Shootik

by Aleksya Sokol

  If a ship had a soul, it would surely want to detach its ropes, longing to be free of its constraining moorings.

  With the ebb and flow of the tides, they are alternately stretched and slackened. In time, the friction between them and the bollard or post to which they are fixed causes at first imperceptible wear and tear. They become thinner, their strands fray, are less able to withstand the heightened stresses of storms, until one day they part.

  When we board the marital relationship, we are moored by society, we moor ourselves to the bollards of social myth. “Time and tide wait for no man,” it is said. Time passes, tides of events and passions rise and fall, domestic storms rage, our one-time-well-meant restraints are chafed, become thin, fray…Until one day they part.

  The common consequence is that the ship becomes two ships, both of them incomplete, and divorce follows in their wake.

  The Patch Did Not Hold

  When tinkers plied their trade, one of their principal aids in repairing leaking household vessels was a dam, two pieces of tin plate screwed one on each side of the leak, with a sandwich of cork in between.

  It worked…for a while…but the corrosion which had caused the leak could not be halted, so the dam became ineffective and the vessel leaked again. There was a limit to how many dams a pot could take!

  Patches can obscure defects for a while, but they cannot cure their causes. Sooner or later they have to give way to the inexorable forces which caused them, whether from within or without.

  Things ‘patched up’, including relationships, always remain just that.

  Their primal integrity can never be recovered.

  Nobody at the Wheel

  Unless they are equipped with automatic pilots, boats and ships need helmsmen at the wheel twenty-four hours a day, when they are not in port or riding at anchor. An unmanned steering wheel has no function, is turned hither and thither by the caprices of wave and current. The vessel drifts and sooner or later will come to grief, as will its occupants.

  Relationships, too, have to be steered, for they have no automatic pilots, if they are not simply to be adrift. Who steers them? Who is at the wheel? Ideally, perhaps, the partners share this responsibility, deciding on which course to take, keeping a weather eye open for the multitude of hazards which could take it off course. However, the destinations of these ships can never be known in advance, so how can we speak of steering a course?

  In reality, the course of relationships consists of many stages, each one in part determined by that which has passed and in part determining that which is yet to come.

  Ideally, perhaps, both partners should be ‘at the wheel’, maintaining course, keeping a look-out, to see where they are going, watching out for hazards, taking corrective action.

  Corroded Connections

  Even modern electronically steered ships certainly depend on a complicated system of pistons, rods and wheels for the transmission of impulses into action. How else could the propellers propel, the rudder turn? Every moving element in these systems is checked regularly. Cleaned, oiled, greased, they are able to carry out their vital functions day after day. But what if the engineers should start to neglect their duties? What if they began to take it for granted that the parts which had always worked would continue to do so? No doubt they would…for a while…but the bearings would gradually run dry, rods and shafts lose their shine. Perhaps nobody would notice at first that the engines didn’t sound as smooth as they used to, or that the ship was slowing down.

  Dry bearings, and dull shafts would probably begin to corrode. Even if they were made of stainless steel, they would begin to deteriorate from the effects of friction, which would not only wear them away in time but also distort them with the heat of friction. The ship’s engines would gradually grind to a halt, irreparable. Fit only for the scrap yard.

  Dry rubs upon dry in relationships too. Connections, lines of communication not maintained in good order, corrode or become distorted. What was probably taken for granted in the beginning starts functioning less efficiently. Neglect becomes habitual once the initial thrust and thrill of the voyagers, who are also the engineers, in fact the whole crew, begins to wear off. The shine fades.

  On the Rocks

  If the captain of a ship becomes aware that he is heading for rocks, he changes course if he can, but sometimes he is powerless. Failed engines, stormy seas, broken steering gear make disaster inevitable. The hull, whether of wood or steel, screams in agony as it is impaled, torn, crushed. In the best of cases, it can be re-floated and repaired, but it is never again the same ship. In days gone by, dwellers in rocky coastal regions used to light movable beacon fires, to lure ships onto lethal rocks, in order to pillage their cargoes. Unsuspecting or careless captains, lulled into false security by these beacons, did not recognise them for what they were…Until it was too late.

  This does not happen nowadays, but when a ship caught on the rocks begins to disintegrate, or springs leaks, then its cargo is prey to the waters. It loses substance. It loses its integrity, becoming a potential hazard to other shipping.

  Don’t we sometimes navigate by false beacons? Are we not careless, naïve, when we should be awake and watchful? The false beacons are not lit by other people to lure our relationship onto lethal rocks, we light them ourselves, unawares. They are fuelled by futile hopes, unrealisable expectations, ingrained habitual ways of looking at the world and those around us…or of not looking at all. Naïve navigators, we gradually become powerless to steer a different course, are even unaware that a change of course is vital if our vessel is to remain seaworthy…usually until it is too late. Then we are on the rocks.

  Rounding Off

  The state of not being at the steering wheel of one’s life is too common a state to be easily noticed. In relationships, it is largely co-responsible for their breaking down. It is their weakest point.

  Relationships: those of couples in their agreement to be a pair. Two different people put together into a life form which carries the seed of its own destruction or of a further development. If they become aware of this chance. What people usually expect of the relationship is happiness, if not bliss, and this may be their state for a while whilst they stay on the surface of the stream of life, metaphorically the river.

  Uninformed, however, of its undercurrents, whirlpools and rapids, unaware of the hidden purpose of the relationship itself, they are most likely to be faced with all the consequences of this innocent ignorance. Who would believe it if they were told that their relationship was not an end but just a means for a possible re-entry into the oneness of the universe, a ship which might take them through storms from time to time, but not without them learning by trial and error how to steer it?

  The journey on this river also serves the purpose of carrying out their tasks, each of them accessing that non-personal self which is united with the universe. Only then can they be partners in life. Life’s partners, with life itself being the link between them.

  The difficulties which arise before this link is established are forecasts of storms to come. On the edge of this understanding it is natural to feel that as a human being one is incomplete somehow…This incompleteness is the call for life yet to be experienced. All other natural products can be seen as finished, although they can still re-adapt themselves and to some extent mutate. But evolve? Evolution is a human domain, with all its risks.

  Each personal life counts in this endeavour, and each thinking person is called to be the captain and navigator of his/her ship, checking its general condition and the functioning of all its instruments. These are not only technical. For the first time in history, minds and souls are called to work together on a global scale, surpassing reserved areas of selfish interests. Questions like: Who is at the wheel…? All of them referring to past accounts of events, mostly involving some kind of wrecked boat in personal relationships, need to be looked at, from both a personal and an interpersonal view.

  Who am I? I am a storyteller. To te
ll a story is to evoke pictures as they unfold into meanings which reveal the whys and the what-fors of each event. Nothing happens for nothing. Not one single thing stands by itself. Not above and not below.

  Signed

  Anna