Home is where the heart is

Just before the start of fall quarter, at the end of the summer, I went on a weekender on Odyssey. It was one of the most beautiful weekends I can remember.  I felt happier in those few days than I had in the last few months, and I felt as if I wasn't chained to all the things that felt like they swirled into a fog that dampened my old feelings of bubbling, un-containable happiness. I felt muffled, like there was still happiness, but it was padded down like listening to the world through earmuffs. Out on the water though, I sat in one of the lifeboats on deck in the sunshine, and wrote about the overflowing happiness I felt:

"I'm completely surrounded by the sea.

It sparkles and glistens in the light of the sun, both calming to the soul and deadly at the same times, rolling and calling- a deep, dark, impenetrable force- it's own world beneath our ship.

The ship moves in an effortless glide through the water, sometimes filled with music and laughter  and other times, like now, wearied, teenaged sailors heading for home after three days that flew by all too quickly.

But "home" is a relative term.  Though the world would recognize my street address as my place of residence-my "home"- the coined phrase "Home is where the heart is" would lead me to believe otherwise as my heart yearns for nothing more than this boat- than the ocean, the salt, the sun to surround me and consume me in the gentle rocking of the waves and the foam of the water that so distract me into peaceful bliss as I write.

Yes, I will return "home" tonight, but my turkshead bracelet will remind me of then I belonged to the sea in case my time on land ever leads me to forget.  If it is possible to forget the feeling of falling asleep under the stars to the swaying and the creaking of the boat with the bustle of hectic cities and people and stresses so far away on land where they can't reach you.  It is a pure and unparalleled  joy, a feeling beyond my comprehension to be this free. If I could do this forever, just sail away and never be bound to return-not owned by text books and work hours and the sense of duty and responsibility to have a respectable college education that leads to a respectable career to fit into a modern society of waste and prejudice and twisted methods of belonging.. if I could leave it all behind and belong to the ship and the nature and the sea (as I know it does not belong to me but to itself) then I would be happier than at any office job or anywhere bound by land."