Sea of Light

By Miguel Ballé

A father talks (for the first time) to his dying son, unraveling extraordinary tales of sea adventures and spiritual encounters. Is
this one-way conversation a mere conduit to these extraordinary tales, or is it the key for entering into the mundane drama of living, loving, parenting, and making lasting commitments, as against the manly heroics of taking risks, seducing the passing
mermaid, dancing and boozing the night away, and, above all, being counted among the winners? Whichever way you decide to read this book, you will be taken to task by the author: suffering, wondering, enjoying, cursing and occasionally snickering. In the end, you will have to follow Jason to the end of his journey, and there be given the ultimate choice: of accepting what is, or cursing it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 20, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469713557

Miguel Ballé

Born in the last century, Miguel is not (yet) dead. He lives in Paris when not discovering (yet) another part of the world. After Sea of Light, he continues his exploration of modern mysticism and continues to try the patience of family and friends (in a good way).

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All Rights Reserved © 2002 by Miguel Ballé

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any

means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in

writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press

an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse, Inc.

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Lincoln, NE 68512

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Any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental.

This is a work of fiction.

ISBN: 0-595-22768-6

ISBN: 978-1-4697-1355-7 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

For Teresa, Kate and Chloë,

angels all.

You—and this is not said in cruelty—ceased to exist because you

could not get what you wanted; or it was taken away from you;

or you wanted to go through a particular, special door which

was tightly shut. As sorrow and pleasure are self-enclosing, so

acceptance and insistence bring their own darkness of separation.

We do not live, we are always committing suicide. Living

begins when the act of suicide ends.

—KRISHNAMURTI

Acknowledgements

This book would never have been completed without the interest and enthusiasm of Viviane Brachet, and I am in her debt. I am also grateful for Anne Avidon’s support at the start of this project, and to Dan and Lorna Riley for their ongoing encouragement. Many thanks to my friends, family and to my wife, Florence, who have had the patience to bear with me as I sailed uncharted spiritual waters. I am also thankful to Mairi Mackinnon and Lorella Belli for their constructive criticism, to Elizabeth Teague for her thoughtful editing of the text, to my sister Sandra for her help with the cover design and to Godefroy Beauvallet for all the technical jiggery-pokery to get the book in print.

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.

—S. T. COLERIDGE THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER (1828:139-42)

The doctor says you can hear me. Probably. Maybe. She says no one understands much about comas. She says your brain is active, as if you were in deep sleep. If I look closely, she adds, I will sometimes catch your eyes moving behind your obstinately closed eyelids. She says you’re dreaming then. Probably. Maybe. Your injuries to arm and back are healing. She can’t say more. Maybe you’ll wake up. Maybe not. She is trying to reassure me, but is reluctant to give me too much hope. Hope is rare in this place of woe, so she hoards it like a miser and will dispense it in small, precious quantities, tragically inadequate. My throat is so tight that words get caught and choke me so that I can hardly bear to look at her for fear that I’ll break down shamefully. So I look at you, sleeping peacefully beneath the swathes of white cloth. Your breath is even, your pulse steady as the signal on the outlandish machine connected to your brain. Do I see myself in your battered face? I guess I should, but the guilt of all these wasted years draws a heavy veil over my eyes, and I can only see the face of a stranger, a familiar stranger: my son.

I never guessed grief could be so physically painful. I labor for every breath with a cold, unrelenting fist clenched around my heart. My eyes hurt from unshed tears, the dam of my sorrow refusing to break in the face of your quiet, almost casual, sleeping expression. I never thought grief could be so pure, so devoid of the usual anger and justifications, so stripped of fight, crafted in guilt and pain. Pain for the present, and guilt for the past, unbearable. Yet somehow, breath is drawn, blood is pumped and thought follows thought. What can I say? What can I tell you? Even if you could hear them, would my words ever breach the absence of so many years? How could I have let this happen? How could I ever let your mother take my kids away from me? Or was I secretly party to it, forsaking my children as I did my father, estranging as I was estranged? I know I should rant and rave against the cruel twist of fate which does this to you just as we have found each other again. I know I soon will, but right now, even anger would distract me from the absolute of denial: any second now, you are going to wake up. I shall will you to wake up, to come back, to get on with life, to love and talk and do and…

Your Buddhist friend says I must keep talking to you, that my words will guide you back to us. He claims you are lost inside yourself and that my voice will act as a beacon, shining in the dark of the unconscious soul and call the spirit forth. I’ll believe him, but what shall I say? He looks kind of silly, with his podgy features sticking out of his shorn skull, looking a bit lost in his monk’s garb. He’s the one who let me into your apartment. I never realized until settling into your place how involved you were with all this Buddhist nonsense. I had somehow understood that it was all because of Sarah and that she was the one with a Dalai Lama fixation. But obviously, like so many other things, I must have had it the wrong way round. What can I talk to you about? I’ll confess to having been surprised by your flat. The location, overlooking the Carré Saint Louis, is superb—how did you ever manage to get hold of it? But I certainly didn’t expect to find it so full of Buddhas, thankas, prayer flags and the cloying scent of incense. Imagine that: I have a twenty-eight year old son, and the first time I get to see his apartment is because he has been run over by a car and is lying as if dead in a hospital bed. How could things ever come to that?

