Boat Lust

There are those that argue the purpose of life is to propagate it, that everything else is mere window dressing. And what of love? Isn’t our destiny to fall in love and fulfill our desires? Perhaps it is, if mother nature can be distracted for a few moments.

And what of boats? Is it possible to fall in love with a boat? Physically, fall in love with a boat? If you’d asked me two years ago I might have thought for a bit and said something profane (that’s profound, surely – ed.) like, “Well, speaking as a (cisgender) male, all boats are female, so I wouldn’t discount the possibility.” But until the last couple of days I wouldn’t have thought that I’d fall for Aleta in quite the way that I have.

Let’s take a side track. A few years ago, staring into my lover’s face*, I finally realized what Picasso was painting with his cubist portraits of women with eyes at two different levels and distorted perspectives. Picasso was classically trained. Those avant-garde images turn out to be as realistic as any Reubens or Caravaggio, except the old masters didn’t have the courage to paint the intimacy of kissing your lover with your eyes open. Try it. As your lips meet, you’ll see their eyes are on two completely different planes and their nose shrinks to a thin line. This spark of insight gave me a new appreciation of the subtle eroticism Picasso alludes to on the surface of his paintings. It felt like I’d joined some secret art appreciation society.

In these days when pornography is ubiquitous and classified as addictive (even our President can’t get enough of it) it’s too easy to forget the emotional power of scarcity. The best fantasies are the stuff we make up in the absence of available fulfillment. Stick with me here. Imagination is the fuel of relationships and reality it’s (sometimes) harsh mistress. Between humans and things, fantasy imbues life into otherwise inanimate objects. Let’s think beyond inflatable dolls or Anthony Perkins’ movie mom for a minute. Most of us have been guilty as some point of swearing true love for their cellphone or a particularly useful kitchen gadget. I’d like you all to know I’m in love with my boat. Here’s why.

For the last two days I’ve been cleaning Aleta’s hull (the bit under the water) with a soft bristled brush. Every boat suffers blooms of algae, weeds and crazes of organic fiber that spread across their underbelly and after six months in the water Aleta wasn’t all that bad, she just needed a good scrub. It took about four hours to wipe her clean of marine growth.

In the process I realized Aleta has some damn fine curves about her. Her narrow bow flares just forward of her keel and then on to her maximum width without losing her sense of fluid grace. From her center her broad lines converge and narrow again to her stern. Swimming from bow to stern a couple of dozen times gave me a chance to touch and feel the parts of her that I don’t usually interact with. In any boat hull shape makes all the difference in the world. So other than her rudder and propeller, which I can control, we are completely at the mercy of her designer and builders for how she moves through the water.

Diving upside down and following her lines with my bare hands I felt her sweep and understood why she was so much at one with the sea. Where her hull joins her keel lies a narrow curve, as smooth as the curve of your lover’s neck where it meets their jawline. Through this tactile exploration I found some flaws, areas where her skin wasn’t quite perfect, places where a little, or even a lot, of love might be needed. I know where they are now. She whispered to me with no sense of guile, here are my flaws, will you still love me unconditionally?

Any representation, be it a painting or a technical drawing, only serves to objectify the artist’s passion. True passion comes from that ephemeral collusion of the spiritual, physical, and fantastical that causes us to fall in love. Picasso, despite his skill, can’t tell you who his lover was. Not really. Nor could any technical drawing substitute for the frisson I felt running my hands along Aleta’s undersides. Like I said, I’m deliriously, physically, and anthropomorphically in love with our boat.

*that’s you bunny!