At any time and always, one of my most favorite of authors along with Thomas Hardy. His evocation of all things character are matched by none then or since.
"Can I say of her face - altered as I have reason to remember it, perished as I know it is - that it is gone, when here it comes before me at this instant, as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a crowded street? Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it faded, and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it fell that night? Can I say she ever changed, when my remembrance brings her back to life, thus only; and, truer to its loving youth than I have been, or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished then?" David Copperfield - 1850 Actually, there were many titles. The final I believe being: The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)
"I rejoiced in the Burgundy. It seemed a reminder that the world was an older and better place than Rex knew, that mankind in its long passion had learned another wisdom than his. By chance I met this same wine again, lunching with my wine merchant in St James's Street, in the first autumn of the war; it had softened and faded in the intervening years, but it still spoke in the pure, authentic accent of its prime, the same words of hope."
-Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder, Evelyn Waugh
The chill is in the air. Here in Denver the leaves have started hitting the ground and I awoke to a smattering of snow this morning.
Fall is, like any educated and sentimental chap, my favorite time of year. It is the perfect weather for thoughtful contemplation in front of a roaring fire, book in hand, whisky to the side. Man must reflect on himself and his place in this world as things die around him.
And with fall comes my second favorite thing, tweed.
I feel I may take up a pipe this autumn. I quit smoking years ago, nasty habit that it is. But I would like a pleasant aversion whilst gazing off in front of the hearth. Plus, no birdie can resist the smell of Virginia or Burley English Cavendish and old, leather bound books in the library.
Almost ten years ago I was blessed to have lived in Paris, the Latin Quarter or 5th Arrondissement to be specific. This experience has stayed with me like a venerable old friend; at times comforting, at times haunting, at times so painful that I would do anything to lessen the sear. Through the years since that wonderful time in my youth I have tried, mostly in vain, to understand why the memory of it causes me such considerable grief and despondency. The conclusion, though in no way complete, is simple: it can never exist again that way in that time.
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
It was an early autumn that was creeping over the streets of Paris that August of 2004. I had arrived for that glorious waste of scholarship and money known collectively as the "semester abroad." I had been to Paris and its environs many times before, but never to live.
The details of my stay must be left for another time. I met wonderful people, many of whom have remained, in one way or another, great friends. I lost myself in copious bouts of bacchanalia, wandering the wet twilight streets at dawn and spent my time otherwise reveling in the platitudinous ways all others have before me. But the most permeating of those memories, the one that continues to creep into my everyday contemporary life causing me to stop and turn away in remorse and sadness, is the absolute freedom one feels by conversely being confined to the historical enigma of that place, contrasted with the very real and present sense of fleeting youth.
I have been back since then many times, though it has never felt quite the same. In the end I know I am doomed to a fate of longing. I miss that place in that time like no other experience in my life. I miss the rain and the shuffling of masses and the dreariness and the old crumbling stones. I miss the history at every turn and the smells of food and people and I miss the churches' silent placidity. But most of all I miss feeling tied to something bigger than myself, through no other action than by simply being there.
When you're lost in the wild and you're scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you're sore as a boil it's according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver . . . and die.
But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can,"
And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . .
It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard.
It certainly has been a while. I have spent the last two months or so shopping around the east coast for a yacht to carry me far away. It looks as though I might have found one out in Marathon of Florida. The survey is being conducted today, so wish me luck.
The plan is to take the next two years away from the lawyering to sail around the world. To voyage the distant south Pacific islands, to adventure and explore. I am not sure if I will ever come back. I do not particularly like being forced to rise each morning and head to a job simply to pay for common commodities. Maybe my path will dissuade me, but I am thinking I would much rather be subsistent with the sweat of my brow. Hunting and gathering, you know.
As of now the path starts in Florida December 01 of the year of our Lord 2012. From there it will be a whirlwind: to the Caribbean, down to the Dutch West Indies, Venezuela and the ABC's (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao), over to Panama and through the canal. By then the typhoon season in the South Pacific should be over, so stage in Columbia for the big passage, hop to the Galapagos and then head out for the four week no-land segment to the Marquesas or head south to Easter Island. Probably spend a good six months there visiting the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tahiti and French Polynesia. Samoa, Vanuatu, Tokelau and Tonga. Once tired of these Isles of misfit drunks (so I have heard) it is over to Papua New Guinea with a quick stop in Bouganville (my grandfather fought the Japs there in WWII). Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia are next, with a stage in Sri Lanka. Then to Mauritius, Reunion and Madagascar, South Africa, up the western coast of Africa past Cape Verde and the Canaries, to Morocco and through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. Six months of the peak sailing season in the Med, then out back to the Canaries and across the Atlantic back to the Caribbean. Not sure what will happen when I get back.
There are reports of significant piracy around Somalia, Venezuela and the Philippines. We will see how that goes. No adventure without sacrifice.
Fear not, this blog will not resort to one of sailing. For your reading pleasure, Captain Cook's journal from his first voyage around the world of 1768-1771.
