In the words of Paul Lutus, the long-distance sailor
Sometimes when I was at home I would jump out of bed and try to figure out where I was. I would look out the windows, see houses and trees and begin to panic. I would try to find the tiller, turn away from the land. Then I would wake up, standing there, and it would come to me that I wasn’t on the boat. This made me realize I was a lot more afraid of sailing than I admitted, and the fears I was hiding came to the surface in the dark.
But I knew, I knew. If I sailed far enough, if I didn’t crash my boat against some rocks, I would put my anchor out in some foreign land. I would climb a hill and meet a goatherd. We would sit under a tree, drink wine and eat goat’s cheese. He wouldn’t have heard of Chernobyl or disposable diapers, and I wouldn’t tell him.
He would tell me his story and I would tell him mine. We would look at the hills, the sky. And I would walk down the hill with the fine touch of a natural person, someone who belongs to the earth, to the sea. Someone beyond the reach of the evening news.