vivid then. One could be at one’s ease. Mercifully one need not say, very briskly, crossing the lawn to great old Mrs. Beckwith, who would be coming out to find a corner to sit in, “Oh, good-morning, Mrs. Beckwith! What a lovely day! Are you going to be so bold as to sit in the sun? Jasper’s hidden the chairs. Do let me find you one!” and all the rest of the usual chatter. One need not speak at all. One glided, one shook one’s sails (there was a good deal of movement in the bay, boats were starting off) between things, beyond things. Empty it was not, but full to the brim. She seemed to be standing up to the lips in some substance, to move and float and sink in it, yes, for these waters were unfathomably deep. Into them had spilled so many lives. The Ramsays’; the children’s; and all sorts of waifs and strays of things besides. A washerwoman with her basket; a rook; a red-hot poker; the purples and grey-greens of flowers: some common feeling held the whole.
Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse)
Once, my grandmama told me a story about her great-grandmama. She'd come across the ocean, been kidnapped and sold. Said her great-grandmama told her that in her village, they ate fear. Said it turned the food to sand in they mouth. Said everyone knew about the death march to the cost, that word had come down about the ships, about how they packed men and women into them. Some heard it was even worse for those who sailed off, sunk into the far. Because that's what it looked like when the ship crossed the horizon: like the ship sailed off and sunk, bit by bit, into the water. Her grandmama said they never went out at night, and even in the day, they stayed in the shadows of they houses. But still, they came for her. Kidnapped her here, and she learned the boats didn't sink to some watery place, sailed by white ghosts. She learned that bad things happened on that ship, all the way until it docked. That her skin grew around the chains. That her mouth shaped to the muzzle. That she was made into an animal under the hot, bright sky, the same sky the rest of her family was under, somewhere far aways, in another world. I knew what that was, to be made a animal.
Jesmyn Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing)
There had been a time, once, when he had not lived like this, a .32 under his pillow, a lunatic in the back yard firing off a pistol for God knew what purpose, some other nut or perhaps the same one imposing a brain-print of his own shorted-out upstairs on an incredibly expensive and valued cephscope that everyone in the house, plus all their friends, loved and enjoyed. In former days Bob Arctor had run his affairs differently: there had been a wife much like other wives, two small daughters, a stable household that got swept and cleaned and emptied out daily, the dead newspapers not even opened carried from the front walk to the garbage pail, or even, sometimes, read. But then one day, while lifting out an electric corn popper from under the sink, Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it. He wanted a divorce; he wanted to split. And so he had, very soon. And entered, by degrees, a new and somber life, lacking all of that. Probably he should have regretted his decision. He had not. That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all. But in this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing.
Philip K. Dick (A Scanner Darkly)
Many men are fascinated by the consciously evolving female who makes them feel free inside. But they're too unsure of their own standing to actually stay with such women. They want a sheepish, sort-of-dumb woman at home for them, then they imagine themselves being swept off their feet by a goddess somewhere outside. These are the kinds of men that aren't worth being with. You want to have a man who can sail a ship just as well as you can, a man who puts both his feet in the same boat at the same time, someone whose manhood is never defined by female docility.
C. JoyBell C.
Epithalamium Without silence there would be no music. Life paired is doubtless more difficult than solitary existence - just as a boat on the open sea with outstretched sails is trickier to steer than the same boat drowsing at a dock, but schooners after all are meant for wind and motion, not idleness and impassive quiet. A conversation continued through the years includes hours of anxiety, anger, even hatred, but also compassion, deep feeling. Only in marriage do love and time, eternal enemies, join forces. Only love and time, when reconciled, permit us to see other beings in their enigmatic, complex essence, unfolding slowly and certainly, like a new settlement in a valley, or among green hills. In begins from one day only, from joy and pledges, from the holy day of meeting, which is like a moist grain; then come the years of trial and labor, sometimes despair, fierce revelation, happiness and finally a great tree with rich greenery grows over us, casting its vast shadow. Cares vanish in it.
Adam Zagajewski
The Chorus Line: The Birth of Telemachus, An Idyll Nine months he sailed the wine-red seas of his mother's blood Out of the cave of dreaded Night, of sleep, Of troubling dreams he sailed In his frail dark boat, the boat of himself, Through the dangerous ocean of his vast mother he sailed From the distant cave where the threads of men's lives are spun, Then measured, and then cut short By the Three Fatal Sisters, intent on their gruesome handcrafts, And the lives of women also are twisted into the strand. And we, the twelve who were later to die by his hand At his father's relentless command, Sailed as well, in the dark frail boats of ourselves Through the turbulent seas of our swollen and sore-footed mothers Who were not royal queens, but a motley and piebald collection, Bought, traded, captured, kidnapped from serfs and strangers. After the nine-month voyage we came to shore, Beached at the same time as he was, struck by the hostile air, Infants when he was an infant, wailing just as he wailed, Helpless as he was helpless, but ten times more helpless as well, For his birth was longed-for and feasted, as our births were not. His mother presented a princeling. Our various mothers Spawned merely, lambed, farrowed, littered, Foaled, whelped and kittened, brooded, hatched out their clutch. We were animal young, to be disposed of at will, Sold, drowned in the well, traded, used, discarded when bloomless. He was fathered; we simply appeared, Like the crocus, the rose, the sparrows endangered in mud. Our lives were twisted in his life; we also were children When he was a child, We were his pets and his toythings, mock sisters, his tiny companions. We grew as he grew, laughed also, ran as he ran, Though sandier, hungrier, sun-speckled, most days meatless. He saw us as rightfully his, for whatever purpose He chose, to tend him and feed him, to wash him, amuse him, Rock him to sleep in the dangerous boats of ourselves. We did not know as we played with him there in the sand On the beach of our rocky goat-island, close by the harbour, That he was foredoomed to swell to our cold-eyed teenaged killer. If we had known that, would we have drowned him back then? Young children are ruthless and selfish: everyone wants to live. Twelve against one, he wouldn't have stood a chance. Would we? In only a minute, when nobody else was looking? Pushed his still-innocent child's head under the water With our own still-innocent childish nursemaid hands, And blamed it on waves. Would we have had it in us? Ask the Three Sisters, spinning their blood-red mazes, Tangling the lives of men and women together. Only they know how events might then have had altered. Only they know our hearts. From us you will get no answer.
