A month ago, my youngest brother died unexpectedly. Talk about transitions. A friend, in a condolence note, said this must be a "bewildering" time, and that is the perfect word for it. Hard and bewildering.
He was an avid sailor, and it must be the confluence of his death and my return to the lake on which we all sailed as children, that makes sailing -- and its life metaphor -- suddenly quite powerful. I have done little sailing in recent years, so experts, please forgive first attempt ever to write about it.
Of course, the thing about sailing is that, unlike human powered vessels, it is all about the wind: is there a wind? Where is it coming from? How strong is it? Depending on the size of your boat, you may or may not even go out on any given day. The wind is your "higher power."
For a sailboat to head into the wind, it must perform a series of zig-zags (tacks.) It's the captain's job to determine the strategy for doing this, and when the boat needs to "come about" (or tack), he will ask the crew, "ready to come about?" He (or she) needs to know if the crew is ready for this transition, not fumbling to open a can of soda, because the boat is about to make a 45-or-so degree turn and the boom and sails are about to swing right across the boat. The boat's ability to make this turn, not to mention your safety in ducking your head to avoid the boom, depends on your alertness to the captain. So you spring into action, taking the line out of the cleat and getting ready to let it go and move your body to the opposite side of the boat and set the jib in its new setting. You must respond "ready" out loud before the captain will proceed, and then he says, "hard-a-lee" and the whole boat swings around and heads in a new direction. But only for a short time -- in order to head into the wind, you may make many of these tacks back and forth. It may seem counterintuitive to a non-sailor that any progress could be made up the lake by such backing and forthing, but it is the only way to go in the general direction from which the wind is blowing. A boat heading directly into the wind cannot catch any wind in the sails, and will flounder.
When I was young, I had frequent summer opportunities to crew during races. The captains were always men, and "the captain's word was law." Literally. A good crew followed commands. You didn't strategize, you didn't offer your opinion, you didn't make suggestions, and you didn't think for yourself. You waited for commands. In the frenzied moments before the start of the race, we might come about a dozen times as the captain jockeyed for the best position coming over the line. It was exhilarating, stressful, and frustrating as crew, because often you really couldn't see what was going on, crouched, as you were, with the huge main sail blocking your view. So you just did what you were told, and hoped that your captain got across the line first. Once the race was underway, the boats generally tacked toward the north if it was a north wind, to the first buoy. Once we rounded that buoy, there was the delightful stretch where we sailed "with the wind." The north wind was behind us, and we were heading south. No tacking was necessary. We just brought up the centerboard halfway, adjusted the sails wing on wing (the main sail all the way out to one side and the jib all the way out on the other) and, if the wind was strong, wailed down the lake. Even the captain could put down his guard at that point, because there was little to strategize heading downwind. Boats' success gaining ground on that leg of the race depended more on the state of the boat itself (and perhaps the weight of the crew) than any actual skill. But once we reached the next mark, and needed to head north again to the finish line, all of us (captain and crew) returned to a state of alertness, readiness, and attention.
As a teenager, my brother would wake up early on summer mornings and study books about sailing and sailing strategy, then on Saturdays, he'd get in a boat, take charge, and win the race. He loved to sail, and quite literally and fittingly, sailed for the last time the day before he died. Sailing was his passion. I loved it too, and still do. But it is interesting to consider: my early expectation was, of course, that I would never captain a boat. Only men did that. I didn't study sailing, only trusted my own in-the-moment intuition about how to be a good crew and handle the jib. I was great at watching and feeling the wind, and if I took a tiny Sunfish across the lake on my own, I was confident and happy. But to captain a bigger boat, you need powerful assurance, leadership and clear communication skills, a huge body of knowledge about sailing terminology and quite a bit of physical strength. An expensive boat and several lives are in your hands. By the 1980's, in this little sailing club, more and more women captained boats during races, but as I had moved away and would just come back about once a summer. I never got up the courage to do anything other than serve as crew. It's not an excuse, just an observation, about how I just never quite moved into believing I had the option to excel or lead in that area, or some others.
And this morning, I'm taking the metaphor a bit further. I've been the captain of my own ship for decades and decades, but I wonder if I've been doing it with more of the "energy" of a crew member, not the leader. I still cannot quite believe I have the right to strategize, to question, to make suggestions -- much less to powerfully take the tiller, set the course, and even ask for, nay, demand, the assistance of others. Yet that "crew" perspective on life is gradually fading away now. I long to be the leader, and to be more effective at the tiller of my own life. Up until now, I've been somewhat successful at avoiding the shoals, or the nasty gusts of wind that could have blown me over entirely, although there have been some very close calls. Until now, I've only had the courage to attempt the smallest boats, and try not to draw undue attention to my inexpert sailing style. It terrifies me, but it does seem that the time has come to align with the real, gut knowledge that the tiller (the power to make it happen) is in my hands now and always has been. Working with the Universe, I can be a tall, proud sailing ship in good hands in even the roughest seas.
