When I was a kid I had a profound fascination with boats. I had many toy vessels that I played with through the years and can recall losing one of my first on the shores of Grand Isle, Louisiana. Another took its place and my loss was lessened.
When I became a teenager my love of boats disappeared replaced by pursuits that would prove fleeting. Most centered on acquiring things. First I needed a driver’s license. Then a car. Then a girlfriend? Then a college education. Then a good job; which allowed me to change the things I wanted to acquire.
Well after many years working and buying “stuff”, I met someone that brought me back to my childhood love of boats. My girlfriend at the time introduced me to Jason C. Jason had a sailboat on a small lake and offered to take me sailing one weekend. I took him up on that offer.
The sailboat was not much to look at, he had purchased it for $600 US. It was 25 to 30 years old and the cosmetics had not been kept up with. In any case the hull was solid and the sails far from ragged. We loaded up, Jason, Myself and a female friend, that I am sure Jason was hoping to cozy up to.
We pulled from the dock under power and raised the sails. Then killed the engine to reveal mostly silence. Well not completely silent, something better. Just the sound of the hull cutting through the water effortlessly. I felt my self relax a little bit.
Our female friend took the helm so Jason could rummage for a few beers. She moved the tiller back and forth, not erratically, but slowly trying to coax more speed. But it wasn’t long before her efforts were rewarded with a dead stop. No progress and the sails slapped against themselves and the mast. She gave me the tiller and went below proclaiming the winds to be “too light”.
I felt the wind on my face coming from almost straight ahead. I pulled the tiller to me and the bow slowly moved away from the wind. After a minute or two the sails snapped taught and the boat ever so slightly leaned or heeled to her starboard side. I felt more tension melt from my body. As we picked up speed Jason popped his head out of the cabin like a nautical prairie dog and said, “Cool, you know what you’re doing” and ducked back below. But I didn’t know what I was doing, though I wanted to and it felt right.
By the end of the day I had years of accumulated stress washed from me. I realized that I loved it and I needed it. I bought my own sailboat within the month. She would become “Ventolines”, named by my wife, taken from “Los Ventolines” an old legend of wind spirits from Spain.
I have since sailed that boat many days on different lakes and the ocean. It helps keep me grounded in the things that are necessary in life and understand things that are uncontrollable in life. Sailing is sometimes the ultimate sport of patience; but sometimes it’s a sport of white knuckle terror (thankfully, not often). It is this very attribute of sailing, one moment calm, one moment all hell breaking loose, that trains one for daily life. It mirrors on some scale how life can be and gives one skills for overcoming life’s obstacles, with hopefully lower stress.
But more than that, it helps reconnect me to my youth. A time when I marveled at every new experience; when cynicism did not exist for me. It connects me to a time when I collected friends and experiences, not things that simply clutter my life and make me poorer.
So, I sail Ventolines with my wife. Making new friends and gathering new experiences. But we are always mindful now, of staying aware of the dreams that drove us as children. Hopefully, we will keep this “Beginners Mind” and approach each day refreshed and open to what it offers us.