Margaret Atwood (The Penelopiad)
This is not mysticism, but identification; man, building this greatest and most personal of all tools, has in turn received a boat-shaped mind, and the boat, a man-shaped soul. His spirit and the tendrils of his feeling are so deep in a boat that the identification is complete. It is very easy to see why the Viking wished his body to sail away in an unmanned ship, for neither could exist without the other; or, failing that, how it was necessary that the things he loved most, his women and his ship, lie with him and thus keep closed the circle. In the great fire on the shore, all three started at least in the same direction, and in the gathered ashes who could say where man or woman stopped and ship began?
John Steinbeck (The Log from the Sea of Cortez)
Employment in the Small Bookstore" Twelve Poems, 1975 The dust is almost motionless in this narrowness, this stillness, yet how unlike a coffin it is, sometimes letting a live one in, sometimes out and the air, though paused, impends not a thing, the silence isn't sinister, and in fact not much goes on at the Ariel Book Shop today, no one weeps in the back room full of books, old books, no one is tearing the books to shreds, in fact I am merely sitting here talking to no one, no one being here, and I am blameless, More, I am grateful for the job, I am fond of the books and touch them, I am grateful that King St. goes down to the river, and that the rain is lovely, the afternoon green. If the soft falling away of the afternoon is all there is, it is nearly enough, just let me hear the beautiful clear voice of a woman in song passing toward silence, and then that will be all for me at five o'clock I will walk down to see the untended sailing yachts of the Potomac bobbing hopelessly in another silence, the small silence that gets to be a long one when the past stops talking to you because it is dead, and still you listen, hearing just the tiny agonies of old boats on a cloudy day, in cloudy water. Talk to it. Men are talking to it by Cape Charles, for them it's the same silence with fishing lines in their hands. We are all looking at the river bearing the wreckage so far away. We wonder how the river ever came to be so grey, and think that once there were some very big doings on this river, and now that is all over.
Denis Johnson (The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly: Poems Collected and New)
Look, sometimes you get a boat out on the open water and you catch a wind and the sails fill and she comes to life under you and it feels like more than just wind and water and vessel, it feels like there’s something else going on. Something pulling you forward and surrounding you at the same time. Am I makin’ any sense?” “You’re making perfect sense. “I know, I know, and normally I wouldn’t do anything like this. But I feel like this feeling comes once or twice in a lifetime, if we’re lucky.
revenge
On September 6, 1522, a battered ship appeared on the horizon … A small pilot boat was dispatched to lead the strange ship over the reefs … The vessel they were guiding into the harbor was manned by a skeleton crew of just eighteen sailors and three captives, all of them severely malnourished. … Their captain was dead, as were the officers, the boatswains, and the pilots; in fact, nearly the entire crew had perished … the ship, Victoria, … had departed three years earlier. No one knew what had become of her … Despite the journey’s hardships, Victoria and her diminished crew accomplished what no other ship had ever done before. By sailing west until they reached the East, and then sailing on in the same direction, they had fulfilled an ambition as old as the human imagination, the first circumnavigation of the globe
Laurence Bergreen (Magellan: Over the Edge of the World)
Those diversions sparked her life with momentary excitement. Without them, Charis felt she would be driven mad by the unrelenting sameness of life in the palace. Now and again she imagined that she would like to run away, to disguise herself and travel the tumbled hills, to see life among the simple herdsmen and their families; or perhaps she would take a boat and sail the coasts, visiting tiny, sun-baked fishing villages and learning the rhythm of the sea. Unfortunately, making good either of those plans would mean taking action, and the only thing more palpable than the boredom she endured was the inertia that enclosed her like a massive fist. The weighty impossibility of changing her life in any but the most insignificant detail insured that she would not try. She sighed again and returned to the corridor, pausing to pick a sunshade from a nearby bush, idly plucking the delicate yellow petals and dropping them one by one, like days, fluttering from her hand.
Stephen R. Lawhead
The slightly vulgar lady whom the man with an eye for women wouldn’t bother to look at as he passed by and would exclude from the poetic scene nature presents to his eyes, is beautiful too; the light on her dress is the same light that falls on the sail of that boat, everything is equally precious, the tawdry dress and the sail that is beautiful in itself are both mirrors of the same light. All the worth they have is conferred upon them by the painter’s eye.’ And this eye had been able to arrest the passage of the hours for all time in this luminous moment when the lady had felt hot and stopped dancing, when the tree was encircled by a ring of shade, when the sails seemed to be gliding over a glaze of gold. But precisely because that moment had such a forceful impact, the fixity of the canvas conveyed the impression of something highly elusive: you felt that the lady would soon return home, the boats vanish from the scene, the shadow shift, night begin to fall; that pleasure fades away, that life passes, and that the instant, illuminated by multiple and simultaneous plays of light, cannot be recaptured.
