I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

~ Henry David Thoreau

As I’ve spent the last two days at the annual San Diego International Boat Show, dreaming dreams built in the air and floating on the water. With almost 100 boats catching my eye, I hop from boat to boat looking at things that shine, things that are meticulous in their build and things that are simply simple. There are over 150 vessels at the show, but those with Fiats on their decks, staterooms and crew’s quarters are castles I don’t care to climb aboard. Even if the if was no longer an if, such needs to impress have never been in me.

No, the lover that bewitched me was the Leopard 44 Catamaran…oh my! What a piece of work is this craft! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel with her wings spread! in apprehension of the waves how like a god! The beauty of the world open to her! The paragon of sailing vessels! Sorry William, but your fine words were all that I could think of as I walked her decks and remembered where my castles were.

I went back again this morning, their last day, and took some photographs of her so you will know what I mean by this plagiaristic praise!

My dreams of sailing started out when I was young, very young to my mind now. I was maybe eight or nine when I was infected with the ocean blue bug, and, admittedly, I will try to infect you, the reader, with it too.

Today, my dream is to get this damn little boat untied from the dock and get this thing called life started! To get this done, I need to find a person who will, in exchange for my time, sweat, intelligence or whatever they find of value provide me with enough of an income to pay for these stalled repairs. In between the endless résumé and cover letter rewrites I have been polishing up an old manuscript that I hope to finish within the next 30 days and self-publish as an ebook here on this website and various outlets like Amazon, Apple and so on.

Finishing the book is more about finishing it and moving on to other writing projects than allowing myself the vanity of hope that it will be a best seller and the tonic for all my troubles. Life doesn’t work that way, but I have to finish it to just be able to move on. It has been a guilt on my conscious, leaving it unfinished for all these years. A victim of a weakness of character on my part, that if something cannot be done perfectly it shouldn’t even be attempted… I know that such perfectionism is so off target as to be laughable, and that’s the joke: I have been and will always be, my own worst enemy!

Sailing alone through the water is, for me, a wondrous and spiritual moment in my life. Every time. With only the music of the wind in the sails and rhythm of the water flowing over the hull I am home and I find contentment. But, through writing, I find myself; I get to meet and converse with my better and lesser angels and get lost in thoughts both deep and whimsical. After days on the sea, I find my inner-self so relaxed that I wake myself up from dreams laughing. Oh, what a great way to wake!

…but for now, Sine Metu will carry me and my dreams across that horizon!