And we go sailing home

I had no idea where I was heading, but in that dim, bewildering world I believed my only salvation was to keep moving somewhere, moving anywhere, even though my sense of direction had deserted me. And then from the impenetrable core of the mist I heard the captain's voice coming at me clear as a warning horn, repeating something he had told me during one of my early sailing lessons when I pushed the tiller the wrong way and almost threw the boat into a dangerous jibe.

"Let go of the tiller!" he was saying. "Just let go of the tiller! Don't try to steer when you're confused!"

I followed his advice and the blue sloop did exactly what she was supposed to do. She nudged up gently into the breeze into the breeze and came to a standstill. I went up on the bow and tossed the anchor overboard and sat on the foredeck, waiting for a revelation, a glimmer of light, to tell me where I was and which way I had to go.

Deep in the centre of that fog there was no shoreline, no guiding star, no rising sun, no setting moon. But I had enough sailing experience by then to know that if I studied the elements carefully I would discover a clue that would put the muddled compass of my mind back in working order. What I had to do was sit calmly on the deck and empty my mind of all its preconceived notions and prejudices about the nature of fog, and then I would be able to detect the one constant in the swirling mist that would set me on my rightful course.

It was out there, I was sure it was, but for all my concentration it refused to appear. And then all at once I remembered that a boat at anchor, like a gull on a post, is a weather vane; it points ino the wind, and when I knew that I also knew what I was looking for and why it had eluded me. I had been peering into the fog, searching the most obscure place, as if the solution was hidden from view, when in fact it was self-evident, and that was exactly the attribute that made it so hard to find.

It was the wind, and I knew it by its moist touch, by its scent, by its speed that it was still blowing as it had been blowing all morning - from the east. I hauled the anchor and caught a puff in my jib; I steered sideways to the breeze and, sailing a broad reach, headed north toward home.


~ First You Have To Row a Little Boat, Richard Bode.