My world began in the middle. Right, smack in the middle. It began the last day of grade four when my mum looked at the summer calendar and saw Hugh`s soccer camp and Trevor`s learn how to make a robot camp and nothing for me.
“Emma,” she asked over chilli (a classic Grady meal) that night, "what are you doing this summer?”
I thought, and thought and thought. I was too old for the soccer camp, and the robot I`d made last summer had kept on pulling its own leg off voluntarily. So those were out. I shrugged my nine year old shoulders at my mum and turned my attention to a very interesting bunny shaped piece of meat I`d found. The conversation, in my opinion, was over.
The next day my mum came home with a smug smile on her face.
``Guess what honey?`` She said, sounding very pleased with herself.
``What mum...`` I said uninterestedly; I was busy acting out the ballet `Ophelia` with my barbies which was way more important.
"I found something for you to do this summer!"
I looked up then. ``Aaaaaw muuum, I don`t waaant to do anything.`` I complained.
"Of course you do," my mum said matter of factly, "now, want to know what it is?"
``Oookaay`` I said (there`s something about the age of nine that makes you elongate every vowel).
"You, my love, are learning how to SAIL!" She said excitedly, thrusting a blue pamphlet into my face. I stared at it blankly. Sailing? What was that? They had camps for that? It seemed like the most boring idea I`d ever heard of.
``And you’re doing it with Louise! Honey, isn`t that great?" My mum added happily.
I brightened. Louise was my best friend. My mind was immediately full of visions of her and me on a huge pirate ship armed with muskets and covered in bandanas, sailing the high seas. This could be okay, I thought to myself.
So at 9 o`clock on the morning of June 28th, Louise and I arrived at MacSailing at Jericho beach slathered in sunscreen and ready to be pirates. It took us about two seconds to realise, after we`d walked into our classroom, that there would be no pirates. In fact, it looked a lot like school. There was a whiteboard and our two instructors were drawing complex diagrams. In front of the board were three rows of plastic chairs filled with students our age who all had glazed looks on their faces. This, to an over imaginative nine year old, looked like complete hell. And, as the class commenced, it was. We learned all sorts of confusing names for everything: even the boat wasn`t actually called a `boat`. My head felt like it was going to explode. Finally, the instructor called Nick put down his pen and said `` Who`s ready to go sailing?” and the whole class erupted with cheers.
We followed Nick down to the water and there were our boats. And I realised I was scared. Like really scared. Like full on legs-shaking-lips-trembling-head-spinning scared. Louise and I got into our boat and pushed off from shore and we were suddenly afloat. I was the skipper and I clung to the tiller for dear life. The little sailboat was being bashed from side to side by choppy waves and the wind whipped and tore at my neatly tied ponytail.
Suddenly, everything calmed. A strong breeze caught our sails and we began to glide smoothly, like an ice skater across a frozen pond. The boat was flying across the water leaving a foaming wake as we travelled farther and farther from shore.
I felt so alive, all my senses were heightened. I could feel the coarse, grainy rope against my soft, spongy skin. I could hear the rush of the water against the side of the boat and the cackling and cawing of the talkative seagulls. And I could see. My eyes widened as I took in the beauty of the sparkling deep blue ocean surrounded by our towering rugged mountains and above the fluffy white clouds whisping lazily across the never ending sky. I felt so peaceful.
Out of nowhere a huge wave came crashing over the bow of the boat drenching Louise and me from head to toe. And I looked down at myself and I started to giggle, then laugh and Louise started to laugh and there we were-two little girls in a little boat in the middle of the gigantic ocean rolling in uncontrollable laughter. I was having the time of my life.
When it was time to go home I bounded out of the classroom towards my mum talking like a crazy person listing off everything I`d done that day. And I told her how I couldn`t wait for my class the next day.
How was I to know, at the age of nine, just how much sailing was going to become a part of me. I did camps every summer after that, Louise unfortunately didn`t have the passion that I did and chose basketball camps instead. But I pushed on, after all the camps were done I still kept sailing, racing my little boat all year long, loving the rush of the water below me and the thrill of crossing the finish line.
Sailing is where I am comfortable, surrounded by people who care about what I care about. Sailing is where I’m happiest, where all my worries disappear. Sailing is where I’m free. And it’s where my world began.