What else can I say? I’ve spoken to your mother for the first time in almost ten years. She had heard of your accident from Sarah, but because your sister is so close to term, she will not come. Marie’s contractions started when she heard of the crash, and they feared the baby would come there and then, but she calmed down and the contractions stopped. Still, she’s in shock and emotionally fragile in her present state, so your mother argues she’ll be needed when the baby arrives. I can’t say I understand her, but I can’t say I ever did. I guess that even after all these years I don’t have anything helpful to say about her, so I’ll steer clear of that particular reef. I gather that you two haven’t been on very good terms since you left home to come here, to Montreal. What on earth made you decide to come back to this city, of all places? It took me long enough to get away from here! Then again, why should it have anything to do with the family? From what you said earlier on, you just followed your job. Seigneur! This is so hard. The words jumble in my mind, but getting them out is such a strain.

You dream, they say. I pray for sweet dreams. I always imagined death as slipping into a dream, paradise as a dream-world. But let us not talk about death. You are coming back. You will wake up. Soon. Let us talk about life instead. I want to know all about this. What about Sarah? How did you two meet? Is she the one? And about your work at the University. Did I ever tell you how proud I was to learn you had completed your Ph.D.? Probably not. And about this Buddhist thing. Is it just a fad, or a lifelong commitment? Why did you never mention it before? You know I’ve had little opportunity to pursue such intellectual interests, but I have always been keenly curious about all spiritual quests. Are you dreaming of Buddha right now? Of Sarah? Are you dreaming through your life again? I’ve found your much read copy of Hesse’s Siddhartha on your bedside table, and have it with me right here. I’m trying to read it, but the hospital is so overwhelming—I’m having trouble concentrating. You probably wouldn’t think so, but I’ve had some fairly mystical experiences myself. You wouldn’t believe what happens out there at sea! Particularly in the solo races when one spends so long with no other company than wind and waves. Alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide wide sea and all that sort of thing.

You dream, they say. If I sit close enough to you, and close my eyes, I can pick up the rhythm of your breathing on the very edges of my consciousness, like a faint touch, a pressure. I try to focus it, and follow you into the dreamworld. But I fail. What does it look like? I like to imagine you wandering the landscapes of your life. Reliving good times, bad times. Maybe you can indeed hear me, maybe I am in your dreams right now. Are you a child again? Do you remember how you used to build model sailboats? Do you remember how we used to walk to the park and sail them on fake lakes, dream seas? I used to tell you sea stories—you loved them then. And then I drifted away, taken by the currents of life, scared of seeing your mother again, broken by the court battles, and most of all, seduced by the sea, always. Are you back there, though? I’d like to believe it. I try as hard as I can to believe it. There is a spirit world, I know. Many a time, on the open ocean, have I walked to its very borders, standing in the awkward limbo between night and day, sleep and wakefulness, where the luminous shoreline stretches for ever. Yes, nights at sea, exhausted, ill, or simply bored, when you hear voices drifting over the waves, Ulysses’ sirens singing softly in the wind, their songs echoing in the rigging, gripping the heart with desire and fear. I am not alone in my daydreams. Do you remember how I used to tell you about Joshua Slocum? The first man to sail around the world alone, my childhood hero—the one who lured me to the freedom and the loneliness of the sail. Well, when lying in his bunk, he used to talk to an imaginary pilot at the helm, steering through the night. Yet, spirits are traitorous, and this one betrayed him in the end. Slocum was lost at sea, but I came back, only to find you lost on land, lost in sleep. I don’t know much more than anyone else about Buddhism, or Islam or anything, mostly because religions don’t hold much for me, but I believe in spirits. I’d like to think I’ve met a few. I’d like to tell you about them, to convince both of us that you are in a real place, a sea of the mind, and like any ancient mariner, you’ll find your way ashore.