Marcel Proust (The Guermantes Way)
There had been a time, once, when he had not lived like this, a .32 under his pillow, a lunatic in the back yard firing off a pistol for God knew what purpose, some other nut or perhaps the same one imposing a brain-print of his own shorted-out upstairs on an incredibly expensive and valued cephscope that everyone in the house, plus all their friends, loved and enjoyed. In former days Bob Arctor had run his affairs differently: there had been a wife much like other wives, two small daughters, a stable household that got swept and cleaned and emptied out daily, the dead newspapers not even opened carried from the front walk to the garbage pail, or even, sometimes, read. But then one day, while lifting out an electric corn popper from under the sink, Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it. He wanted a divorce; he wanted to split. And so he had, very soon. And entered, by degrees, a new and somber life, lacking all of that. Probably he should have regretted his decision. He had not. That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all. But in this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing.
Philip K. Dick
Let’s take the threshold idea one step further. If intelligence matters only up to a point, then past that point, other things—things that have nothing to do with intelligence—must start to matter more. It’s like basketball again: once someone is tall enough, then we start to care about speed and court sense and agility and ball-handling skills and shooting touch. So, what might some of those other things be? Well, suppose that instead of measuring your IQ, I gave you a totally different kind of test. Write down as many different uses that you can think of for the following objects: a brick a blanket This is an example of what’s called a “divergence test” (as opposed to a test like the Raven’s, which asks you to sort through a list of possibilities and converge on the right answer). It requires you to use your imagination and take your mind in as many different directions as possible. With a divergence test, obviously there isn’t a single right answer. What the test giver is looking for are the number and the uniqueness of your responses. And what the test is measuring isn’t analytical intelligence but something profoundly different—something much closer to creativity. Divergence tests are every bit as challenging as convergence tests, and if you don’t believe that, I encourage you to pause and try the brick-and-blanket test right now. Here, for example, are answers to the “uses of objects” test collected by Liam Hudson from a student named Poole at a top British high school: (Brick). To use in smash-and-grab raids. To help hold a house together. To use in a game of Russian roulette if you want to keep fit at the same time (bricks at ten paces, turn and throw—no evasive action allowed). To hold the eiderdown on a bed tie a brick at each corner. As a breaker of empty Coca-Cola bottles. (Blanket). To use on a bed. As a cover for illicit sex in the woods. As a tent. To make smoke signals with. As a sail for a boat, cart or sled. As a substitute for a towel. As a target for shooting practice for short-sighted people. As a thing to catch people jumping out of burning skyscrapers.
Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers: The Story of Success)
We are sailing in different boats and possibly we may possess a superior boat; but we must remember that we share the same river called life and death.
Aditya Ajmera
Don’t follow competition We are constantly amazed by how much business leaders obsess about their competition. When you get in a room with a bunch of senior execs from large companies, their attention can often wander as they check smartphones and think about the rest of their day, but bring up the topic of their competition and suddenly you’ll have everyone’s full attention. It’s as if, once you get to a particular level in an organization, you worry as much about what your competition is doing as how your own organization is performing. At the highest echelons of business, the default mentality is, too often, siege. This fixation leads to a never-ending spiral into mediocrity. Business leaders spend much of their time watching and copying the competition, and when they do finally break away and try something new, they are careful risk-takers, developing only incremental, low-impact changes. Being close to your competition offers comfort; it’s like covering tactics in match race sailing, when the lead boat tacks whenever the follower does, to ensure that the follower doesn’t go off in a different direction and find stronger wind. Incumbents clump together so that no one finds a fresher breeze elsewhere. But as Larry Page says, how exciting is it to come to work if the best you can do is trounce some other company that does roughly the same thing?85 If you focus on your competition, you will never deliver anything truly innovative. While you and your competitors
Eric Schmidt (How Google Works)
Notice how your voice tone affects the voice tone of the person you speak to. Change your voice tone and see how it changes the voice tone of the other person (you may have to demonstrate the change a few times before the other person matches you). When your level of negative emotional arousal is low, notice how much you love your partner, notice your commitment to your relationship, and notice the things you both want from your relationship, such as companionship, friendship, support, and understanding. Notice that you are in the same boat together: you sail or sink together. Every day remind yourself about how you are connected to your partner: “Your happiness is my happiness, and your unhappiness is my unhappiness. When I take care of your needs, I am also taking care of my own. When I treat you with love and kindness, I am taking care of myself also.” Notice how your mood affects others around you, and vice versa. Before saying something to your partner, even in an easy, nonconflictual situation, ask yourself, “Is this going to make things better or worse?” or, if you prefer, “Is this going to get me what I really want in the long term?” Practice this one as much as possible, even several times per day. Notice how empowering it is to be able to choose how you
