Time plays such funny tricks.
I remember on my second ship, I was going home before the voyage that would take her to Bora Bora. The entertainment crew was all excited and preparing, trying to get themselves “Bora Bora beach” ready…and I was just as happy to be going home. Bora Bora, after all, was something that was not even on my radar. Bora Bora was something that was featured on postcards and in black and white film noir spoofs…it was not something that was ever going to be in my line of encounters….
And yet there I was this evening, sitting at what has become my customary spot on the aft deck, in the sticky, humid, tropical air, with a book open on my lap, watching the sunset over the Bora Bora horizon…
For the second time in perhaps twelve months.
Time plays funny tricks.
Sometimes those tricks are for the better.
I had IPM today, so the beach and Bloody Mary’s wasn’t in the cards for me. But while Bora Bora is beautiful it’s also expensive, and since I’m trying to save a few dollars here and there I had no real objection to staying onboard. Solitude and I are old friends, and there are worse ways to spend an evening than reading with the rhythm of the tropical rain rippling in your ears.
I can’t say how much I am enjoying being so much more unplugged; it feels like there’s more space in my brain now that it’s not clogged up with emails and text messages. And I’m deeply enjoying filling that space with more meaningful things, like tales of dragons, and rainfall, and daydreams I didn’t even know I had.