Life is Sailing

“He must have taken the view that if you stood still in the fast-changing modern world, you would take root, stagnate, and die inside.” Author David Rooney in his book The Big Hop wrote these words to describe Harry Hawker, a young man who attempted to be one of the first to fly across the Atlantic.

I asked my son a question: Would you describe me as a person who would rather spend all day relaxing watching TV and reading a book or running errands and getting things done? He chose the second option. When asked why, he replied, “Because you are a busy-body.” Haha! I clarified what a busy-body is (a meddling or prying person), and asked if that describes me. “No,” he laughed. “What I meant was that you like to be doing things, to be active. You always seem on the move.”

This is true for me at this point of my life, but I have not always been that way. Life has moved in phases for me. As a child, I enjoyed a quiet, studious phase, playing games with close neighbors, baking cookies, reading books. Then came a busier but still rather home-minded high school phase, enjoying high school activities on campus and football games on the weekends but also soaking up the downtime at home when I studied or relaxed. College became the social but studious phase, filled with many library study hours, swing lessons, Bible studies, adventures with friends, hangouts and study groups. Young professional life was mostly a social phase while also growing on the job. Marriage life brought a dynamic social phase as I learned how to live alongside someone and experience new dynamics in groups. Babies and children became a quieter phase once again, as my energy frequently felt too spent to invest in a lot of social activities. Interestingly, as the children have grown older now, it seems there is another resurgence of studious social phase but with family wrapped in this time as well. Writing this down, the picture created in my mind is a an undulating ocean wave, like the ones in the middle of the ocean that you can see when you fly between the Hawaiin Islands in the Pacific. There are constant crests and troughs but no crashing on the shore.

This passion to remain in constant motion through learning, meeting people, muscle strengthening, can be challenging to fulfill. I envy, at times, people who function at a slower pace because it is easier for them to be satiated. A perpetual yearning to grow is difficult to provide for when we move so often partly because this desire is paired integrally with the urge to be part of people.

However the pattern of movement rolls, the call to remain in motion is strong. Let us continue in motion, fast or relaxed, engaged in this life with which we have been blessed.