Alan E. Fruzzetti (The High-Conflict Couple: A Dialectical Behavior Therapy Guide to Finding Peace, Intimacy, and Validation)
California Wasted" No time, where did the time go? What was I thinking? No compass, no maps No sail on the mast And this boat is sinking We're going down There's too much in my head right now I've got no way to slow it down And no one's gonna pull me out Oh I still make the same mistakes Oh California's wasted on me I'll stare at the sun Let the fire fill my eyes See nothing but light An endless day To banish the night I could set this right But there's too much in my head right now I've got no way to slow it down And no one's gonna pull me out Oh I still make the same mistakes Oh California's wasted on me On the line where the ocean meets the sky I've been hoping I could see a sign, Hoping I could see a sign There's too much in my head right now I've got no way to slow it down And no one's gonna pull me out Oh I still make the same mistakes Oh California's wasted on me I still make the same mistakes I'm wasted out in California There is too much in my head right now I'm wasted Too much in my head right now Oh California wasted on me New Constellations (2013)
Toad The Wet Sprocket
Live seeking God, and then you will not live without God." And more than ever before, all within me and around me lit up, and the light did not again abandon me. And I was saved from suicide. When and how this change occurred I could not say. As imperceptibly and gradually the force of life in me had been destroyed and I had reached the impossibility of living, a cessation of life and the necessity of suicide, so imperceptibly and gradually did that force of life return to me. And strange to say the strength of life which returned to me was not new, but quite old the same that had borne me along in my earliest days. I quite returned to what belonged to my earliest childhood and youth. I returned to the belief in that Will which produced me and desires something of me. I returned to the belief that the chief and only aim of my life is to be better, i.e. to live in accord with that Will, and I returned to the belief that I can find the expression of that Will in what humanity, in the distant past hidden from, has produced for its guidance: that is to say, I returned to a belief in God, in moral perfection, and in a tradition transmitting the meaning of life. There was only this difference, that then all this was accepted unconsciously, while now I knew that without it I could not live. What happened to me was something like this: I was put into a boat (I do not remember when) and pushed off from an unknown shore, shown the direction of the opposite shore, had oars put into my unpracticed hands, and was left alone. I rowed as best I could and moved forward; but the further I advanced towards the middle of the stream the more rapid grew the current bearing me away from my goal and the more frequently did I encounter others, like myself, borne away by the stream. There were a few rowers who continued to row, there were others who had abandoned their oars; there were large boats and immense vessels full of people. Some struggled against the current, others yielded to it. And the further I went the more, seeing the progress down the current of all those who were adrift, I forgot the direction given me. In the very centre of the stream, amid the crowd of boats and vessels which were being borne down-stream, I quite lost my direction and abandoned my oars. Around me on all sides, with mirth and rejoicing, people with sails and oars were borne down the stream, assuring me and each other that no other direction was possible. And I believed them and floated with them. And I was carried far; so far that I heard the roar of the rapids in which I must be shattered, and I saw boats shattered in them. And I recollected myself. I was long unable to understand what had happened to me. I saw before me nothing but destruction, towards which I was rushing and which I feared. I saw no safety anywhere and did not know what to do; but, looking back, I perceived innumerable boats which unceasingly and strenuously pushed across the stream, and I remembered about the shore, the oars, and the direction, and began to pull back upwards against the stream and towards the shore. That shore was God; that direction was tradition; the oars were the freedom given me to pull for the shore and unite with God. And so the force of life was renewed in me and I again began to live.
Leo Tolstoy (A Confession)
His essential book, Sea-boats, Oars and Sails, written in the early 20th century, defines a sea-boat as “a means of transport as well as something to go sailing in; one that will bring her owner to whatever place he wishes on any day when boats of the same size are out fishing.
Christian Beamish (The Voyage of the Cormorant)
From the Bridge” by Captain Hank Bracker Ships Ships are generally different from boats depending on size, thus a ship can be considered a relatively large buoyant watercraft. Historically, sailing vessels that had least three square-rigged masts and a full bowsprit were considered ships. A rule of thumb is that a boat can be lifted onto a ship but never the other way around. Modern ships are power driven and usually made of steel, however this rule of thumb is not always the case. The lure of the sea may no longer have the universal appeal it once had but the profession of going to sea still presents many of the same challenges. The size of ships has increased over the years, with the French liner the SS Normandie being the first passenger liner to exceed 1,000 feet in length. Her length overall was 1029 feet. The next year in 1937 the SS Queen Mary was launched having a length of 1,019 feet. Although the Normandie caught fire, capsized and sank, next to the pier she was tied up at in New York City, the Queen Mary is now a floating museum and tourist attraction in Long Beach, California. For those that go down to the sea in ships, the ship is their home.
