“Time flies! Time flies when you are having fun”

24.01.2020
(written yesterday but did not post it as I was caught up in Life of Pi)

First of all, Happy Birthday to my sister-in-law, M’s sister M – the one of the other MSs in my life! Congratulations on having traveled to as many countries as the number of years you have lived – for having that goal and having achieved that goal while still taking care of all of us – here is a picture for you from a memory we created together while you met you goal! Without you, we could not have done this trip…

“Time flies! Time flies when you are having fun” – says B to K sitting on the other side of the bridge. It is fun listening to B’s stories. I asked him today, as many people had asked us when we embarked on this journey, why he does not write a book? “For someone with so many stories, you should have a best seller on your hand”. “They are not always facts”. “That is why it would be a good story”. His voyages will take him to Antartica too.

Downstairs, A is in a melancholic mood. It is almost time to get off the ship. “Now we will have to look after ourselves and make the arrangements for everything ourselves”. First, they need to find an ATM. The real world is somehow already taking over. Very soon, there will be a fixed time for everything. They have been travelling for 10 months and have another 2.5 months to go on their travel – the landing in real world will be less cushioned for them. Yet, they go back to a pre-determined life / world.

We are, at least in one aspect, in a luckier situation. We have an extra week to go on the ship.

In today’s email, yet another M, from the land part of the world, asks me: “Has it made you re-evaluate the way you look at life? Will you finish the trip, convinced that worldly pleasures are over-rated and with a desire to be closer to nature, move nowhere like that?”

Sitting here, in the middle of nowhere (actually, in the middle of the atlantic), it is very easy to answer that question. There are no pressures from the outside world. I have consciously decided to put aside any thoughts of the outside world except to think about what you might want to hear about my more or less uniform days.

The answer is:

“Maybe it did make me think a bit re-evaluate the way I look at life and find that the way I look at it is ok.

Maybe I did not re-evaluate life but just enjoyed the way the ocean changed colours, the way the clouds came in, there was a bit of almost stormy weather for about 3 days and then it all cleared out and everything continued the way it was beautifully – the storm was not as bad as I had expected or feared. I did not get sick by that storm, I did not get battered around from one side to another in that storm. I did not have to use any of the contingency measures I had put in place (and hopefully will not have to do this in the next few days we are in deep sea – I fear tempting the stars and the Gods).

Finally, when it all cleared out, we got used to the sway – the troughs and crests. We started to enjoy it. Once we started to enjoy looking outside each side of the ship and see the water rise above the bridge level on that side, we could focus on the beauty of different types of sunset. When it was not orange but hid the orange behind the cloud and cast just all shades of blue, we enjoyed the different shades of blue. When the sun spread out its orange, flamed the whole sky and tried hard to flame the ocean too, we enjoyed that too. Once we got used to it, the whale and dolphins presented itself.”

– Now I do not know, nor do I think it means anything – just that here in the oceans this is the only reality.

I then wonder, is there a law of balance in the nature? This voyage has been really beautiful and calm, the crew assures me. “The last one from Santos to Singapore”, said each of the crew who was on board, “was a very difficult one with terrible rolling all the way for the two weeks” making even the seasoned crew sick. I wonder whether my rolls and storms will come once I reach the ground. We cannot do anything about this right now – other than not think about something not yet here.

In the meantime, I continue to look at the sunset, I continue to look for the whales, dolphins, ships – not necessarily in that order. I enjoy looking up at the Milky way on the one night, last night, it presented itself. Saw, for the second time in my life, the ISS moving across the sky, faster that an airplane but without any blinking lights, had a conversation with Ri the passenger, the Chief Cook Al, and the mess boy J whether the bright white non glittering dot on the sky was Mars or Venus.

… and I know, that in order to be able to enjoy this nature, I need to work hard and earn enough to be able to take this time off. The balance will perhaps come by having the luxury that real life worries can be shut out while we still enjoy this time out – the strength of also having a family that helps us to do this.

… at least I am able to read fiction again (while I could read non-fiction, I had really lost the patience for fiction), write blogs again…

… and, in this journey, I know that I still do not like gym, exercise. I should have been off to the gym at the time I was writing this, to take up the offer from B, to coach me on how to use the machines in the gym while Ale and Ale, the two electricians inject energy on the bridge – two bundles of energy infuse a whole lot of adrenalin to the calm life on the bridge each morning they come up.

After a little more than half the trip, I feel I should not expect anything out of the trip. Not sure whether that is disappointing or liberating. I will know after the real-world closes in. In the meantime, I am happy for any question that you send me… it helps me think – you can do this by email to Parvathy.sankar@gmail.com or as a comment in my blog.