The year 2021 ended badly for many. I am one of the fortunate ones, but nonetheless I can’t ignore a pervasive sense of ill-being. The air tingles with a surreal mix of cautionary tales, horror stories and gallows humor.
“The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.” – Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin
Three sentences, three words each. Pretty basic. We are spinning madly on top of a madly spinning object, yet somehow we stay vertical.
Just getting up and functioning is sometimes all I can manage when the world seems to be overcome by chaos. That is a red flag, so this week I’m focusing on a goal: deciding whether I’m call-the-doctor crazy or curl-up-on-the-couch-in-a-fetal-position crazy. In either case I am in crazy mode, but figuring out the brand will help me to move through it.
If I keep my expectations simple and realistic, as the quote suggests, perhaps I can then get my bearings and set a course. A nautical theme is beginning to emerge.
Apropos of that, in my usual morning routine of reading the news while swilling down coffee, I glanced up from the chair to the painting shown above. It was created in the 1850s by Duncan McFarlane, a Liverpool-born ship portraitist. It depicts an event in my family history and has been on the walls of three different homes during the past 50 years. Now it occupies my living room wall.
Wind and water display their power and fury, as the ship Constantine heels over in a storm on the Irish Sea. The storm jib is up and filling with wind—it looks like the only intact piece of canvas on the ship. A sailor is way out on the bowsprit, clinging to it on all fours to manage what’s left of the rigging there. Green water washes over the deck as other sailors scramble to keep the Constantine afloat.
Her captain, my great-great-great uncle Richard Duryea, drowned in that storm. His wife Susan took command to pilot the ship back to Liverpool. The world spun and she stumbled on, bringing the ship, its passengers, crew and cargo, and her three-year-old son to safety.
Wind and water can support life or whisk it away in an instant. For another visual representation of that statement, think of the Blue Marble, that famous photograph taken in 1972 by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft on its way to the moon. From the distance of 18,000 miles, the swirling clouds look like a piece of art. But on the planet’s surface beneath those graceful, pearly white cloud patterns, helpless creatures try to survive.
As I reflect on these images, a nautical phrase comes to mind: steady as she goes. This is a specific helm order to “steady the ship on the course it is heading at the time the order is given. If the ship is swinging at the time, heading must be noted and the lubber’s line brought back to and steadied on it as soon as possible. The order is also stated as ‘STEADY,’ or ‘STEADY AS SHE GOES.’”
That instruction suggests that a great deal of time and attention should be placed on steering a course that is constant in the midst of constant change. That direction is clear enough, but when the change is as chaotic as the inside of a pinball machine, finding direction is impossible. How long must I wait before I know which end is up? Only then will I be able to find my bearings and set the course. Meanwhile, crazy as she goes.