Hank Bracker (The Exciting Story of Cuba: Understanding Cuba's Present by Knowing Its Past)
Montreal November 1704 Temperature 34 degrees “Girl! English, eh? What is your name? Indians stole you, eh? I’ll send news to your people.” His excellent speech meant that he did a lot of trading with the English. It meant, Mercy prayed, that he liked the English. She found her tongue. “Will you take me to France, sir? Or anywhere at all? Wherever you are going--I can pay.” He raised his eyebrows. “You do not belong to an Indian?” She flushed and knew her red cheeks gave their own answer, but rather than speaking, she held out the cross. The sun was bright and the gemstones even brighter. The man sucked in his breath. He leaned very close to her to examine the cross. “Yes,” he said. “It is worth much.” He straightened up slowly, his eyes traveling from her waist to her breast to her throat to her hair. The other sailors also straightened, and they too left their work, drawn by the glittering cross. “So you want to sail with me, girl?” He stroked her cheek. His nails were yellow and thick like shingles, and filthy underneath. He twined her hair into a hank, circling it tighter and tighter, as if to scalp. “You are the jewel,” he said. “Come. I get a comb and fix this hair.” The other sailors slouched over. They pressed against her and she could not retreat. He continued to hold her by the hair, as if she were a rabbit to be skinned. She could see neither river nor sky, only the fierce grins of sailors leaning down. “Eh bien,” said the Frenchman, returning to his own tongue. “This little girl begs to sail with us,” he told his men. “What do you say, boys?” He began laughing. “Where should she sleep? What am I bid?” She did not have enough French to get every word, but it was the same in any language. The sailors laughed raucously. Indians had strong taboos about women. Men would not be with their women if they were going hunting or having important meetings, and certainly not when going off to war. She had never heard of an Indian man forcing himself on a woman. But these were not Indians. She let the cross fall on its chain and pushed the Frenchman away, but he caught both her wrists easily in his free hand and stretched her out by the wrists as well as by the hair. Tannhahorens pricked the white man’s hand with the tip of his scalping knife. White men loading barrels stood still. White sailors on deck ceased to move. White passersby froze where they walked. The bearded Frenchman drew back, holding his hands up in surrender. A little blood ran down his arm. “Of course,” he said, nodding. “She’s yours. I see.” The sailors edged away. Behind them now, Mercy could see two pirogues of Indians drifting by the floating dock. They looked like Sauk from the west. They were standing up in the deep wells of their sturdy boats, shifting their weapons to catch the sun. Tannhahorens did not look at Mercy. The tip of his knife advanced and the Frenchman backed away from it. He was a very strong man, possibly stronger than Tannhahorens. But behind Tannhahorens were twenty heavily armed braves. The Frenchman kept backing and Tannhahorens kept pressing. No sailor dared move a muscle, not outnumbered as they were. The Sauk let out a hideous wailing war cry. Mercy shuddered with the memory of other war cries. Even more terrified, all the French took another step back--and three of them fell into the St. Lawrence River. The Sauk burst into wild laughter. The voyageurs hooted and booed. The sailors threw ropes to their floundering comrades, because only Indians knew how to swim.
Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
River Rafting in Rishikesh is one of the most thrilling water based adventure sports that gives you an up close splatter of untamed nature in a world where the royal river is what you are up adjacent to. Aboard a raft, when the water wave hits your face for the first time; you be familiar with that it will take a little more than a few ounces of bravery to tame the river beast and indeed this duel next to mother nature will enrich your life forever, even if tried only once in a life time…The modern raft is a boat that is inflated comprising of a very durable and thick coated rubberized or vinyl fabric and also has a number of air chambers. The chief apparatus required for rafting are a life jacket ,Safety helmet, Safety Helmet, Paddles, River guide and a Self-Bailing Raft, etc. It is a very daring activity and it may appear a very perilous sport, but once you knowledge it, you will certainly realize the actual thrill of rafting. The best time for water river rafting is spiral summer to February to May and in winter September to November. You probably think that there is completely no way to extreme sports such as rafting can be fun at all. This is false, because all you need for a great sport like this is fun to be an expert to take manages of all rafting. It is a fun place to take part in all the summer sports, when it's nice and warm and all you need is a movement related to the water to take temperatures down. It is also a thrilling sport that many people can participate at the same time. Friends and family can get together and everybody can have a brilliant day of fun. As you begin your boat journey, you will encounter a number of rapids, which you will be necessary to sail over. Uttarakhand adventure is well known rafting company in Rishikesh. This excursion will roughly be two hours long, and will make you use all your power and skill to keep the boat under control. Water will stay splash all over you, and will keep you invigorated and bouncing if you start feeling tired due to the corporeal work that you will do. As an extreme sport, rafting certainly has its drawbacks, but not all make games? The best way to take safety measures so that you can avoid fatal accidents is to acquire a knowledgeable scout who is qualified for the chore and the best gear for rafting. For example, you should always have a life jacket on the obverse rafting, in the unfortunate event that the boat capsize; you'll be able to stay afloat and hope to swim to defense. Also, if you are unsure of your rafting skills, rapids and waterfalls stay away from very high.
uttarakhand adventure
We anchored just off the mouth of the Ozama River in about 30 feet of water and used the running boat to land liberty parties. Since Trujillo was extremely anti-communist, everything else he did was forgiven by the United States. It was our policy at the time to maintain a friendship with Latin American dictators, as long as they are anti-communistic. Regardless of our political friendship with the Dominican Republic, we were warned not to get into trouble since it could create a serious international problem. From our vantage point at the anchorage, we could see the newly acquired Presidential yacht Angelita alongside the wharf paralleling the Ozama River. The vessel was built in Kiel, Germany, in 1931 as the Hussar II and at the time was the largest private yacht afloat. The Angelita had a strange look since she was designed to be a four-masted sail ship, but lacked masts, when she was previously converted to a weather ship for the U.S. Coast Guard and later the U.S. Navy. The name had already been changed from USS Sea Cloud to Trujillo’s daughter’s name when I saw her, but it would still take a few more years before her conversion would be complete although she should have remained a sail ship…. The good news is that after the ship stayed in port for eight years, Hartmut Paschburg and a group of Hamburg associates purchased her. Changing her name back to the Sea Cloud, she underwent extensive repairs and revisions at the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, the same Hamburg shipyard where she was originally built. This time she became a luxury sailing cruising ship outfitted to accommodate sixty-four passengers and a crew of sixty. The Sea Cloud set sail on her first cruise in 1979 and has been described by the Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships as "the most romantic sailing ship afloat! In 2011, the Sea Cloud underwent additional renovations at the MWB-Werft in Bremerhaven. She is still in operation….
