Each Man Delights in the Work That Suits Him Best

The Odyssey has been my oracle and guide, my hope and inspiration for most of my life.  I came to it early, through one of those abridged, illustrated classics that filled elementary school libraries back in the sixties.  Being a librarian's daughter, I had to search for the unabridged version which I found and read, over and over, year after year.  Something new would would always strike me with each new reading.  Sometimes there would be years between the reading; like Odysseus I found myself exiled far from home, longing for it, unsure I would ever find it again.  And somehow, someway, I'd find my way back, read it, and feel the kind of peace that comes with the hope of someday.

     It's a been a year or so since I last read the Odyssey.  I actually picked it up again when Bryan first read it, those last couple of months before I joined him in the Virgin Islands.  Bryan has finally gotten his Captain's Ticket after years without it.  What a battle.  I had guessed at what it meant to him, but the reality is so much more.  This is who he's been, even beyond music.  Boats have been his life since our childhood; being a Waterman is what he is, and has always been, and will always be.

So now comes the hunt for jobs, both of us working, delighting in the work that suits us best, one on land and one on sea.  Our life shifts again with the ebb and flow of water and sail and present tense, and we learn to balance anew.  It strikes me, that this is exactly what life on the boat is teaching me, how to seek over and over, and find, my own particular equinox.  That I have found someone to ebb and flow with me, someone who possesses a natural equilibrium that has taken me years to even begin to achieve, well, that seems nothing short of the kind of miracles life is full of if we just pay attention.

Most days I remember to be grateful.  Some days though, I freak out, panic, tip and sway, nearly topple, forgetting the delicate balance I have learned these past months.  What can I say?  I'm human.  That most days are spent in relative equilibrium seems enough for now.