Imperfect Passage: A Sailing Story of Vision, Terror, and Redemption by Michael Cosgrove
This is a great book and a thought-provoking story packed with humorous witticisms. Make no mistake about it, this book is an emotional rollercoaster ride.
I was 32 years old and my wife Jane was 28 when we went over the horizon on our own homemade 46-foot sailboat, Dursmirg. We only had one regret….we didn’t leave sooner. We fulfilled our dream many times over and our adventures generated four books.
Michael Cosgrove’s fast moving book awakened many unforgettable memories.
Imperfect Passage is worthy of more than five stars.
Excerpts:
Playing golf at eighty is not an attractive picture. I had played with some octogenarians before, so I was familiar with how that goes. Here’s a bit of science for you: men in their eighties are weak and slow.
At sixty, it dawned on me for the first time that longevity wasn’t so much a concern as the quality of life I would be experiencing in the years to come. The picture of myself doddering in a wheelchair with oatmeal dripping off my chin scared the hell out of me. Over and over in my head, I heard: “Boy, you only have fifteen, maybe twenty years left
Sheehy hadn’t bothered to write about the eighties, or perhaps that she simply couldn’t come up with a snappy phrase for them, basically said it all. The “Easy Eighties?” I think not. How about the “Aching Eighties.” The “Ehh, Sonnyboy Eighties.” The “Amen-It’s-Over Eighties.” Have to write those down and send them to Sheehy for her inevitable sequel, The Final Passage. I bought the damn book anyway and started taking notes:
I no longer needed to perform for others; I would answer only to myself. My new mantra would be, “Think young, stay young.” If you’re not busy living, you’re busy dying. Go out and live your dream.
“Why don’t they ever go?” “Lots of reasons. I’ve heard ’em all. We’re waiting for the kids to graduate. We’re waiting for Uncle Joe to die and leave us the inheritance. Best one I think I ever heard: we’re waiting for our cats to pass away.”
I’ve seen enough of both sides of the divide to know that money and material objects can destroy the soul. Opulence can wrench families apart, and even our middle-class values no longer sufficiently emphasize togetherness, family, neighbors, human relationships. By our standards, the Polynesians are poor, very poor. But, if you asked them if they feel poor, they would laugh and tell you they are not poor but happy, very happy, with the only way of life they have ever known. I have no statistics to support this supposition, but I am sure that, given the lower rate of stress, the Polynesian people live happier and longer lives than the folks back home in the Mecca of materialism, Orange County, California.
Each crossing got a little bit easier. I’ve always been a firm believer that you can’t do well what you don’t do often. It makes no difference what the activity—sailing across oceans, solving complicated math problems, or making love.
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