Right Or Wrong –I’m Still (not) The Captain!
It was nice to be in charge for a few days, just so we could all taste the tyranny of thehandoftamm wielding supreme executive power.
Despite keeping the good ship off the rocks and shoals for several days, my term as supreme commander of that vessel came to an end last night. Within five minutes of my first mate’s arrival, the hands had mutinied against many of my newly-installed rules and the old order was reaffirmed to the sounds of delight in shrieking.
Why all the nautical allusions? Well, I’ve been reading a lot of Patrick O’Brian for the last year-and-a-half, being now more than a dozen books through his 20-book Aubrey-Maturin series that you may recall from a movie adaptation which was a Russell Crowe vehicle from a few years back. Here’s a line I was smitten with recently, from The Thirteen-Gun Salute.
If man is a thinking reed he is also a reed that absorbs and excretes, and if these functions are disturbed so is the first, and humanity recedes, leaving the mere brute.
Who has not experienced the feeling of humanity receding temporarily? I face the brute several times a week -and not always owing to interruptions in the absorbing and excreting functions.
The thrust of the book I’m presently on has the captain restored to the Royal Navy after an ignominious dismissal. Whereas he longed for nothing more than reinstatement when off the list, he now also longs for his time of freedom as captain with an independent letter of marque. That’s me all over. When I was in sole command at home I longed for a return of my co-captain. Once she returned, I missed the free hand I enjoyed in her absence. Typical.
Here’s a shot of a tall ship that I missed getting closer to in Toronto. Once more I’ve not been present to hear the call of the sea.
