L’appel Du Large

Art by Huebucket

Have you ever heard the sound of a boat hitting the waves as it sways? Have you ever felt that sense of vertigo, this light-headedness as you rock from side to side, this feeling that can only be called beautiful— a wild, true kind of beautiful? Because sometimes, sometimes it is what I dream of.

This is what I see flashes of in between lectures and assignments, the white foam of the sea, the deep blue waters…This is the calling that reaches me as I plan for the future— “I’ll work for 2 years at X company and learn a language because firm Y, which will be hiring then wants polyglots and then I’ll wait another year to become a permanent employee and then…”

This is the feeling that makes me read reports a hundred pages long without understanding a single word because sometime into the reading, my hand slipped to the side of my head to support it and I found out that if I cupped my ear with my hand, I could hear the sea and its waves crashing into my ear.

And the scent…the scent of ocean salt, I can smell it when I close my eyes, when I put down my pen and push aside all those papers that mean nothing. It lures me in like a mermaid-song, wraps around my being and pulls me inexorably to where adventure lies.

It’s usually the middle of the week when these visions assail me, and suddenly, just like that, I don’t belong to the week anymore. I don’t belong to 5-year plans, to office etiquette and broken coffee machines.

I belong…to the world. To the deep blue seas and green pastures.

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But it’s still the middle of the week, still Wednesday when I think that, and as much as I long to run, to swim, to fly— it’s still Wednesday. And I’m still very much “part of the system”. My life is still a 9 to 5 job. And my dreams…still dreams.