August 30, 2017

Saunter

Dear Bloggers,

There are amazing sounds coming from the little silhouette in the tree. The dark blue sky shoots through the small beak. Could there also be birds who do not dare to sing their song? Who only sing their father's psalms when sitting next to him on a twig. My dad could tell me directly what name this little animal has received. With his eyes closed. So he must have seen it with me too. I did not know what a sissy was. Some kind of vegetable, I thought. At least I understood that it was something dirty. Not that I was busy with those kind of things. I did not search for these kind of answers as I do nowadays constantly. Just because I am curious and want to know why? Things were just the way they were and yes it was bad news and I had to man up. But in that regard, I was perhaps more a sensitive guy and sometimes I was maybe more a girl or a little sissy like my father called it.


For example, my mother always had tea ready when I came home after school. It seemed like she had been waiting the whole day for us, something that I could do as well. Just I love to hang out with my wife and kids. I was really a bit of a softy who could enjoy these little loving and caring things that my mother did. Yes and I was a pretty simple guy, I burned my lips and tongue on my tea over and over again.


Next to each other, we sat in the window sill, our wet hairs against the glass that protected us against the ticking drops that wanted to get in. We just had been under the shower. She looked at me. I looked at her. We sat together hand in hand in the window sill. The ticking was going on and it felt like that the window had disappeared and all the drops of the world sat in my body and wanted to get out. Tickling, tingling, tickling against the inside of my skin, my belly, my eyelids, my burned tongue and lips.


Abducted by my shivering spine. Sitting there in the window sill I saw how she, cold as ice, took a few big slugs of the steamy tea. Why did not I see that, she was not a little softy girl at all? And yes she was a lot harder and tougher than me. But I did not care about that I just loved her and did not really know yet, what I could do with this girl. So I just enjoyed each moment we had together.


Now I'm sitting on a bench in a park looking at a little bird whose name I do not know. It's singing so beautiful that it's got to be afraid of love and it must be heartbroken. Only years later, I just realized that there were many other possibilities in relations, and that boys with boys and girls could be with other girls and that these were the so-called sissies. So I was not a little sissy but a little wimp or a softy. In the years that I went to sea and sailed internationally, I discovered that this was not strange and that these people are actually very nice people. And some have become really the ones that should be counted to my best friends. So, I did not understand anything about fear of gays, no, they really don't play with you and it's not really contagious. 


I've been married with a marvelous woman and I understand that luckily we're not all being the same. The fact that I was not a sissy-boy was something I showed during my military service. I struggled and fought hard and cautiously there was only one way and that was only forward and it was sometimes that it felt tough and the road was heavy but with your comrades you can do a lot. Although there are some things that stick forever in your system, but it has made me the man I am now. And I'm very proud of it, even though I have to tell it to myself. I am maybe a bit off the wagon, but I think you should be a little bit crazy and I think it;s actually very healthy.


Do you see that there is an old exercise book between my feet on the ground? With the two horses on the cover. One white and one black, both are galloping, running, jogging. Ah, whatever. In that exercise book I wrote my first voluntary sentences. Her name is on top of each page. After a sweet story about just fun things and yes, what did I have a huge butterfly garden in my belly. 


Suddenly I saw those horses grazing between my old school stuff. Stories about her and me. That we walked into the village hand in hand. She secretly stayed with me without touching her own bed. I have described millions of kisses in detail. Descriptions of kisses that I would give her. And then there are only empty pages left, Blank, Virgin white pages. The stories stopped when she unfortunately did not come back to me again. What we were to each other it did not come back to me. She all of a sudden just collapsed and died on a volleyball court in a sports hall. What do I hate tumors in the brain. There are all those empty pages again.


Why does that little beast in my head not shut up? Why do the hollow sounds of the little creature still enter the empty night? I will flick him out of that tree with this damn book. It will now know that nobody will listen to him if I hit him with these running horses on his beak. I'm on to the bloody beast with his big mouth. Nobody will be able to see on which side the beak was. With a Smile on my face I will listen to the squeeze and the bloodshed of the blood under the weight of my foot. Very short and fierce I will laugh. Then tears will come and their will be regret. I will scrape the puddle with feathers from underneath my boot. I will punch it and push the air on my hand. "Fly, fly, fly again please," I'll whisper to it, "sing, sing, sing please." His parents will be heartbroken pops in my mind, all of a sudden. An t question myself: So much sadness and why? I'm still angry with the fact that someone will be ripped so out of your life. No, you don't want to give this to your worst enemy. For years I have been thinking about the deep wounds that must have struck in the life's of the parents, siblings, school friends and friends. 


And what to think of what was still to be explored in the field of love. Hardly and all of a sudden stopped every one's world and I became sick of the thought that I could never see her again and that I could not hold her anymore. Never more the fun together and doing things together. No, I picked up my life again and I could not change anything about it. Still, I ask myself these questions and I can sometimes walk around with this. Probably at a certain time she would have walked and had found somewhere in the world a tanned Adonis that could've made her happier. But yes ,,,,,,, I will never get these answers. The Lord is merciful but also about that I am no longer sure.


