During my three floating ship years, untied to the shore and ever moving on mostly smooth seas, touching and leaving land continously, like in a strange love-hate relationship, I struggled with my deep feelings of rootlessness, with anger, anxiety, solitude, pain. Beside island exploration and a small circle of good friends with whom I shared my taste for nature, music, books, wandering, wine and cheese, my support came from the time I spent alone, either walking, swimming or lying outside on the deck at night, enjoying the salty warm breeze, the wave spray and many books. Everything was changing and still staying the same.
It happened then that I became kind of aloof, cutting myself from the pettiness of the so called ship life, its merciless inconstancy that alternated kind and mean gestures supported by a main background of rage, solitude and indifference, palliated in all possible ways. Ship life looked to me like a fearful social experiment, that I was part of, living it and observing it at the same time, which made take a step back so I can watch myself playing on that turbulent stage. This way I learned not to worry too much, as many passengers were constantly complaining, just like many crew members, for a definitely different set of reasons, ranging from food and cabin quality to the colors of the walls or the various accents of people. But we got rid of the passengers at the end of every cruise, which was not happening with the bulliyng colleagues and bosses. I started watching myself from a distance even when I was passing through my worst moments, to the point of asking for my pictures to be taken when I was disfigured. In other words, I learned to take it easy the hard way.
When people tell me now that I look so easy going and unstressed under any given circumstances, I smile to my secret thoughts. There's nothing permanent and worrisome in life, except death and its causes. All the rest is like cruising from port to port, embarking and disembarking feelings, people and objects.
