Queen of the Slipstream

Van Morrison sings a song called "Queen of the Slipstream" that I just love. I'm thinking of naming my boat Queen of the Slipstream - but it's quite long for the stern of a boat, even if it's a big boat. Thoughts?

I was explaining what a slipstream was to a friend of mine back in March, when I was recovering back in Virginia. Chances are you've experienced one before. It's what cyclists or race car drivers experience when they get behind aother cycle or car and "draft" them. In this case, it's a powerful and highly sought after force that uses the other to both block wind ahead and use the "slipstream" to pull you ahead using much less energy.

In nautical terms its virtually the opposite. See, ususally being in the "slipstream" of another sailboat will only disrupt the very wind you are trying to capture and harness for your benefit. In racing terms it's called catching somebody's "dirty air". Not good.

There are times when the slipstream is all you want and times when it's the last thing you want. We were talking about my dream of getting this boat and what it ended up costing me. It seems that if we are to live with passion, for our dreams, we must be willing for them to cost us our lives. In so many ways, they always do. Perhaps not always literally, but certainly in essence. To follow a dream that is bigger than we are. That calls us to more than we think we can manage is always a recipie for suffering and sometimes even dying. This by no means implies that every person who lives for a dream is choosing a foolish dream - like taking a barrel over Niagra Falls - but that people who choose to live a life of passion and dreams are willing to open themselves up to suffering for that dream.

So much of our culture, even our Western Christian culture which happens to own the most dramatic example of suffering for passion, dreams, and love, seems hell bent on the avoidacne of pain and suffering. Clearly, nobody in their right mind would choose to suffer just for the fun of it, but it seems a life well worth living will encounter suffering at some level. In fact, a life lived only to avoid suffering seems rather dull, empty and miserable anyway.

Not sure why I'm pontificating about this all because of a Van Morrison song. Really, I think it just may be a love song anyway. "You have crossed many waters to be here". Who ever said that to love another wouldn't cost dearly and maybe even your life?