Into The Unknown

Broken Glass

There is something about floating that is calming in a way that death isn't. Not that I have experience in the latter, but I do have experience in the former. Floating, be it in zero gravity, the back garden orchard on a windy Tuesday, or those headaches that come with the dizziness and the blind spots, all seem to me to be all about letting go and letting be.

Lately on reading another war romance book, I have been pondering on just what it is to be a floater, a lover, a fighter, an explorer, a lotus eater, a protector or a bystander. And weighing up if you can be any one of these things and still be a willing passenger of life's great wave. I have always felt it was possible to live your life without unnecessary or in fact necessary intervention and have consistently tried to live my life by avoiding those influences that shade my own little watercraft in my own little neck of the pond.

Despite these measures I have found that sometimes, like that rogue wave or those uneven shipping pallets, fighters, aggressors, explorers of your personal space will still come into your domain uninvited and for no reasonable reason just trash the place. They break down all your doors and smash all your windows and all you're left with is broken glass and the need for an improved locking system. So, then in your conflict free, buoyant existence what do you do?

I should tell you that I don't know much about boats, how they float, how they stay afloat once damaged or loaded sky high with paraphernalia. I have heard or at least seen from watching stuff on Netflix that if it is stormy, or you need to do repairs, or there is some other reason you need to be in the water and not on the deck, you're supposed to either drop anchor or leash yourself to the boat.

And I get this, I understand the logic of it, the idea that tides move, waves alter your direction, and the wind has some say in both yours and your boats' floating destination. But what if your boat is broken?

What if your boat is drifting off-course, towards shore or heading into rocks and you cannot steer, paddle or otherwise alter course? What if you're not floating on the sea at all, but in a river, and the dam up ahead has burst and your little floating vessel will not withstand the upsurge? What if your boat was sabotaged and the saboteur took the only life jacket? Basically, what I'm saying is, if you're heading nowhere good in a broken boat, do you still drop the anchor or leash yourself to the deck? Do you let nature take its course, and temper your calm? Or do you float and just let go of it all?

This week I have found it diverting to listen to the back and forth of the masses in my before bed doom scroll. Though they should not, facts it would appear based on my recent viewings, vary as much as opinion, and I have concluded that the world is a little broken. Not more broken than it used to be, I think the world is just messy period, but people are for sure broken and verbal about it. There are wars, and rumours of wars, and all the things my mum said would come to pass and has been seeing in visions, (yes, she is nuts too). And there are people actively aiding and abetting odious atrocities, worse still there are the bystanders.

I cannot do anything about it, in actuality even when I had the energy to put on a bra or cook an exciting tea, I did nothing about it. And so, like always, here I by stand, blinkered to the destruction, like an anchorite in my corner of the world just floating peacefully amongst the debris which I know about but have chosen not to see.

Despite the occasional glass breaking visitor, or the family members who are not the worst but border on the place that is very near the place that borders the worst, I have begun floating. My boat is broken, but it is okay because it has not yet sprung a leak or begun to capsize. I am even heading in the general direction I need to be in so that is great too. Floating is sort of wonderful, it has that pleasant aroma of mossy forests after rain and a sky the colour of Christmas tree worms. There is even unpredictable updrafts which create the most alluring cumulus cloud formations.