From Whispered Fantasies To Lickable Truths
Painting by Rebecca Rankin
As I write this, I’m sitting in the cockpit of my private yacht, my own personal ship, floating in a sea of turquoise, beneath a sky of stars.
There is an unrest forming, a casually brewing system of frustration, present amongst many of the finest people I have the joy of being connected to in my life. It is a storm of confusion, of anger and resentment, for the prevailing public standard in America. For the way many people raise their children, for the fog that exists in the minds and the eyes of the tourists we see bumbling through the streets on a daily basis, for the midwesterners drowning in our seas because, at the age of forty, they have never swam in the ocean, for the boy scouts who come to our schooner’s to learn of the sea who’s hands are lilly soft, for the mothers in the parks who warn their children of the inherent dangers of the sand beneath their child’s feet at the playground, frantically dressing them with fresh, thick socks, a filter for the evils of dirt and potential pain, for the war veterans we take into our homes to avoid their slow death on the sidewalks of our finest cities and the dreamy teenagers who volunteer on our properties, lacking the taught skills or motivation to wield a hammer or drive a plow, entrenched in their personal sagas, lost in a dream land of television, nutritionally defunct meals, apathy, fear and misplaced ideals.
It’s all very interesting.
In my personal realm, I am on the reaping end of a dream I have been sowing for months. Post the “completion” of a nearly eight month long, filth infested restoration of the boat on which I now rest, write and create art, I’m reflecting on a process that reminded me of of the values I intend to place upon my own life and instilled in me a brand of astonishment that is reserved for the people who have a vision and possess the fortitude, both mentally and physically, to apply the strength, dedication and patience necessary to reap fruition in a tangible sense. The process of transferring our hopes and dreams, our whispered fantasies, from the realm of the imagined and intangible to the concrete and lickable world of truth is one of the most fascinating processes available to the human experience, in my perception. The amount of roadblocks, obstacles and governor’s we place between our dreams and our realities is another concept I have been masticating for months. From what I can see, from my frontal lobe experience, it is possible to achieve your dreams. I just did it. I had a vision for my own life that has slowly transferred itself into my reality with the proper application of a huge variety of skills–from a basic sense of the value of hard labor, to a trust in the unknown, the serendipitous luck that is also gifted to genuine human beings, to a patience and grace with myself that I have only just begun to fully tap into; it took a lot of thinking, acting and trusting to haul myself to the position I now stand. I am nothing, at this moment, but grateful and proud. Slightly overwhelmed, and still noticeably slightly exhausted, but honored and thrilled just the same.
I think the most important thing we can continue to do is act on our wildest dreams. To stay true to ourselves and our intentions. To laugh loudly and create blindly. It is a fucked up global situation. We’ve made some pretty big mistakes, as a species, and I wouldn’t be surprised if momma Earth decides any moment now she’d like to wipe the slate clean and start again. I’m easily convinced of this potentiality every time I saunter down Duval Street and watch a fraternity boy in American flag print swimming trunks chuck a full can of beer across the street at noon on the 3rd of July, drunkenly screaming “YOLO!!” and then pointing a series of gyrating pelvic thrusts in the direction of the guy he just creamed, who is now crying. Or many of the more subtle examples of mistreatment that you can see everyday if you chose to seek them out. What, exactly, defines our culture’s definition of “crazy?”
Personally, I am reacting to my own disgust by concentrating on building a life for myself that I believe in, the type of life that, if more people chose, would generate a better world. I have only been back on the water for a week–a week that has rekindled truths I am, personally, consistently guilty of forgetting about. It has been a wild week–consistent high winds with numerous passing gales possessive of headwinds over 30 knots, some gusting upwards of fifty. She has not been a particularly gentle teacher, aside from when I float in her relatively still waters during a warm tropical rain, an hour of respite between the winds. These are the lessons the sea taught me this week.
1. Patience is the finest virtue a sailor can possess. Everyone is sailing through something, but only some of us are aware that we’re doing so.
2. I believe it is important to live a life intimately connected to the rhythms of the natural world–one who’s daily processes are affected by earthbound realities like wind, rain and tide. The loss of connection to the natural world is destroying our humanity.
3. Continuing to act with kindness and compassion toward your fellow man is the only solution to anything. There is no value in entertaining emotions of hate or anger, nor is there point in replaying your past pains or allowing them to color your future perceptions. No matter how many times we get our legs kicked out from under us by someone acting out of fear or greed, there is always someone else who is willing to extend a helping hand to balance the scales. Our only hope is to continue to place trust in one another, and to be nice. Be nice, tiger. Do not kill, hug.
4. Money isn’t everything, time is our most precious commodity.
5. Laughter is the strongest medicine.
I will continue to apply them to my existence, and see what happens. Perhaps adherence to a set of values forged over the course of a lifetime is akin to a form of meteorology for sociological weather systems–a method of predicting and monitoring, patterning and potentially altering the paths of social progress in a direction that we have intentionalized. Or, perhaps I’ll fall on my face while trying to learn how to stand on one leg on the deck of a moving ship. Another lesson–time will tell.
