It is night. We are sailing on the Maine River in Germany. The lounge where I’m writing is deserted, the vessel is using its running lights, and the shore is slipping by without revealing itself unless we are passing a place of human habitation. One feels the ship gliding, the engines giving the merest vibration until we reach another lock.
One always knows when we have arrived at a lock in the darkness. If you were in the lounge with me, you would see the lights and, as they appear, the channel markers specifying the location of the entry lane; if one is in bed as I should be, the engines roar and grind as the captain fights the ship into a space designed for lesser vehicles. This ship is 410 feet long and does not go gently into a lock: it fights and grinds and roars, but in the end it is always tamed. Its fight is only for show, to establish its independence, to demand respect, and, in the end, the captain always prevails and the ship accepts the lock with equanimity.
It is the sense of gliding that is the strangest experience of the night. You cannot see the shore in the stretches of the river where there are no lights, no humanity, but still you know there is movement, that we are skating on this swiftly flowing river. Some of the sensation comes from the vibration of the engines, a gentle, calming vibration you can feel throughout your body. It is almost as nice as a massage from a loved one. But the rest of the sensation is subliminal, almost primeval. You know you are gliding because you are gliding. A tautology? Perhaps, but one somehow senses the shore, senses the life there, senses the slippage through the cool night air.
I find these times the most restful on board ship. It seems strange that I should have to wake to find rest, but that is the truth. Here in the lounge, here in the night, here on this ship slipping through the night, I can find peace for an overactive mind that wants to do something other than dream.
But perhaps I am still in bed, dreaming I am in the lounge, dreaming that I am watching or sensing the shore go by, dreaming of gliding through the night.