The galloping horses do not blow up any dust in my brain. It's been almost 35 years since and my life has known a lot of ups and downs. But never has anyone ever called me a sissy again. And yes, meanwhile, I am also the father of two children, and I hope I will do things better than my own parents, but that's the purpose of every parent in my opinion. I'm also making mistakes and I've forgiven my father for a long time. He was full of grief as such a young life should not stop this way, his heart broke as every parents heart would, he had to get us back on track as a family because everyday life just goes on. As I grow older, I notice more and more that people around me sometimes have deep scratches on their souls.


There are still beautiful sounds from the silhouette in the tree. The vocals of animal are answered by another birdie and suddenly they shoot through the branches. So there is always a new beginning and this is probably the most beautiful thing in the world. It's just those little things that can make life so beautiful. And then I realize that bench where I'm sitting alone and that I just have to go on with the most beautiful memories and the thoughts that just came together. I hope therefore whatever you should do in this life, think it's been worth it and I had the chance doing the most wonderful things in my life. Sometimes I was falling on my face pretty hard and I just wiped my tears away and took my loss, Even when it hurt I still got up again.
So be careful with what you are saying to someone.

The Old Sailor,

August 3, 2017

Salty Waters and Strong Stories

Dear Bloggers,

While I'm here looking through my old records from the time I was a sailor, my great years at sea and I'm breaking my head about what will be happening with my retirement, I just feel like wanting a resentment and I would like to respond to the strangest stories I heard that have already been going around years and years. Quietly I am dreaming away in the turbulent waves of my thoughts. In order to write my other stories, and that will be over the coming months of the near future, my sailing stories are slowly running out.
But first of all, I would like to go on with this strange subject, as I have been that lucky to sail the seven seas in the world, and yes I have sometimes seen strange and impossible things at sea. But also the beautiful pictures with the most insane color spectra are shooting through my mind. Everyone knows them the wild but also strange stories about the well known and by many feared "Bermuda triangle". As many websites have been made about this particular phenomenon, it is considered as it could be true or not true. Shouldn't we be able to regard this as well as some popular stories and cases, If it did happen or not.



Yet around the famous and infamous Bermuda triangle located between the places of Porto-Rico, Miami, and Bermuda, the most wild stories and sevens make incredible stories where everyone is listening to with red ears and with full thrills. The cold chills will ripple over your back. It is where some people, get into the story so deeply that you just hear their brains squeaking.




Ships that suddenly disappear, planes that disappear in nothing in an inexplicable manner.

The most beautiful story I've ever heard is telling about the triangle is the following one. I think most of the sailors that have been there and those who will once go there will know this story too.



A ship sailing into the triangle area, comes at the level of the triangle and sees at a certain moment a steering less vessel drifting around. The captain of the arriving ship tried to get in touch with the steering less ship, but no one was found aboard to give any answer. The ship seemed to be abandoned and drifted like a ghost ship. The captain decided to go on board and have a look around and try to find out what was going on.



When he arrived on board there was no living soul to detect, but the tables were covered and the soup already served in the plates and they seemed to be very hot. In one of the cabins they found women's clothes which suggested that women had been on board of this vessel.




Then this story was hung up around this ship, and very detailed it was still exaggerated to help the story. In the first story, the crew would have seen land, a remote island. On this island, naked women stood waving to them, and the crew would have lowered the longboats to go to the island and join in with those naked ladies. Once set foot ashore, this all of a sudden sunk away and the crew was swallowed by the rouge waves.




In another story, it would be that the captain was corrupt and would have sold his cargo, and he had left the ship at sea and with crews drawn into longboats sailing further to safer places to waste the money. And so there are many stories going around, compasses that spin like crazy, And later all electronic devices that would fail to work or even blackout.



And then there are stories about spaceships that would abduct the crews of their ship and so on. All in all the crazy stories are going on here. And nobody can give a thorough explanation for this.




I have also been able to sail the triangle, and even it was in the period that it would statistically be the most dangerous the month of December. According to a research report most ships would disappear every 15
Th to 30Th December. I have not even noticed something at all or had a strange feeling in my stomach about this peculiar phenomenon as well as the dull running of the compass or radio connections that are lost and what more they told. Yes, just name it.



A strange phenomenon what I have ever seen and experienced was on a high sea. This was on my night guard shift during the fire rounds from 20:00 to 06:00. At one point I suddenly see a beam of light somewhere in the distance somewhere in the close range, it seemed to me like there were driving cars in the distance and the light beam of their car was shining than overseas and was coming towards us.




About half an hour later, you saw lights from a city in the distance and saw the lights of the cars getting faster and getting closer to you. Once on the bridge again I talked to the on duty officer about this. Nevertheless, on the radar, nothing was detected and there was no sign of land or anything else nearby. The officer also looked with interest on this strange things and wondered just like me what was going on. Yet here was a statement, just an air reflection called a Fatah Morgana, nothing more nothing less. Anyway you can see and find strange and also weird things at sea.


Also the stories of the true sun-burned tough seamen who fought with huge jaws to rescue their ship, big monster-like octopuses, and just mention those with their huge tentacles dragging the ships to the bottom and what all can even happen more?



Is it true? Who knows? And who will tell?

The Old Sailor,

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