THE OTHER BIRD

I’m sailing in the midst of cosmic elegance, getting showered by meteors. Life doesn’t get any dreamier.

Each night the sailboats crossing to Fiji email each other. This is the email that I sent to them, just after I messaged you last, “Everything is cherry over here. The swell is still colliding like rocks onto the hull and sometimes I feel like a maraca, but I’m making great speed today. I have slept about 5 hours since Friday. My hallucinations are in full effect. A woman was singing gospel music and playing the banjo in my galley today. But she’s better than the witch in the galley sink. I’ll be as skittesh as a caged animal but the time I get off this boat.”

I hardly know those people! Then again, I hardly know you and I told you the same thing.

I have slept a total of fours more hours, which feels like a petite revolution. Nerves and noises always get the best of me in the beginning of a voyage. I think that’s why I’m not sleeping well. I’m getting used to being among the waves again.

I’ve been furling the jib up at night. Slowing the boat down a touch. I don’t want to get caught in a drip. I’m not really in a hurry, except that I am. I start a gig on the 19th of August. If I don’t make it in time, I can only blame destiny.

At this very moment, I am sailing over a sea mountain. If I had a submarine I would bubble down and explore it. Also my submarine would be baby blue and only big enough for two. Also my submarine would be amphibious, actually beyond amphibious- submarine/ car/ airplane/spaceship- whatever that is, that way I can explore every dimension of blue.

By the way, I’ve been staring at the ocean for a long time today, and I just noticed that every wave has it’s own hue. It makes sense. I don’t know how I always saw them as the same color before.

I’ve got a subtropical current south of me and a non-gravitational current north of me. One of the other boats got caught in it. I don’t know which way the currents are going or how fast, but I can’t risk a current against me. I already lost my strawberry in a three knot counter-current near the equator last year. I was stuck in it for four days and my strawberry is still out there…somewhere.

I’m thinking about what I’m gonna do. I spend all day doing that. Thinking. Thinking about what I’m gonna to do. Should I jibe? Should I shake the reef? Should I furl the jib more? Ok, I decided. What I’m gonna do is jibe every so often, so I don’t get near either of the currents.

Listen, I don’t have a pole or a spinnaker, so I can’t sail that deep anyway, especially not in a swell. I’m used to jibing. I’m always jibing. But a pole would be nice. If I could sail direct downwind, it would save me a lot of days out here. Time is time.

The swell is still coming from one way and the wind waves another. And they come with pounding crests that smack when shattered. Louder than machines. Everything inside Juniper jumbles when the machines hit and if you were to close your eyes and just listen, you’d probably reckon you were listening to the demolition of some structure near the seashore.

I have squalls this morning but am never without sun, so rainbows have flooded the sky, and the saloon, and any hint of sorrow. It’s 7:27 a.m. Pluto is flying by. I am blowing him kisses. Wait, he’s not alone today. Who is that other bird? She’s about as pleasing to the eyes as an unripe banana. In all honesty, they look identical, I just said that because I feel heaps of jealousy right now.

I just went into the cabin and grabbed every feather I’ve ever collected. I am now dancing around the cockpit, shaking my feathers all around, and shouting Pluto. Pluto doesn’t seem enticed. This type of elaborate display usually works on birds, in fact they are the pioneers of bizarre courtship dances. He could at least indulge me with one flight around the sails!

Oh well, Pluto knows where this nest is.

I don’t feel very well, not because of Pluto’s rejection, I actually think that I’m sick, fever sick. My immunity feels weak. I feel weak.

The jib is shaking. Gotta jet.

P.S.- mom, I’ve texted l a few times via the Inreach. Are you receiving? Send a message with the fish or birds.