view Today
How much difference does that horizon line make?
I grew up sailing. I spent summer days on the water – looking at water, living on water. I was sailing in a bay, not out on the ocean. The big waves were big waves, not rollers. As much time as I spent on the water, I never had to deal with feeling sea sick. What was sea sick, anyway, I wondered? Until I left the harbor. And the first time I left the harbor it was fog, “pea soup fog”, as they call it. The wind was not terrible, but there were swells. And only grey white mist all around. I felt not so good.
Several years later, my sister needed help sailing a boat up from the Caribbean. I signed on. Gorgeous weather, blue skies. And HUGE swells. The sailboat we were on : 40 feet – was nothing, just tiny, in this water. We were riding from the trough, (deeper than the mast) up over the top, then falling off the wave’s peak, back down again. Over and over. I was again, NOT feeling good. My sister – in the calm of day – as we headed out, had given me what seemed like helpful advice – when I feel seasick, focus on the horizon. But what horizon?
Looking at landscape, I notice how I search for that visual information of the horizon. In bad weather, it can look like a dream/on a boat – somewhat in motion. Give me that horizon on a clear day and I’m stable, clear, oriented. It’s tempting to then declare the clarity “better”. But then again – the unclear horizon/ seasickness – those lead to the open sea~