Hank Bracker
In the year 0982, Gunnbjorn Ulfsson reported that he had journeyed to another land having fertile green fields, about 200 miles to the west of Iceland. Out of duress, Eric the Red now 32 years old, decided to uproot his family and move there. Eric and his family sailed the treacherous distance between the two landmasses safely and named the new location Greenland. He chose this name because it reflected the grassy, valleys he discovered during this warm period of the island’s history. Three years later when he could return to Iceland, he told astounding stories about where he and his family had settled. His stories must have sounded inviting since they encouraged many other settlers to join them there, especially considering that a famine had devastated Iceland. Not knowing any better, they had severely overworked the cold soil in Iceland, putting their very existence into jeopardy. Knowing that they could not survive another winter, 980 people on 25 boats left for the arduous journey to Greenland. It must have been a cold, rough crossing because only 14 boats succeeded in making it. However, Eric later learned that some of the boats had survived and had managed to return safely to Iceland. In time, there were about 5,000 settlers in Greenland. The official records indicate that two sizable Norse settlements had been founded in fjords on the southwestern coast of the island. Other smaller ones were located on the same coast as far north as present day Nuuk. Most of the settlements which were founded in about the year 1,000, remained inhabited until well into “The Little Ice Age,” which started in 1350 and lasted for approximately 500 years. In the beginning when the weather was considerably warmer, about 400 farms were started by the Viking farmers. However later, the extreme cold and glacial ice made farming nearly impossible in these frigid northern latitudes. Recently, archaeologists discovered a Viking village that was radiocarbon dated back to circa 1430.
Hank Bracker
So I loved you because I thought you would be fat. I thought you would increase, multiply, develop a big belly, double cheeks, triple chins, dimpled knees. I thought there would be more of you. You'd stand out in a crowd, flaunt fashion. We'd have to buy clothes in stores catering to the big fellow. In your hands birds would nest. On your knees children would perch. You would rock marvelously— better than any rocking chair, better than any row boat. You would conjure up the sound and feel of water, the expanse of sea—its waves and calms, its storms under control. In your arms I would be sailing without the bother of shipwreck. All our gardens would grow if you dropped the seeds. Pumpkins would explode for fullness. Tomatoes so heavy would collapse their vines. Cauliflowers sprouting the size of streetlights. Your voice would fill the house— raise the ceilings, flood the windows. I'd hear you in every room. Over storms your voice would carry, lightning would not diminish you. What happened? You are no larger than me. Our voices fill the same small space. No soft flesh to press my fingers into deeply before I hit the road of your body. Your bones are as clear to find as mine, neither distinct nor hidden. They are simply the usual set— they suffice. They hold us together with no genius. The self you offer me is not unlike my self— no great dimensions, no extraordinary appetite. I don't live in the tower of your sound. Trees are outside our human scale and birds belong more properly in them. The only nest we can build is a nest for ourselves. In short, my dear you are my equal. We can only grow what every other can grow— the seeds we have been given.
Marcia Aldrich
Although he always talked about technology and Oracle with passion and intensity, he didn’t have the methodical relentlessness that made Bill Gates so formidable and feared. By his own admission, Ellison was not an obsessive grinder like Gates: “I am a sprinter. I rest, I sprint, I rest, I sprint again.” Ellison had a reputation for being easily bored by the process of running a business and often took time off, leaving the shop to senior colleagues. One of the reasons often trotted out for Oracle’s success in the 1990s was Ellison’s decision to hire Ray Lane, a senior executive credited with bringing order and discipline to the business, allowing Ellison just to do the vision thing and bunk off to sail his boats whenever he felt like it. But Lane had left Oracle nearly eighteen months before after falling out with Ellison. Since then, Ellison had taken full control of the company—how likely was it that he would he stay the course? One reason to be skeptical was that Ellison just seemed to have too many things going on in his life besides Oracle. During the afternoon, we took a break from discussing the future of computing to take a tour of what would be his new home—nearly a decade in the making, and at that time, still nearly three years from completion. In the hills of Woodside, California, framing a five-acre artificial lake, six wooden Japanese houses, perfect replicas of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century originals in Kyoto, were under construction. The site also contained two full-size ornamental bridges, hundreds of boulders trucked in from the high Sierras and arranged according to Zen principles and an equal number of cherry trees jostling for attention next to towering redwoods. Ellison remarked: “If I’m remembered for anything, it’s more likely to be for this than Oracle.”3 In the evening, I noticed in Ellison’s dining room a scale model of what would become his second home: a graceful-looking 450-foot motor-yacht capable of circumnavigating the globe. Already the owner of two mega-yachts, bought secondhand and extensively modified (the 192-foot Ronin based in Sausalito and the 244-foot Katana, which was kept at Antibes in the South of France), Ellison wanted to create the perfect yacht. The key to achieving this had been his successful courtship of a seventy-two-year-old Englishman, Jon Bannenberg, recognized as the greatest designer of very big, privately-owned yachts. With a budget of $200 million—about the same as that for the Japanese imperial village in Woodside—it would be Bannenberg’s masterpiece. Bannenberg had committed himself to “handing over the keys” to Ellison in time for his summer holiday in 2003.