I never even saw it coming. In fifteen years of racing across the seas, seven of which racing solitary, I have never seen anything like it—thankfully. Racing sailboats on your own is not that hard if you know what you are doing, don’t mind your own company and respect the sea. Being good at it is the difficult part. Respecting the sea keeps you safe, taking chances makes you win. I was good, but not excellent. I had won enough ocean races to be in the top pack, but I mostly won when the crazy ones lost their masts, sails, way and ultimately the race. I respected the sea, and always have done. But there had been no warning. Galaxy Software was a good ship, and one of the perks of being sponsored by a software house was that below deck looked like the bridge of the Enterprise. I had every possible electronic gadget, the most high-tech communication devices, and among those, live round-the-clock weather satellite pictures. And everything looked both normal and stable. I was right in the middle of the second leg of the race, in the Southern Indian Ocean trying to catch the West Wind Drift of the fabled Roaring Forties, but up to that point nothing more than fair wind, blue skies and enough chill in the air to remind me that Antarctica was not that far away to the south.

I was up on deck tinkering with the auto-pilot settings when something on the horizon caught my eye. The sea was well formed, but not rough: waves as tall as buildings would spread across hundreds of meters like slowly rolling watery hills, and Galaxy, under full sail, was catching up, climbing, dipping, rocking and playing the gentle roller-coaster. The sun was warm, the breeze was clean. I was actually enjoying myself, and opening my heart to the exhilarating sense of freedom brought by wind, speed and the endless ocean. I guess that is what you probably experience out there, when you go trekking in the wilderness, surrounded by a sea of trees and skies. Moments like this make me feel fully human, at home on this small blue-green planet, and in the universe. Suddenly, the boat lurched as a gust freshened for a few seconds. Automatically, I checked my sails, the wind, but all had gone back to normal. Yet, I had caught in that gust that faint smell of rain which usually announces a wet squall. Surprised but not unduly worried, I packed my tools and moved towards the front of the boat, standing by the mast to have a good look around. And then I saw it. Right behind me: the sky that had been the unreal blue that blue can go a few minutes ago had suddenly turned black on the horizon. Not gray, but black, like a moving coal face. And, for a few seconds, at the top of the next wave, I thought I glimpsed the sea: a continuous bar of white under the darkness.

I panicked. Never, ever, had I seen anything like that, not on any sea, not in any weather. My knees started to tremble, my gut churned, and my thoughts moved round in all directions. Time? How much time? Get a grip, you bastard, I screamed to myself: reef the sails! And, still yelling, I started moving. Slowly, as in a dream, the blackness was eating up the sky, an apocalyptic vision of end of the world, like the rolling cloud of an atom bomb. I knew I was not going to make it. The wind was gusting in furious blows now, then letting up completely. The sky was black and, over there in the distance, I saw the dismal wall of white water rushing towards me like an infinite waterfall. In a sudden frenzy, I jumped to the wheel, turned the boat into the wind, opened the halyard cleats and let both sails come down without even looking and jumped into the cockpit. I was almost half a second too late. I had barely griped the handrail when a fist of wind hit the boat like a wall of bricks. The Galaxy almost turned on herself, her deck near vertical over the sea, her crumpled sails cracking in a deafening roar. Crashing about, clutching the handrail, I managed to crawl back into the cockpit and throw myself down the ladder before a second wall hit the boat. By sheer luck, I landed on a damaged sail I was mending downstairs, and did not kill myself right then and there. I was in a blind panic and I only half remember those frantic moments looking for the door to seal the hatch against a world gone mad. Everything was flying around, I was not really moving, only propelled randomly back and forth around the boat until I finally retrieved the door from where I stored it in the toilets. I still don’t know how I even managed to slide it in, and seal the hatch. In that very last moment, across the back of the boat, all I could see was a giant waterfall sucking us into what seemed to be a solid wall of living water.

I took a deep breath, wedged myself in the heap of the sail, and waited for certain death. I can’t even tell what it was like, because, cowering with my head between my knees, wrapped in as much sail I could gather in this moving inferno of flying objects, I closed my eyes. Then it hit, and I shuddered in harmony with the boat to the core of my entire being. It felt like the sailboat had been picked up by a giant hand and thrown straight across a field. It crashed a second time in a jarring sound of breaking glass and the hull groaned like a sick beast—or maybe it was me, yelling my hurt as my body was tossed around the hardwood edges of the interior. The boat was rolling in the waves, over itself like a barrow down a hill, and I kept being bounced, in mind-shattering terror, around the hull. Finally, I heard a rending crack and cold water burst down the ladder and invaded my small, precious kingdom. I screamed, and screamed, and finally screamed no more as a burning pain filled my skull and I drifted into merciful unconsciousness.

