Tacking

I'm working with a strong wind to starboard, tacking to gain ground. Even when I sit still the movement is too much for me. I need more: time, rest, space. The stolen hours are never enough. I miss Australia, the sunburnt country, and I want time to stop. The future is imminent: the work I've worked to have, the home I've waited to find, all of it so big and real that I want to throw up a billowing spinnaker against the brilliance of the light.

Triathlons are over for this summer. It will be rowing now, back in skinny boats with long oars and that spectacular sensation of flight when the keel stands balanced and runs out beneath you while your wake runs on in rivers. Let it run, they say. Soft hands. Breathe. It is meditation. It is God come down.