Release the Anchors, Sailors

Another long conversation with someone who has many regrets from her youth. Another day where the best I could do was listen and nod every once in a while, as the rumination of her soul poured out in search of anyone who would listen. Another day where my silence speaks into the cacophony of noises haunting her train of thoughts. Another day where only my eyes convey all that my heart wishes her to see.

Another day where I wish I could go back and be with Younger me.

Back to that dear room, I go.

As I approach the door of my childhood bedroom (a piece of real estate that I have long since stolen from my old mortgaged apartment that we had to sell, as a final keepsake piece of my bittersweet childhood lodged within a rent-free part of my mind), I could distinctly hear the sounds of someone trying to make jazz music with a hand and mouth trumpet, albeit without the finesse of seasoned acapella musicians.

I smiled a tired smile and rested my head against the door for a few moments. The beautiful sounds of unburdened mirth emanating from the other side of the door teased a strange kind of happiness that felt nearly illegal to possess as an adult. I needed to prepare myself before exposing myself to it again.

Deep breaths. It’s going to be fine. Face him, have a talk of some kind, walk away, and write about it. You don’t need to bring your A-game. You don’t have to smile. It’s okay to not have a set expression. He is the life of the party, not you. You can’t disappoint or hurt him.

Slow down, stupid heart. Is this one of those ‘not-anxiety’ moments? It’s times like these that I wonder whether the only kind of people I would ever be real with are those familiar with grief themselves.

Okay, I am ready.

I push open the door to reveal a different room than what I experienced the last time. And by different I mean that I was quite literally ‘swept off my feet’ by an actual wave, and proceeded to be sucked under the surface of waters of a churning and angry sea.

This was new.

As I calmly but quickly tried to swim my way to the surface to take a breath, I found that I could not. Looking down, I found my foot entangled in the anchor line of a boat directly above me.

Panic.

As I wrestled with the process of untangling, cognisant of the fact that I was running out of air, I felt a small hand grab onto my arm and pull me upwards.

Relief.

As I broke the surface and gasped for air, I looked with great gratitude at my rescuer, who was none other than the small Space Navigator who had shared a Spaceship with me before.

“Today, we sail. Oceans are dangerous” he said to me helpfully.

“I am aware’ I replied, as I pitifully climbed onto his sailboat and tried to dry off.

His ship was far larger than the spaceship, I will give him that. Perhaps that was because it was our childhood single bed that had been repurposed into his vessel, rather than a cardboard box.

“The seas are angry today” he shouted over the roar of the waves.

“I agree” I shouted back in response.

He was right. The waves churned and heaved into massive 15-foot waves that threatened to obliterate anything above the surface. I had never seen my room impacted by real-world physics. What had once been the floor next to my single bed, had nearly been my watery grave.

Is this a psychological thing? Has the turmoil of my current reality entered the sanctity of my childhood bedroom? Impossible. I had sealed this room tight. And yet, the roaring waves around our vessel were so high, that one could no longer see my bedroom walls.

“If I pee in the ocean, nobody would know” he responded thoughtfully.

“No, I don’t suppose they would. But I guess I would know, now that you told me” I replied.

“Oh,” he said, looking a little disappointed.

We sailed for a while, in his crude bed ship that had pillowed up walls that somehow kept water from entering our cabin space. The cabin itself comprised of a towel propped onto a stick, that served as our trusty sail, a frisbee which I imagined was either a plate or a steering wheel depending upon his mood, a box of our favourite toys and a lone DVD copy of the Speedracer movie which he could not watch since he lacked the apparatus to view it. Perhaps his joy lay in the ownership of what it could be rather than what we can currently do with it, like keeping a container of fuel around without owning a car. One never knows whether we could come into ownership of one, and in such a scenario, we would be well prepared.

“Hey, what music were you playing before I entered here?” I asked him.

“OHH YES! I was showing Red (my old bear that still smells of clothing detergent) how to play the trumpet on your hands! Do you want to hear me play?” He asked hopefully.

“Of course. Please teach me too” I replied gladly.

As if he knew that he was made for the stage, he cupped his hands in front of his mouth in the shape of a trumpet and began a rendition of a new jazz tune he had come up with.

As he played his tune, I found myself smiling.

That did not feel forced, I thought.

As he came to the end of his tune, he finished, bowed down and asked me what I thought.

Instead of answering him directly, I cupped my hands gently to my mouth, hummed softly to warm up my vocal cords, and closed my eyes.

Keeping his tune in my memory, I began gently crooning a couple of bluesy lyrics impromptu, to set myself up for his trumpet solo. These are some of the lines that came to mind.

Oooooh, When the seas are grey and the sky ain’t blue, When the waves threaten to spill over you, Then’s the time to sing the Ocean blues, Until the sun comes out in it’s auburn hue. Row little laddie, sail your ship, Let’s outrun the storm and let it rip. The wind’s in your sails, the green flag is down, So let’s try and make our way back into town.

As I finished singing the last line, I launched right into his trumpet solo and poured my heart into replicating his tune.

Music always does something to me. It is one thing to listen to it, but to sing or play it; it’s like pouring out your heart in chords and notes, a language more often felt than coherent words.

As I came to the end of his tune, I kept my eyes closed. I think I felt silly. But not embarrassed. Silly and happy. I had fun.

“That was amazing!” He remarked, looking at me with admiration as I opened my eyes.

“How did you make trumpet noises so well? It sounds so cool” he said.

“We....I, I mean, practised a lot when I was growing up. But now it sounds like a mix of a trumpet and saxophone if I am being honest” I replied.

“That’s cool. Hey, the sea is fixed by the way” he replied.

He was right. The waves had disappeared and the waters had receded and nearly disappeared. I could see the floor again, as well as the walls. Incredible. I had barely noticed the silencing of the tempest around us, as I got lost in that little tune.

“We can drop the anchors now” he replied, which I realised was more of a command than a request. Understandable. This is his vessel after all.

“Wait, weren’t the anchors already dropped?” I asked him as a thought dawned on me.

“No, they never were. These are the anchors” he replied, taking out a physics textbook with a rope tied around it.

Handing me the bundle, I proceeded to fling the textbook onto the now-dry floor and tied the rope to one of the bedposts.

“We have reached!” He announced proudly.

“We have indeed, my little friend,” I said, as I still wrestled with the thought from before.

Time to go. This had been fun, I thought as I climbed over the pillow walls of the boat and slowly made my way to the door.

“HEY, WAIT!” He yelled as I reached for the door handle.

“Wha-“ I began as I turned around, to see him attempt to backflip his way out of the boat, only to faceplant onto the floor. We never could do a flip, but we never stopped trying either.

As he painfully sat himself up, he limped over to me and said “You got something tied to your leg”.

Looking down at my feet, I watched his little hands attempt to untie a rope that was knotted tightly to my ankle. As I watched him struggle with the knot, my eyes followed the other end of the rope to a large, iron anchor that was at the end.

“Walaaaa!” He exclaimed as he showed me the untied rope that he managed to remove.

“It’s no wonder you could not swim! Why would you even tie this to your leg?” He asked with a chuckle.

I didn’t, but he would not understand.

“All the anchors are released!” He reported in pride, as he looked at the physics textbook and iron anchor, lying side by side; each no longer holding back their vessel.

Or maybe he did understand. Maybe he knows a truth that I forgot. Perhaps that is why little children do not have anchors tied to their feet.

“Thank you” I mumbled, as I opened the door and exited.

All anchors are released. Until the next one.