Matthew Symonds (Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle)
Net of love! What are these scenes unfolding, Over the water of the lake, Where boats are sailing though water is randomly flowing, Is it a sight of motion with no mistake? As the fisherman casts his net, And its octagonal boundaries gradually sink into the water, Where they now lie in their world wet, And wait as octagonal shapes and one single net, when put together, A shoal of fish swims freely and maybe happily too, As they enter this octagonal mesh that waits in silence, The fisherman feels something stir in his mind too, And pulls the net breaking his wait of prolonged patience, And he smiles at the fish struggling to break free, He holds them one by one and tosses them on the floor, This is how it has always been and this is how it shall always be, The struggle for the floor to be the sky and for the sky to even invade the floor, For what spring and summer tames as beauty, Shall be confounded by the Autumn that appears to appear too soon, For in the temple of life there is no deity, There is only the law of bane and the boon, So I watch the fish wriggle on the floor of the boat, As my thoughts sail away with the one I love, And I cast my net over the vast expanse of fate as I wait, To notice in her the same feeling of love reflecting all over my net of love, That I cast only to seek her attention and few smiles, While her beauty glides throughout the universe, Her charm is rendered eternal across the universe’s infinite miles, And my net of love also gets cast across this endless universe!
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
Pariva was a small village, unimportant enough that it rarely appeared on any maps of Esperia. Bordered by mountains and sea, it seemed untouched by time. The school looked the same as she remembered; so did the market and Mangia Road---a block of eating establishments that included the locally famous Belmagio bakery---and cypress and laurel and pine trees still surrounded the local square, where the villagers came out to gossip or play chess or even sing together. Had it really been forty years since she had returned? It seemed like only yesterday that she'd strolled down Pariva's narrow streets, carrying a sack of pine nuts to her parents' bakery or stopping by the docks to watch the fishing boats sail across the glittering sea. Back then, she'd been a daughter, a sister, a friend. A mere slip of a young woman. Home had been a humble two-storied house on Constanza Street, with a door as yellow as daffodils and cobblestoned stairs that led into a small courtyard in the back. Her father had kept a garden of herbs; he was always frustrated by how the mint grew wild when what he truly wanted to grow was basil. The herbs went into the bread that her parents sold at their bakery. Papa crafted the savory loaves and Mamma the sweet ones, along with almond cakes drizzled with lemon glaze, chocolate biscuits with hazelnut pralines, and her famous cinnamon cookies. The magic the Blue Fairy had grown up with was sugar shimmering on her fingertips and flour dusting her hair like snow. It was her older brother, Niccolo, coaxing their finicky oven into working again, and Mamma listening for the crackle of a golden-brown crust just before her bread sang. It was her little sister Ilaria's tongue turning green after she ate too many pistachio cakes. Most of all, magic was the smile on Mamma's, Papa's, Niccolo's, and Ilaria's faces when they brought home the bakery's leftover chocolate cake and sank their forks into a sumptuous, moist slice. After dinner, the Blue Fairy and her siblings made music together in the Blue Room. Its walls were bluer than the midsummer sky, and the windows arched like rainbows. It'd been her favorite room in the house.
Elizabeth Lim (When You Wish Upon a Star)
The opinion of the German High Command and of the U-boat Commanders was very clear. They did not want to attack convoys. It was too difficult and was only to be attempted if enough ‘independents’ could not be found. Contrary to the general impression, the ace U-boat Commanders such as Prien, Kretchmer, and Schepke gained most of their successes by sinking ships sailing singly and not by attacks on convoys. Indeed, these very three men were lost or captured in an attempt to attack the same convoy.
Peter Gretton (Convoy Escort Commander: A Memoir of the Battle of the Atlantic (Submarine Warfare in World War Two))
The Indian mystic Sri Ramakrishna likened this to going out in a rowing boat. At first one has to make a lot of effort; it’s quite a strain, especially if one is rowing against the stream. But when one finally manages to reach the middle of the river, one can hoist one’s sail and the breeze will carry the boat along. In the same way, a great deal of effort is necessary in the early stages of the spiritual life, but a time comes when one makes contact with forces that in a sense are beyond oneself – though in another sense they are part of one’s greater self – and these begin to carry one along.
Sangharakshita (The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism)
I stared at it for a while. Then something happened to me which hadn’t happened for a long time. Once as a boy my parents took me to the beach. I didn’t build sand castles or play in the waves. I just stared at the horizon the whole time. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. My father asked me what I was looking at, and I told him I wanted to get in a boat and sail out there and keep sailing. When I went to Greece with Sarah and we looked out over the crystal blue Mediterranean, the same sweetness pulled at me. I cannot tell you where it came from or what I wanted, but I never forgot it. And it was happening again, in that lonely, quiet place Malachi had brought me to, because … what was that, above the thin curtain of reality? Past the furthest horizon, unseen, outside, silent? I could not make it out, but from my great depth, I was sure there was something, the way stars become visible in daylight from the bottom of a well. It pulled at me.
Eric Ortlund (I Am the Doorway)
The Gondola Experience When the performance ended, we returned to the comfort of the Count's gondola, and celebrated the beauty of the evening with more champagne. By now, I was head over heels in love, bewildered by beauty. What had been an enchanted day turned into an unfathomable evening. The organza curtains were drawn, shielding us from the departing theatre crowds. Romantic candles burned as we began, again, the love dance left incomplete, on Lido. Mario’s expert hands blissfully caressed every inch of my smooth body as Andy lowered his expert mouth on my growing organ. I wanted both the Count and Andy, together, at the same moment. As the gondola sailed out into the wide expanse of the Grand Canal, both lovers were inside me, moving in tandem with the rhythmic sounds of waves lapping against the Love-Boat. I surrendered myself wholly to indescribable sexual ecstasy, rocking to the motion of their sliding cocks filling me to the brim. I wanted them and I desired every drop of their precious seed to feed my deepest center. I was awakened by the chirping sounds of two love birds perched on the gondola's window. My lovers lay in deep slumber, their arms draped around my naked body. I gently lifted their arms, and sat up. I saw the majestic steeples of Saint Mark's Cathedral. The singing larks turned long enough to look at me with knowing smiles. I had been to heaven; I did not want my night's pleasures to end.
