I settled my back and bare legs against the cool fiberglass deck of Invictus and considered the perfectly still yacht club basin. On the outer wall, mastheads lilted gently in the silent current at the head of the Niagara River, halyards lazily echoing. With no wind for racing, our crew had retired early for cocktails and dinner at the clubhouse, and now, I was tucking in for a night of sailboat sleeping.
I’ve been living this little pirate life every week since moving to Rochester. The distance is just enough that after a full day of work, sailboat racing, and a rum or two, the drive home to bed feels unwise. So on Wednesdays in the summer, I sleep here, on a sailboat, in this quiet basin.
When I was little, I had recurring dreams about running away on an adventure. It was always the same: standing at the end of our gravel driveway I would survey the open road, and then take off to anywhere in the world. Sleeping on a sailboat in the middle of the work week is my fulfillment of that dream. It is unexpected and delightful to be where no one would look for you, like hiding in a treehouse or a secret fort.
On this particular night I was feeling a deep need to hide in my secret fort. Stress was making itself known in my body, coiling tight in my chest and marking my face with painful acne. I longed for peace and stillness. Under that heavy weight of living, I slid all the way down onto my back and looked straight up. In my defeat, I surveyed the clear purple twilight spread out above me.
The sun was barely set over the Canadian shoreline and the familiar orange light of the Buffalo skyline was splashing over a few low hanging clouds, but between hues of pink and orange, stars were winking and blinking at the edge of Lake Erie. With the exception of a few little waves lapping gently on the hull, the world and the water were quiet as the lake and sky melted together. The size of the canopy and the sparkling colors watercolored across it were breathtaking.
Sigh. Big breath. Another sigh.
I’ve struggled to feel confident in this season of change. I am uncertain at work and I worry that my life has outgrown me. I feel inadequate for the things I have committed to and the stories in my mind are full of shame and panic. This is familiar territory, and I’m trying to let age and experience write a different story, but the ruts we set early in life are hard to unmake, and I am tired of fighting them every day.
But it was so quiet and calm that night that I could set the stories down for a moment and feel the magic of my life, here at twenty-nine. I could feel the astonishing wonder of sitting on a sailboat at a yacht club in a city I learned and made my own. I could say a prayer of silent thanks to twenty-two year old Ansley, who fought nearly insurmountable waves of panic every week before sailing, and by sticking with it, unlocked the very best adventures and friendships. And as I felt the cool kisses of night on my cheeks, I could hear the whisper on the water: “you are made of stardust.”
The magic beauty of those distant stars lives in my bones too. Each one of us is so much greater than the little things we measure ourselves against. Nature has a magnificent way of putting us back in our place and then reminding us of our magic. The sun sets over that basin every night, and while I am not there to see most of those scenes, knowing that the world has capacity for frequent, astonishing beauty puts my corporate marketing job back in its proper place.
I handwrote a copy of Rilke’s “Go to the Limits of Your Longing” and hung it in my cube at work a few months ago. When I think about God taking my hand and walking me “out of the night”, I see that sky over the yacht club and those stars and that purple twilight and know I am born from the same.
Ansley Kelly (’16) makes her home in Rochester, NY, where she delights in short, sweet summers spent sailing and long winters spent skiing at her favorite mountain. Between outdoor adventures, you can find her buying books more quickly than she can read them and indulging in mid-morning naps. She works for Wegmans Food Markets where she finds purpose and joy in feeding her community and the wider world.
Hey Ansley – great wiring as usual!
If I may reflect for a moment…
In his blog, “Science For the Church,” Greg Cootsona cites Timothy Ferris, author of Coming of Age in the Milky Way to put forth a mind-blowing fact: “…if human scale is 1, and the observable universe is 10 to the 26th [in size], then the quantum world of (“Planck’s length: Quantum of space”) represents 10 to the -35th. That’s quite an expanse…” !
[DDZ- In other words, the “stuff” we are made of is so infinitely small that it is many orders of magnitude SMALLER than the entire observable cosmos is LARGE. What an incredible inverse universe we have in the quantum realm! It’s nice to know we live, more-or-less, in the middle of the vast dimensions of the entire material universe – neither infinitely small, nor cosmically immense. And it is WE who imagine the immensity of space and its reverse dimensions in the quantum world.]
It reminds me of the scientist who answered the skeptic’s question, “Astronomically speaking, who are we in light of the vastness of the cosmos?” “Astronomically speaking, mused the scientist, we are the astronomers.” PS. Ansley, if you send me an email address (and are interested) I will email you some reflections I wrote from my journal notes detailing a two week cruise up the Inside Passage on a small Stingray cuddy-cabin power boat (24 ft.) with an Edinboro U. geologist prof. back in 1986. I too have memories of sleeping in a small boat on large waters.]
OOPS – correction on my remark about traveling halfway to Alaska in a small power boat: the year was 1996, not 1986.
I always appreciate your reflections and insights and I share your appreciation for the way science continues to affirm and expand the deep knowing that many of us embrace about our being and the nature of this beautiful universe. I will happily send you my email and look forward to reading about your adventures!
Ansley, always remember what a great writer just wrote: YOU are “so much greater than the little things we measure ourselves against. “
How personally, and vulnerably, you remind all of us how closely, inside us, live juxtapositioned fear and courage, togetherness and loneliness, beauty and banality, joy and pain. Press forward, loved one, for your shadows show us “God in us, the hope of glory.”
Besides being a darn good sailor, you are one heck of a writer!!! Your fears that you are not up to a task are exactly what makes you so good at everything you do.
Your confidence in my ability means the world to me and gives me courage when I run out. Thanks for creating space for me to test myself!
Thank you for being so vulnerable, I found it so relatable, the feeling that your life has outgrown you and being struck with anxiety when you’re surrounded by something incredible like the waves and the night and then being grounded again and remembering that you’ll be fine… such an emotional rollercoaster and so beautifully written.
Thank you for sharing your own journey here! While I wouldn’t wish that feeling of overwhelm on anyone, it seems like a fixture in the lives of people who choose growth and the fear that comes with it. So long as we keep coming back to the heart of things, we’ll be fine