One of my favorite chapters from the book. Depressing yet beautiful imagery.
Chapter 78
There were many skies. The sky was invaded by great white clouds, flat on the bottom but round and billowy on top. The sky was completely cloudless, of a blue quite shattering to the senses. The sky was a heavy, suffocating blanket of grey cloud, but without promise of rain. The sky was thinly overcast. The sky was dappled with small, white, fleecy clouds. The sky was streaked with high, thin clouds that looked like a cotton ball stretched apart. The sky was a featureless milky haze. The sky was a density of dark and blustery rain clouds that passed by without delivering rain. The sky was painted with a small number of flat clouds that looked like sandbars. The sky was a mere block to allow a visual effect on the horizon: sunlight flooding the ocean, the vertical edges between light and shadow perfectly distinct. The sky was a distant black curtain of falling rain. The sky was many clouds at many levels, some thick and opaque, others looking like smoke. The sky was black and spitting rain on my smiling face. The sky was nothing but falling water, a ceaseless deluge that wrinkled and bloated my skin and froze me stiff.
There were many seas. The sea roared like a tiger. The sea whispered in your ear like a friend telling you secrets. The sea clinked like small change in a pocket. The sea thundered like avalanches. The sea hissed like sandpaper working on wood. The sea sounded like someone vomiting. The sea was dead silent. And in between the two, in between the sky and the sea, were all the winds.
To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the centre of a circle.However much things may appear to change—the sea may shift fromwhisper to rage, the sky might go from fresh blue to blinding white todarkest black—the geometry never changes. Your gaze is always a radius. The circumference is ever great. In fact, the circles multiply. To be acastaway is to be caught in a harrowing ballet of circles. You are at thecentre of one circle, while above you two opposing circles spin about. Thesun distresses you like a crowd, a noisy, invasive crowd that makes youcup your ears, that makes you close your eyes, that makes you want to hide. The moon distresses you by silently reminding you of your solitude;you open your eyes wide to escape your loneliness. When you look up,you sometimes wonder if at the centre of a solar storm, if in the middle ofthe Sea of Tranquillity, there isn’t another one like you also looking up,also trapped by geometry, also struggling with fear, rage, madness, hopelessness, apathy.
Otherwise, to be a castaway is to be caught up in grim and exhausting opposites. When it is light, the openness of the sea is blinding and frightening. When it is dark, the darkness is claustrophobic. When it is day, you are hot and wish to be cool and dream of ice cream and pour sea water on yourself. When it is night, you are cold and wish to be warm and dream of hot curries and wrap yourself in blankets. When it is hot, you are parched and wish to be wet. When it rains, you are nearly drowned and wish to be dry. When there is food, there is too much of it and you must feast. When there is none, there is truly none and you starve. When the sea is flat and motionless, you wish it would stir. When it rises up and the circle that imprisons you is broken by hills of water, you suffer that peculiarity of the high seas, suffocation in open spaces, and you wish the sea would be flat again. The opposites often place at the same moment, so that when the sun is scorching you till you are stricken down, you are also aware that it is drying the strips of fish and meat that are hanging from your lines and that it is blessing for your solar stills. Conversely, when a rain squall is replenishing your fresh-water supplies, you also know that the humidity will affect your cured provisions and that some will probably go bad, turning pasty and green. When rough weather abates, and it becomes clear that you have survived the sky’s attack and the sea’s treachery, your jubilation is tempered by the rage that so much fresh water should fall directly into the sea and by the worry that it is the last rain you will ever see, that you will die of thirst before the next drops fall.
The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other. The sea is without a wrinkle. There is not a whisper of wind. The hours last forever. You are so bored you sink into a state of apathy close to a coma. Then the sea becomes rough and your emotions are whipped into a frenzy. Yet even these two opposites do not remain distinct. In your boredom there are elements of terror: you break down into tears; you are filled with dread; you scream; you deliberately hurt yourself. And in the grip of terror – the worst storm – you yet feel boredom, a deep weariness with it all.
Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating it when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious.
Life on a boat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically it is extraordinarily arduous, and morally it is killing. You must make adjustments if you want to survive. Much becomes expendable. You get your happiness when you can. You reach a point where you’re at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you’re the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish.
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I found out about an hour in that many of them would be graduating after this year. Sad, but still worth the time to get to know these fine people and possibly work with them. After most of the composers had left my friend Nate stuck around and we chatted for a bit. He is looking for a double bassist to play with, I quickly jumped on the offer. He plays the accordion and viola. After checking out his music I’m looking forward to playing! He’s very talented. Check out his website below.
When I first started practicing again I did about half an hour then 45 min. then an hour. At about an hour I could start to feel the muscles in my arms get angry. When I realized that an hour was about as long as I could go I would only do an hour for about a week or so… This is when the first injury happened, my thumb (rebuilding the callus). This was expected and put me out of playing in thumb position for about 2 days. I then continued with the same amount of practicing until about Sunday I felt that I was ready to up the time. I made it to about 1.5 hours then to about 1.75 hours then on Tuesday I hurt myself again! This time it was an injury I’ve never had. The skin on my index finger along the left side cracked on a line of my finger print. AHHH. @#$^@&!%$. uhg… So now to Friday evening (tonight), I got off work early and came home to Sarah sawing away at her violin and thought i’d practice…. within 20 minutes the New Skin cover over the cut broke and the sore opened up again. I could not believe it. So now I have to wait a few days. I just hope that my muscles don’t shrink so I have to lessen my time… I JUST WANT TO BE WHERE I WAS IN LATE MAY!! Anyway, on to other less depressing news.
This movie was very depressing but really good. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who might watch it but on the surface it deals with a man on the moon harvesting energy from the sun. Underneath it is really about what it means and takes to be human. When I used to see Sam Rockwell in a movie I would automatically think “”AH! IT’S ENDLESS MIKE HELLSTROM FROM PETE AND PETE!!”