I woke up retching in my lap. You can imagine how I felt: my head was hurting and my vision blurred but I was in too much pain to be dead, and not enough to be crippled. As I moved slowly and carefully parts of my body I didn’t know I owned I came to realize that three miracles had happened. Miracle one: Galaxy was floating the right side up. Although the cabin was half full of icy water, we were still afloat. Miracle two: I had turned into one large, painful bruise but nothing seemed broken. Miracle three: the watery hell outside seemed to have passed us by. But I wasn’t out of trouble yet. As my mind slowly cleared, I realized I was hearing regularly the sinister booming of a large object hitting the hull of the boat. I swore aloud: the mast must have gone, and, still attached by the shrouds, must be ramming a hole with the force of the waves. As fast as I could, groping on hands and knees in the swirling water, trying to see in the darkness, I searched for the pliers I had stashed away somewhere against precisely that emergency. I finally found them, and with a deep moan, I willed myself on deck to cut the mast out.

I almost didn’t make it. It was still absolute pandemonium out there. Night had come and all I could see around me was the white crests of crashing waves galloping around like wild ethereal horses. A vague moon was shining through thick clouds and in the dim twilight Galaxy’s deck looked as if it had been scrubbed clean of everything. Dimly, I could see where the rigging was in a mess on the side, trying to drag the boat under with it. With relief I saw that the life lines still held and I clipped the harness I always wear when I’m alone at sea, even if I don’t always attach it. The boat, without the balance of the sails, was pitching wildly in the maelstrom of the sea. Holding on to the pliers as tightly as I could, I crawled my way to the masthead, moving inch by inch, slipping on the wet deck which torn nails had transformed into a torture rack. The hardest bit was to find enough grip for my body while I used my hands to cut the cables of shrouds and halyards. As I worked, I could hear the chilling sound of breaking plastic as the mast was butting in with every move the boat made.

My luck almost held to the last. I was nearly done when a wave caught the boat and sent it in a freak roll. I felt myself skid along the deck with nothing to catch my feet. In a heartbeat, I knew that catching hold of the deck meant losing the pliers and, before I knew it, I was overboard, in the freezing water, and pressed to the hull by my harness which had thankfully held. Swearing and spluttering I looked around and saw, rising darker than the black water, the ragged shapes of the rigging, bouncing against the side of the boat like a metallic sea monster, hideous and spiky, hungry to tear and rent, my own private reef. I realized with relief that I still held the pliers tight against my chest, hanging on to them as to dear life itself. In retrospect, I still don’t know how I managed to cut the last two cables holding it all to the hull before the pliers escaped my grip and disappeared into the water. I couldn’t breathe for the cold, I felt numb all over, and, as a long black cloud came over me, my last conscious sight was of the mast’s end, all ragged edges sharp as razors, slowly sinking in a solid sea.

I dreamt, but I do not remember what I dreamt. I woke, but I do not remember waking. The squall went as it had come. The skies cleared and were filled by blue radiance again. Briefly I felt the warmth of the southern sun upon my face. But I was gone to the world, floating alongside my boat, lashed to the hull, dreaming, dying perhaps. I don’t even know how long I stayed that way until I finally woke up. It was the cold which made me numb, and then it was the cold which woke me up. It must have been early morning at some point, because the skies were clear although I could not see the sun. My teeth were chattering so badly I was annoyed with them for stopping me from sleeping again. Then I realized, in my smoke filled mind, that sleeping again would mean taking the long sleep. I looked groggily around, and all I could see was the lazy sea gone back to normal under the bright sky, as if nothing has happened. So I tried to keep my eyes open and I watched. I must have become slightly more awake because I started realizing my body was hanging in the water like a splendid bait for all sorts of toothy undersea creatures. For a second, I thought I saw a gull in the sky, and memories of hideous stories of seagulls eating fallen sailors’ eyes flashed through the fogs of my brain. If I was awake enough to entertain morbid fantasies, I should be awake enough to think. Hell! I thought, I’ve made it through this far, I should at least try to get back on the boat. This turned out to be surprisingly easy, even though slow. The sea had ripped every stay, so, still attached to the life line, I could drag myself around the curve of the boat. It seemed to take hours, but finally I managed to get to the stern, crawl on the skirt and grab the ladder. Where did I find the strength to haul myself up? Probably in despair. I collapsed again and fainted, but at least I was now back on Galaxy’s deck.

I woke up again with the setting sun in my eyes and loud grumbling from my stomach. I must have slept through the day. Never had I known such hunger that it becomes a physical pain. I dragged myself into the cockpit, and then to the cabin. I felt like crying.