New Journey

The not-so-young man put his pen to the thick piece of paper. “Dear Helena”, he started, and hesitated in intimate search for the first string of words. “The last time you had news from me, I was a sailor. Well, I’m a captain now; I’ve got my own ship and hands to crew it. Are you proud of me?”. He hesitated again, familiarly compelled to downplay his merits – intimately, he wanted to proceed with “But you shouldn’t”, and paint with funny colours a picture that only half-concealed an underlying sentiment of unworthiness. “It is a sturdy, good-sized vessel; it’s got everything I need”. He didn’t want to upset her. “Maybe someday you’ll see it, if I don’t sink it first in one of my legendary blunders”. Upbeat. He needed to be more upbeat. “At any rate, little Helena, this is a new day! – a time to shake off the rust and make the best of things”. That was perhaps the deepest truth in his heart, paired with a persistent faith in new opportunities for redemption. “I hope you are doing well too. Forgive me if I won’t write much this time; the salty gale is beginning to stain the paper”. That was the truth, but he wondered for an instant if she would believe it, or think it just a ruse to excuse him from writing her more thoroughly. The thought was dismissed almost immediately; she had never remarked on the length of his writings. He proceeded, wistfully: “I hope you’ve been enjoying the books I sent you”. Then he wrote a brief, affectionate farewell and jotted down his first name beneath it. He rolled up the letter and tucked it into an empty greenish bottle of wine, sealing the lip with an old cork and candle wax. Then he flung it high in the air, across the quarterdeck and into the sea, and saw it disappear in the foamy waters.

"One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
'Tis the set of the sails,
And not the gales,
That tell us the way to go.

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate;
As we voyage along through life,
'Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife."

--- Ella Wheeler Wilcox