Ahoy, Mateys!

This weekend, I got to go sailing, which is something I’ve never done before.

I went with two of my roommates, Ashley and Briana, as well as Ashley’s sister, to Leech Lake, where Ashley and her sister keep a small sailboat at their grandma’s dock. We enjoyed their grandma’s beautiful home and hospitality, and we spent a good portion of the weekend sailing. I’m still dehydrated and wind/sunburned from our time on the open water, but it was well worth it! Ashley taught Briana and me the basics of sailing – I’m proud to say that I now know how to tack a jib, man the tiller (or woman the tiller, as it were), tie a cleat, and help hoist a sail. And we even got to live out our pirate fantasies to some extent when we hoisted the Jolly Roger and struck some impressive swashbuckling poses. And when we weren’t doing all of that, we had some good long talks about practically anything one could imagine, as generally happens when good friends are in a small space together for several hours.

As I usually do whenever I’m on a boat, I thought that maybe I should  become a sailor. Or a pirate Or a mermaid. Or something. I found that a sailboat afforded the same euphoria that being on other sorts of boats has given me in the past – I am rarely happier than when I’m skimming over the open water. Though a sailboat has little of the dangerous exhiliration that a speedboat inspires, it had much of the romance I associate with the nautical-type books and movies I’ve consumed, which was a new feeling for me to experience in real life instead of vicariously. It’s a feeling I definitely wouldn’t mind having on a regular basis.

And besides all that, I experienced the same delicious phenomenon that happens to me while on any other boat on which I’ve ridden. There’s something about a wide expanse of sun-dappled water, a border of trees, and the wind in my face that makes my already untameable imagination grow to the size of the sky above me and make me believe that anything is possible. I could become a famous writer (or whatever profession I may desire at the moment), I could marry the man of my dreams, I could go to Ireland or London or Paris again, I could live by the sea and the mountains, I could be smart and wise, I could be free and independent, I could be anyone I want to be.

Whether or not any of those things come to pass, it was great to remember that the world is enormous and full of beauty and possibility, and that there’s no reason not to dream big dreams.

Oh, and it was also great to strike fear into the hearts of all that came across the path of us scurvy mates. Just saying.