Spring 1994

I set sail many years ago in search of a rare and beautiful creature. I searched the coasts of America and found universal mind, but it was a construct made by an architect of wishful thinking. I searched inland and found the history of a people long indentured in their efforts to eke out an existence, but it was not my history. I put into port at a research station for life in the pre-defined world, finally leaving on a tattered and torn heart. I set sail in the cosmic void and found a school of souls in training, and participated for while, but still was left unfulfilled.

"Damn! My search is in vain; I may as well blast myself to chards." I couldn't go in any direction; no matter how hard I tried, I was stuck in apathy.

Then one year, I had a hit by lightening. It felt like the end. My rudder was gone. I was beached on a reef of indifference. My paint peeled and dropped off into the sea. My wood was weathered and tired. I was going down slowly but surely. I couldn't keep up with the seepage. Then came a second hit, and as if by magic it cleared the air. It was then that I realized that the paint had been covering the beautiful hand varnished natural wood of my hull. And the spinnaker, it was the bluest blue I have ever seen, like the deepest skies of summer, and the yellow was like the sunrise, startling and new. And who was this beautiful creature sitting at my tiller?