The Great Passage
Intro Note: The following piece you’ll read is a bit different than what you are used to seeing from me—like when Snoop Dogg became “Snoop Lion” for a year and made a Reggae album.
You may see more experiments like this in upcoming months. If it wasn’t your vibe, that’s fine. Also, this may be an odd thing to say, but you can always unsubscribe. I won’t hold it against you.1
And now, let’s get back to the show.
I
I sit in my small fishing vessel floating in the sea's interlude. The still days are rare. Most days, I'm battling krakens, sirens, the weather and its gods, the darkness of night.
Yes, it’s a relief to not be anchored at bay, where no sailor likes to dwell. Though in rampant swell, I wonder whether I’ve made a mistake. I think of the well-meaning passersby; those who wished me “fair winds and good tidings.” The sea is deaf.
II
Who in whole conscience would undertake this voyage? I was a Thalamite2, rowing in the lower ranks of the imposing Trireme. Sitting in the belly of a wooden beast, callous hands on oar, the stroke caller a metronome. Unable to deviate. Unable to stop. Unable to ask “where are we going?” Shoulder to shoulder with my brethren, stuck in a cedar cave.
To be among the sea and not see it; to travel far and wide and never hold the compass; to count time in row strokes; to hold the hollow honor of being Athens’ nautical finest3. The sight of sweaty shoulders arranged like wood planks led to my revelation: “This can’t be all there is.”
III
I broke free and set sail. Now I could see the sea: how the sun kisses the waves, and the waves in turn, wink in shimmers of white gold. I could taste the salt carried by the wind. In those early days, I dreamed of my lore. Would I be Marco Polo, or maybe Ferdinand Magellan? What exotic destinations would I reach? When would I reach the glory and the gold?
I set out on my own, not with a mighty ship, but a vessel made by my hands. It’s mine, this dainty thing; that somehow keeps me from the indigo depth where breath leaves and never returns.
IV
The waves came, unyielding and unwilling to warn. Once, they sprung an ambush. The water unfurled like a pile of pine trunks taking swings at me, knocking me off my vessel. A sudden submersion. A miraculous buoyancy. I gasped and clawed back air into my lungs. I set myself back on my boat in disbelief that it could still float. After I caught my breath, I glanced at the sky: maybe there is a God after all.
V
On the lucky nights where stars turned into watchful eyes and the moon lullabied the sea, I wondered why I’d walked away from the safety of the Trireme’s hull. Was I overcome by a fever dream? A contempt for monotony? Was it really so bad to lean back, oar to chest, and row and row and row and row and row until reality dissolved? That wooden belly, me in its guts, was probably the last time I felt safe. In reality, I was feeling nothing at all.
VI
At last, I reached land. Not the harbor of a great empire, just a place with sand. I was able to stand and for once my feet did not fight the sway. I kissed the beach and rubbed grains of sand between fingertips; their coarseness jolting me back to life. There may not have been a reception, nor a treasure, but it was my first victory. I was not the sailor that left my home shore anymore. I was now a voyager who had endured mountainous waves and sea beasts.
VII
My journey went on for months. Each tempest between landings delivered a battering. Each time I grew ever more confident that my humble oak boat would hold, and I along with it. What started as a solitary voyage became populated by characters who've kept me afloat. Fellow sailors gifting me lemons to avoid scurvy. Blacksmiths and carpenters patching my vessel with bits of iron and wooden planks. Without them, there would be no tale to tell.
The storms, the landings, the casual help: all pulling me towards the idea that perhaps this journey, my choice, wasn't so foolish after all. Perhaps I didn't have a choice—the time had come in my life where the life I wanted and the life I had were pulling so far apart that they just tore at the seams. Bits of fabric, threads unraveling, all beyond repair. So I started again.
VIII
Life is the great passage. Great as enormous, all-encompassing. But it's not always going to be positively great. Life gave me permission to try, but not to succeed. By daring to be among the waves, I had to accept their nature—the stillness and the swell.
IX
It’s been years since I sat in the hull of the Trireme, unable to think, absorbed by the constant motion. What a shame to feel like we are stuck in a perpetual race. But the early days as a lone sailor gripped me with fear. “What’s next?” went from being a question filled with possibilities to a menacing inquiry.
Questions are double-edged. Every doubt has seeds. Some grow into poison ivy, others into lush trees. And the longer I sail the more the questions become their own kind of monstrous swell in my mind. At times, it feels like there are two storms I’m trying to emerge out of: one in the mind, the other at sea.
X
Most of the questions that matter can’t be answered in thought. I could gaze at the horizon and see if the sea would whisper an answer, but the sea is mute.
The great passage is full of matters unresolved, and the main wisdom this sailor can offer is that the best thing to do is sail towards the horizon and row, and row, and row, and row, and row. The answer will come.
On your way out
Yes, I will. Don’t come to my future book signings.
A Trireme was an old Greek warships. They had three levels of rowers Thranites (thranoi), Zygites (zygoi), and Thalamites (thalamoi). The Thalamites were seated lowest in the hull and endured the harshest conditions. They also couldn’t really se the sea, so they were just kinda rowing by feel.
Serving in a Trireme was considered honorable and put you above many other lower-class citizens/slaves in Athens.
Here for your reggae era
Dude, really enjoyed this format. Beautifully written.