They have a boat here, an antique sailing dinghy of curious design – traditional perhaps? We decided to take it out – if we did well, we thought, we might even sail it along the coast to town. But whether or no, we made a promise to each other not to become angry with each other, to shout rude words. All to no avail. At first, we didn’t appear to be doing too bad, even tho’ we didn’t really have control over the sail, fixed up in a rudimentary gaff rig, but it was soon obvious that the initial success was only because we were going where the wind wanted to take us. Any attempt to head back was simply ignored. Not that we were being thrust into physical danger, as the water was never more than 18 inches deep, but out of the frustration our somewhat ludicrous situation engendered came anger, directed at the elements, the boat, + finally, one another. I have heard other sailors ranting + raving, + been upset myself at their loss of control + dignity. For the first time now, however, I can understand that rage. All our efforts did nothing to bring us back to base. Val reviled me for my passivity – I railed at her for her furious + useless activity. To make things worse, the tub was leaky as well as difficult to manoeuvre – in the end we were brought to the ignominious final solution of climbing out of the thing + dragging it back to shore. We were thoroughly disgusted with each other + ourselves, but those emotions soon faded, fortunately.
We whiled away the rest of the day. I am reading Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”. I thought it began splendidly, but it lost its way, or I lost mine, as it became enmeshed in Catholic dogma. Over our meal, we smoked a little + chatted with Alan, an acquaintance from last night. He is pleasant enough, but rather a bore. Which is one of the problems – one craves company, but so often finds it unsatisfactory. But we got nicely stoned, which was at least some compensation for the evening.
Yet another of those incidents when, in retrospect, all I can do is hang my head in shame. I can picture it now: Val trying to get the thing to do something, while I did what I frequently do in times of difficulty, which is simply to give up. No wonder it lead to a row (as in argument; actually, some oars might have been a good idea.) But of course I was able to resort to chemical stimulation.
