My life, my love, and my lady is the sea…

The sailors say Brandy, you’re a fine girl

What a good wife you would be!

But my life, my love and my lady is the sea. (Looking Glass, 1972)

Before Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 brought an obscure one-hit wonder back to the fore, those who married Brandys knew this song, maybe even lingered on it when it was happened upon scanning through XM radio. An even smaller subset of those guys (and probably a few gals, I suppose) are quite literally ocean-faring folks. And for us, the song is a parable of the road not taken, a maritime stanza Whitman never penned, because he was wandering in the forest instead of riding on the shoulders of the Pacific, out of sight from land, the horizon visible in every direction as a line of demarcation between shades of blue, and the nameless colors of the unknown and the unplanned.

And occasionally, when the house is quiet, when Mrs. and my kids and the dog are all asleep in their respective beds, my thoughts sometimes take that imaginary heading, extrapolated out through whitecaps and fog banks muddying my gray matter.

What if I had stayed with my first job as a deckhand on a fishing boat? After all, I was happy there, every day: each morning brought new people aboard, and I worked for tips: establishing rapport, starting conversations, helping them get set up for the day’s fishing, untangling lines, landing fish, telling stories, listening to the problems of life with jobs, and spouses, and aging parents, and childish kids–all the nuances and nuisances of life on dry land– were all in a day’s work. And at the end of the day, I’d shake hands and pat shoulders and smile, and a few guys would stuff a few bucks into my fist while others sheepishly hurried off the boat. An hour or two to catch a few winks, and start the whole process over again, watching graylight of morning turn to another sunrise over the horizon.

Cleaning fish on a long boat ride home from the islands, weighing jackpots, breaking up fights between a couple of old friends who hit the sauce too hard. Teaching people how to fish.

No responsibilities, really nothing to spend my tips on anyway. Just faking my way, and experiencing real freedom and happiness…

… until the semester started back up. Because college. And scholarship. And the promise of graduating with a degree to get a “real job” –which for me became working at a bank, foreclosing on homes and businesses, physically removing people from their homes with a sheriff and a locksmith on each shoulder.

I hated it so much, I left to become a substitute teacher, which led me down a completely different path, but decidedly on dry land.

Now, occasionally, I make it out onto a fishing boat, just to feel the wind in my face, to feel the deck move up and down beneath my feet, the heady mix of salt spray, diesel exhaust, and galley burgers and breakfast burritos cooking on a grill. I savor a beer that somehow tastes better for having chilled in a cold bait tank, I tear through a pack of Camels, expertly lighted despite the stiff breeze and whitecap spray. Maybe pull on a few fish.

And I chat with the deckhands–mostly young kids in their early 20s, no real plans or responsibilities, nothing to spend their tips on. They tell fishing stories, and offer to help me tie knots and hooks, they gaff fish and fillet my catch on the way in. They show me cell phone pics of their chicks, and smoke too much, and use the word “fuckin'” like punctuation.

I always save a couple of Andy Jacksons for these guys to say thanks at the end of a trip… thanks for your service, thanks for your help, your hard work. But more, thanks for the reminder of a time in my life when I had no need to rationalize happiness, to weigh opportunity costs, pros and cons, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. Contentment was raw and unadultered, unsheathed and unsharpened.

And as I walk up the dock to my car, holding a little bag of fillets and a heart full of memories, I start processing and filing away those what ifs and why nots… the kids I wouldn’t have, the students I wouldn’t have met, the pals and the loves and the office affairs and the stories from the mainland to share with deckhands. There’s a cosmic order to this life machine, but certainly no rewind button.

Like so many things, the Ocean is a sentimental lady, who says you can always return but you can never come back. Andy DuFresne said Mexicans believe the Pacific has no memory. That may be.

But I sure do. And visiting her is like seeing your first love who dumped your ass, and now just wants to be friends. Accepting those terms is not without its pain, but those brief moments assuage the alternative of never seeing her again… because she knows you have that other life on land… that sleeping family. The real job. The long term debt. A garage to clean. A gym membership and a healthy eating plan. Keep working. Keep smiling. Keep paying. Save for retirement. Mow the lawn. Fix the toilet flapper. Help someone move a couch because you own a truck.

She knows you still love her and always will, even though only now and again can you step into that other life for the briefest of moments, hoping it’s enough.

It never is.