There is an amazing amount of sea travel here in South Florida. I see all sorts of vessels out on the horizon: sailboats, cigarette boats, tugboats and one time I saw a really funky sailboat cabin cruiser combination that reminded me the boat Monet used as his floating art studio.





Tonight two freighters shared the horizon off Delray Beach. The above photos are from a distance and give very little in the way of really experiencing the ship.

 

This photo, however, is different. In this one we can almost see the crew.  We can imagine them going about their duties or interacting with one another down below. We can hear the different languages being spoken. It’s a very different life than most of us live. It’s a different world; one we may not think about very much. But our refrigerators and cars and sneakers and produce come to us on ships like these.

I recall John McPhee’s book Looking For A Ship which, according to McPhee’s website, is “an extraordinary tale of life aboard what may be one of the last American merchant ships.”

If you haven’t yet read McPhee, by all means, do so. “What John McPhee’s books all have in common is that they are about real people in real places.” (again, from McPhee’s website.)

My wish for you today is that you step outside of your busy schedule and hectic life and imagine the lives of other people in other lives all over the world. For the most part, regardless of geography or cultural mores, we’re all the same with similar desires for the health of our children, love that is real, and the stability of our economy. Despite what we may think, we’re not alone. We never were.

<*(((><

Copyright 2008 Diana Taylor
Photo credit: Diana Taylor, Delray Beach, Florida

For cut & paste:
http://www.johnmcphee.com/looking.htm
http://www.johnmcphee.com