Family

I realized tonight that it was about 20 years that I have been sailing for my work, well maybe some wouldn't say its work, but for life style. And in my deep thoughts which I have at sea, I looked back to the times that I have shared with my actual family in those last 20 years, and the reality is that there hasn't been much time together. Sure there has been the short visits, the sailing trips, the family reunions and even the surprise arrivals, just to shock the hell out of someone that didn't have a clew.

But I realized that as a sailor, that my family have also adapted to my choice in life to ply the oceans and seas, the remote and wild places and the romantic dream lands that capture one's imaginations.
Sometimes I feel closer to them out here than when we stand face to face, feeling all a bit lost for words some times, you know that squeamish feeling of "what do I say now" and "how can I explain" what the last voyage and location was like without sounding like some sort of a boasting jet setter, but just a normal person, doing what they do best.

Sailors are different creatures, and through time and miles they adapt to the life and the ways of "being" what they are, forever changing, forever moving, the challenges of the elements seem absurd to land folk, they cant understand how we can cope or endure. But sailor's mould themselves to the role that they have chosen, just like flying fish, they didn't originally have wings, but they learnt that the best way to survive in life was to grow their arms to enable themselves to take flight when needed, quite nifty when you think about it.

But to my very special family, who must think that I have forgotten them most days and years, because "Stephen is doing his own thing" you are wrong, I haven't, I remember and relive so many of the enjoyable times, all the special moments that we had as children growing up together, learning from the curved balls of life that my two great parents steered us through, and still the new experiences that we share all together when we do meet again.

Like trying to explain to someone "who is god" to you, you cant really because its each person unique experience, and its what's there in your heart that truly counts.

So to my dear family, I do love you all so much, and each day and night, you are also slipping smoothly over each and every wave that I cross.

Stephen