Setting Sail For New Adventures

While Hoping My Ship Doesn’t Sink

My son and I are watching my current favorite binge series, Sea Patrol. It’s an Australian series revolving around the exploits and lives of the sailors aboard the HMAS Hammersley.

It has enough drama to pull me along, but not too much. I often live on a razor’s edge of an anxiety attack without assistance from Netflix. I look for relaxing and having fun. My beleaguered monkey mind needs all the help it can get some days.

Well, mostly. I still have an affinity for my British detective shows, though sometimes I must fast forward through the tense moments.

Any way. It’s the final episode of season one and the crew is bidding adieu to their aged-out battleship. The captain will be commanding the new and improved Hammersly and the crew will be disbursed to ports unknown. (Or so they like you to think so! I saw the cast for season two, so my disappointment was held in check. I get attached to characters in books and movies and hate to see them killed off. Especially when they have fun nicknames like “Charge” and “Spider.”)

Caleb has always been a contemplative thinker, and we enjoy deep existential conversations. When he’s not cracking me up with his lightning-fast wit, that is.

We opine about the pomp and circumstance we humans seem to need. Rituals are a healthy and good thing, we conclude. They help us honor the human experience.

Ah. Such rich conversation. But back to the show.

The ceremony does not disappoint. All the crew is in their crisp dress whites and the captain solemnly retires the ship’s ensign. (That’s the flag, not a lowly officer in training.) The camera pans the precision tableau on the pristine deck while patriotic music crescendos.

What a moment.

“Makes me proud to be Australian,” I say to Caleb, clutching my pearls and wiping an imaginary tear from my cheek.

We crack up.

My brain has a cartoon mode. It’s been there since childhood, as evidenced by a note on my third-grade report card, “Theresa seems to think everything is a joke.”

Uh, guilty as charged. Though I have really, REALLY worked hard not to giggle when I see someone trip.

Or the time I was in an aerobics class back in the 80s and I found myself undone by the butt floss attire of the instructor. (Thank whatever deity you may worship if you do not know what I am talking about.) I faked the need to get a drink of water so I could gather muster some composure.

And seriously, I’m not a schadenfreude sort of gal, you know, one who delights in the downfall (ahem, tripping) of another.

Perhaps those years of watching Bugs Bunny cultivated these tendencies. I ponder. There’s more to those characters than meets the eye. Because if we look deeper into the characters and their foibles, we can see… ourselves.

And we humans are pretty doggone hysterical. We are a study in contradictions. Light and shadow. Koans are we.

We are both insouciant Bugs Bunny and the cunning Wile E. Coyote.

A good angel over one shoulder and a bad angel on the other.

We are solemn. We are silly.

We need ceremony. We need laughter. And sometimes a nervous breakdown too.

Humor has helped me navigate the exquisite pain of infidelity, gray divorce and breast cancer.

But don’t be fooled. There are plenty of times it’s been hard to pick myself up from the puddle of tears on the bathroom floor.

Life is serious business, but we can’t take it too seriously.

Ah. More contradictions.

Living in the tension between what appears to be the extremes is a tricky and uncomfortable dance.

But it’s all good.

And now the credits are rolling.

Buh-bye, retired Hammersly. I’m looking forward to your shiny new ship and the reunited cast in season two.

Like you, I’m launching afresh into new adventures myself while hoping my ship doesn’t capsize. There will certainly be rough seas and new discoveries.

Or so I tell myself when I’m wanting to cower behind the sofa.

See, there goes that damn contradiction again.

Here’s to fair winds and following sea. With some laughs along the way.

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