Postaday for June 9th: On the Edge. We all have things we need to do to keep an even keel — blogging, exercising, reading, cooking. What’s yours?
Put me on a three master out in the middle of the Atlantic at half-past two in the morning, lightning on the horizon and fifty-foot swells smashing cargo in the hold left and right, and you’ll find me up in the crows’ nest, lashed to the rail and cursing God with every pitch and kick. That wing beneath water belong to no angel, and if she leans out too far she’ll swallow up the next gust, send a shiver up the timber and snap your sheets. Sails turned into sarcophagi but I won’t budge from spot until the mizzen breaks in two and Davy Jone’s lighting candles for another dark party.
Keeping an even keel is one thing. But usually it’s out of whack before I even know it. I’m no prophylactor, me, but then I’m blessed with a mellow life and have little need for balms and calming teas. I get up, walk into my office, do some work, so some writing, play some games, more work, more writing. Maybe I’ll go for a run. Maybe I’ll watch a cheesy horror movie on the Netflix. I’ll have an apple for a snack, a turkey sandwich for my lunch, and when my wife comes home, help her make something nutritious. I go to sleep and I don’t dream about anything.
I dread shipwrecks, but I’m never more productive than when crisis is on the rise and I’m forced to be at my best. Combine that with my otherwise laid-back life and you can see why I don’t need to keep my keel even. I like to walk around and take pictures of flowers while listening to podcasts. I like to browse Reddit or play Hearthstone and do Ken-Ken puzzles while I’m waiting for my opponent to take his turn. I’ve been known, now and again, to sit in a shady spot on a hot day and drink beer and eat potato chips and read really excellent novels. These aren’t palliatives; these are life goals.
My wife’s keel keeper is terrible TV. My brother’s is online slot machines. My dad does woodworking, my mom has her crochet. One guy I know rides his bike everywhere. Another gal I know posts political rants on Facebook. And then there’s marijuana, something I can’t do, even thought it’s legal, because my wife’s a Fed and it’s not legal for her. Are any of these world beaters? Do any of this smack of something deep and utterly human?
Neither do my past-times. Keeping an even keel, then, is just succumbing to an urge for peace. That’s well and good— but sometimes I wonder what irony there is in craving peace too much, too hard. Like running hard to go get more oxygen. Shouting at someone for silence. You see my point. We’re all of us vibrating dots in a petri dish, some of us swimming straighter than the others, are keels nice and even, but even the biggest dish is just so big and there’s always an edge to strike and bounce off of. Maybe the wigglers got it right— they never go anywhere, and never hit a thing.