Coming About

The water glittered in the sun like a million antique mirrors. My friend Harry and I skimmed the surface, delighting in the spray of brine, the sweep of breeze. We were sailing Harry's Sunfish in the Gulf of California, and it was my first time so far from shore. In spite of the beauty of the moment, I began to fear capsizing. After all, the boat was quite small and the bay was as big as the sea. We were no more than specks. The more I thought about it, the more I worried. The shore became a thin suggestion of a line. I asked, in what I hoped sounded like a nonchalant tone (but Harry knows me well), "What would happen if we did lose control and fall in?" Harry reassured me, saying there was nothing at all to worry about. If he felt he was losing control, he demonstrated, he would simply let go. And the moment he did that, over we went! The warm water embraced us, and we bobbed there, laughing. It was a real lesson in letting go and turning it over!