Today I pulled up beside a rumbling semi-truck, my window barely reaching the height of the tires. The sound was loud, but I wasn’t bothered by it, I was entranced. When I was a kid, my dad took us on boat trips. My mom used to say it was the only place he felt at peace, on the ocean’s vast expanse. We would travel to little islands, spending the night moored at creaking docks, swimming in lakes, and losing fishing weights off the back of the boat – I always wondered where they ended up, the lost and found at the bottom of the sea. I would sit in the galley playing solitaire, eating cream cheese on wheat thins, or, like any other solitude seeking teenager, reading Carlos Castaneda in my tiny cave of a bedroom. Or I would be found sitting cross-legged on the bow, navigating our course with my thoughts. I don’t know what it was like for my dad, reliving his previous life as a sea captain perhaps, but I know that for me, as we became a speck barely visible from shore, I felt freer than I’d ever felt. I felt connected to the world and connected to myself. Nothing was impossible and nothing truly mattered, only the wind luring tears down my cheeks and the sun kissing freckles on my nose. I could almost smell the salty air as I sat in traffic today, inhaling the intoxicating smell of the diesel engine. My body began to sigh with a tinge of sadness, but I quickly recovered and embraced the memory, recognizing I can feel this way whenever I want. I took a deep breath. The freedom is within in me. Then the light turned green.
