Oceans Far Away

My father commanded submarines, often away at sea. I once asked him, haunted by the title, if "Run Silent, Run Deep" were the truest film? He looked up from the paper.

"No," he replied, alert that I would ask. "Das Boot is the most authentic depiction of hazardous-duty life." So, we watched it together.

I was appalled--at the confinement and PTSD potential--and terrified that my father submerged into Capt. Nemo's realm deep beneath the sea. Father countered with the camaraderie and esprit de corps of those who must utterly trust one another to do their part.

I had gone pale, so he told me a story about life on, and in the briny deep. He spoke of learning the particular sonar-signatures of whales and dolphins and schools of fish.

"Really?!" said I.

"Um. And on calm, full moon nights," he added, "we may surface far out at sea. I climb the ladder, stand on the conning tower and watch the moon's reflection. Some nights whales spout and breach or porpoises leap and dance around the boat. I've seen giant squid and the ocean phosphorescing..."

My father could navigate by the stars. He's dead now but I still miss the pole star of his living.

We have entered uncharted waters, we alive now on earth--a sextant, a sextant, my kingdom for a sextant. Starry night before us.

"I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking..."

   ~John Masefield, excerpt of "Sea Fever."