Young (Initiation (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 1))
We are all in the same water just on a different boat. And I know it's so easy to compare yourself to the ones that sink to the ones that float But no one really has it smooth sailing.
Hannah Todd (Hello Me, It's You)
On October 17, the day when Cornwallis, heralded by his little drummer boy, asked for terms, his would-be rescuers in New York, Graves and Clinton, setting a record for belated action in military history, finally fixed a time to leave on the mission that had been waiting ever since Clinton had acknowledged on September 2 that Cornwallis would have to be "saved." An army of 7,000 was boarded, sails were hoisted, Graves' fleet with Clinton on board moved slowly down the Hudson. They crossed the Hook on October 19, on the same day when, in Yorktown, Washington and Cornwallis signed and accepted the terms of surrender. Five days later, October 24, they were off Cape Charles without encountering the feared interference from de Grasse, who had no reason to risk battle for a cause already won. While small craft scuttled through the bay seeking news, a boat came out from the York to tell the tale. Time had not waited; the door was closed. All the expense and armed force exerted for nearly six years had gone for nothing. No victory, no glory, no restored rulership. As a war, it was the historic rebuke to complacency. The two masters of lethargy, Admiral and General, with their 35 ships and 7,000 men turned around and sailed back uselessly to New York.
Barbara W. Tuchman (The First Salute : View of the American Revolution)
The name “Ketch” is derived from the word "catch," referring to fishing boats which frequently were two-masted sailing boat; having a mainmast that was taller than the other mast, usually named the mizzen or after mast. A ketch is rigged with two masts much the same as a yawl however its after mast and sails are usually larger. What are pleasure boats and yachts now started as cargo vessels or freighters and fishing vessels in the Baltic and North Sea. Normally these boats have a jib or a genoa, a mainsail and an after sail. Additional sails such as a spinnaker can be used when running with the wind. Sometimes they fitted with an engine and called motorsailers, making them more adapt for longer voyages. During inclement and windy weather the mizzen sail is frequently used alone to hold the boat into the wind thus allowing for more stable conditions. In America the two-masted schooners are favored over the ketch rig is preferred in Europe.
Hank Bracker
Fundamentals of Esperanto The grammatical rules of this language can be learned in one sitting. Nouns have no gender & end in -o; the plural terminates in -oj & the accusative, -on Amiko, friend; amikoj, friends; amikon & amikojn, accusative friend & friends. Ma amiko is my friend. A new book appears in Esperanto every week. Radio stations in Europe, the United States, China, Russia & Brazil broadcast in Esperanto, as does Vatican Radio. In 1959, UNESCO declared the International Federation of Esperanto Speakers to be in accord with its mission & granted this body consultative status. The youth branch of the International Federation of Esperanto Speakers, UTA, has offices in 80 different countries & organizes social events where young people curious about the movement may dance to recordings by Esperanto artists, enjoy complimentary soft drinks & take home Esperanto versions of major literary works including the Old Testament & A Midsummer Night’s Dream. William Shatner’s first feature-length vehicle was a horror film shot entirely in Esperanto. Esperanto is among the languages currently sailing into deep space on board the Voyager spacecraft. - Esperanto is an artificial language constructed in 1887 by L. L. Zamenhof, a polish oculist. following a somewhat difficult period in my life. It was twilight & snowing on the railway platform just outside Warsaw where I had missed my connection. A man in a crumpled track suit & dark glasses pushed a cart piled high with ripped & weathered volumes— sex manuals, detective stories, yellowing musical scores & outdated physics textbooks, old copies of Life, new smut, an atlas translated, a grammar, The Mirror, Soviet-bloc comics, a guide to the rivers & mountains, thesauri, inscrutable musical scores & mimeographed physics books, defective stories, obsolete sex manuals— one of which caught my notice (Dr. Esperanto since I had time, I traded my used Leaves of Grass for a copy. I’m afraid I will never be lonely enough. There’s a man from Quebec in my head, a friend to the purple martins. Purple martins are the Cadillac of swallows. All purple martins are dying or dead. Brainscans of grown purple martins suggest these creatures feel the same levels of doubt & bliss as an eight-year-old girl in captivity. While driving home from the brewery one night this man from Quebec heard a radio program about purple martins & the next day he set out to build them a house in his own back yard. I’ve never built anything, let alone a house, not to mention a home for somebody else. Never put in aluminum floors to smooth over the waiting. Never piped sugar water through colored tubes to each empty nest lined with newspaper shredded with strong, tired hands. Never dismantled the entire affair & put it back together again. Still no swallows. I never installed the big light that stays on through the night to keep owls away. Never installed lesser lights, never rested on Sunday with a beer on the deck surveying what I had done & what yet remained to be done, listening to Styx while the neighbor kids ran through my sprinklers. I have never collapsed in abandon. Never prayed. But enough about the purple martins. Every line of the work is a first & a last line & this is the spring of its action. Of course, there’s a journey & inside that journey, an implicit voyage through the underworld. There’s a bridge made of boats; a carp stuffed with flowers; a comic dispute among sweetmeat vendors; a digression on shadows; That’s how we finally learn who the hero was all along. Weary & old, he sits on a rock & watches his friends fly by one by one out of the song, then turns back to the journey they all began long ago, keeping the river to his right.
Srikanth Reddy (Facts for Visitors)
We all are sailing in the same boat called Time which is heading towards Death.
Dr. Imran Khan