Volume: 3

Pointless

A dreary setup for another long distance race.

The rain on that practice day never came down hard. It wasn't too cold and it wasn't windy. In younger times I would have endured the sailing and relished the food and drink near the fire in the restaurant afterward. This time, I never felt like I was enduring the sailing and the gathering for cocktails was assumed, like brushing teeth. It occurred to me then that there wasn't a ripple of romance left in the sport. We were doing what we were doing because we were trapped by our habits. In youth, habits reveal things. By this time, we had seen it all.

It was dark when we left the Crab Pot and the drizzle had become more stubborn. We piled into Lowell's van. His wife drove and I took the co-pilot's seat. The rain dripped down the window and leaked onto the inside of the door, just like a boat with its inherent inability to keep water out. The boys speculated about the boat, the weather, the race and all of the same old crap. I became so detached that I feared dying in some pointless accident. Fitting, too, since the day was consumed by habit, in a corridor without windows where nothing can be learned and the horizon is shut down.