Below the Brine

Once upon a time, I sailed the Inside Passage alone, but I made friends in a Chaucerian afternoon spent trading anecdotes with three fellow seafarers. There was one from Brazil, two Americans who’d named their daughter after a number, and me, raw and fresh as a scallop in mourning with a newly minted bachelor’s degree in English literature. Looking out over the ocean, steeped in the bliss and thrill of the moment, I thought suddenly of all the events and circumstances under the water: one jellyfish fights another, everything that could ever be narrated, all posed in sublime contrast to the paltriness and brevity of human storytelling and indeed the human story itself. The ferry I was on took two lives when it sank a few months later, so now I see the media snapshot of the drowned couple’s faces whenever I think of that afternoon, the day itself, the boat, the stories, all gone.

Later on the same trip, alone again and on a Vancouver beach at sunset, I floated away on...