Happy and I’m smiling,
walk a mile to drink your water.
You know I’d love to love you,
and above you there’s no other.
We’ll go walking out
while others shout of war’s disaster.
Oh, we won’t give in,
let’s go living in the past.
– tull

Freya Hoffmeister who is currently paddling a sea kayak around Australia asked in her last message, “Can you turn the headwind off”. I thought, “Yeah, for me too.” Sea kayaking is full of little metaphors for life in the big bad world. The big bad world could be described as nothing more than ball of rock & water surrounded by headwinds if you think about it. But then where’s the value in that?

The problem with repetitive tasks is that they beg comparisons with the previous version. It’s not that you have to be consciously looking for comparisons. It’s just the way we’re wired. Comparing the past with the present is a primal learning skill. Most of us can’t shut it off. Otherwise we’d be continuously repeating the past and hoping for a different result. Sometimes however, repetitive tasks also tell us things about ourselves we don’t want to know. Waking up each morning, getting dressed and cleaned up for the day reminds us we are not getting any younger. All at once we see the result of the constant headwinds. The graying hair, the small discolorations of what was once smooth skin. Each day we are obliged to compare our face with yesterdays. When we dig into our days tasks we are usually repeating tasks done more or less in the same manner they’ve been done before. Over the years we’ve maybe become more proficient, we’ve gained better understandings and yes, maybe we are actually better at it than we used to be. Still, we can’t help but feel sometimes that we are simply pushing along.

Yesterday I was pushing along as we all do. Nothing special, (“Keep pushing that rock.”). But the headwinds were standing out. When lost in repetitive tasks, like life or paddling endless miles, you occasionally become acutely aware of the winds that resist your forward motion. Often the winds are not all that strong. It’s simply a game of the mind. When the task or the scenery around you become so well known they fade from the forefront of your mind. The outside world blurs into the background. It’s there, lost in your our own thoughts that you often become aware of the headwinds. Something unseen pushing you backward. You suddenly begin to feel tired. Yesterday I was feeling tired. Wondering, “what’s the point?”.

At sea there is no point in focusing on feeling tired. You’re out there and you can’t simply just quit. The sea has a rule that comes to play here as well, it says that most of the time you can’t simply turn around and enjoy the push of a tail-wind. More often than not, the winds will switch and hit you coming or going, so you may as well just keep moving forward. It’s not so much the goal that sustains you. Well, not me anyway. It’s that knowing if you turn back you’ll work just as hard to get nowhere as you did to get somewhere. The pessimist in me remembers that when circumnavigating an island, you work your tail off just to get back where you started. Now there’s a metaphor if there ever was one! There’s got to be something wrong with that!

Today I woke up and scanned the morning clouds out my window as I often do. They are racing to the north east in high-speed film fashion. I’m thinking about this summer. Events, places to go, classes to teach. I’m thinking of yesterday and how lost in the day to day I’ve been feeling recently. I’m not sure I have a goal past summer distractions. Maybe an escape around an island or along a distant shoreline, but still nothing past the short summer months. Today like yesterday I feel the headwinds and can’t see a goal through the distant fog. I know there is no option to turn back and I know that it’s impossible to stand still. I’m not very contented. Yet the headline in my minds journal says that you just keep moving forward and eventual the scenery will change. Eventually it has to.

I suppose I should get dressed now. Put on something nice. I’ll shower and comb my hair. Then who knows. The only thing I know for sure is that if I don’t stick that first blade in the water, I’m not going anywhere. But here’s what’s been niggling at me. . I also know that tomorrow I’ll wake up and scan the morning clouds out of my window as I often do. I’ll think about the yesterday that today will become. I’ll tell myself that the only thing I know for sure is that if I don’t stick that first blade in the water, I’m not going anywhere. I know I’ll tell myself that if you just keep moving forward, eventually the scenery will change. Somewhere in there is when I’ll most likely start to notice the headwinds again.

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