A step backward is a step forward, even, in time.  The move forward is not some blind push as though upon some giant storm cloud that hisses and blows and by one current threatens to blow us down.  No boat was right by the enforcement of one and only one single motion.  We move this way and that way, enforce or by better words encourage ourselves to move now here this way together, and now here that way at once.  Returning each time to each ourselves was the trick, the secret behind the routine that abides by the law of the guide.  To grow from each day as though it were the first day, even reeling and not quite sound of mind we must stay true by the North Star for it shall guide us to the next local calm.

On the West the sun was setting a few hours ago, and now it is cold.  We were shivering but we always knew as we know now the sun will rise on the East side of us, starboard, probably.  In another few hours' time the first sunlight will hit, the radiance in beams that shines warmth onto our face, cold and frozen though it might be for just this moment when the stars are out shining terribly bright and sharp to rewind our focus back to the pure state of being, in precision.

The slow move of the hand of the watch.  Tick-tock, the clock used to say.  We move forward not by blood and only sometimes through the drops of sweat the way was made.  Why?  What is this toil but the proof of work, or traversal, that is overcoming, which is the query to victory.

No moment was ever stayed for its being of pain and loss but those that truly matter.  We never lost a single battle for the war was always won through its having already been won whether this way turned out or that way.  The war was within ourselves and never outside, the guru was wont to tell us.  It is true to an extent but the pain and toil tease us and claim we have lied to ourselves, the world outside is so much greater.

We are still on the ship.  We never left the ship, could you recall stepping onto the same ground?  Do you recall deciding to return to the old?  But don't we all remember we revel in the state of uncertainty, of the novel, of the yet having had happened?  We are on the verge for we believe as we have always believed in this is Frontier.  Nothing was settled and nothing will ever be fully settled.  On sunny calm days we should have a picnic on the deck or whistle at the mysterious sea birds or fish with our ridiculous lines to laugh amongst ourselves with beers and lager and fine mysterious wines.

Gee-wiz, we would say, here we are still.  We laugh and hide our sadness at those who had gone before and departed too early.  But still we breathe the fresh air and are glad.  We lend our hand in help and secretively in kindness with our mates and we descend from the deck to check our bunks.

Freedom! One day, and soon!  We rejoice at the opportunity for something unexpected, and we shoulder the responsibility when the dimmed arrives in silence to rob us of our moments spent in laughter and wine with crackers and paintings and cartoons and tele-vision.  The moment on the deck is real, it is of grand Nature.  Never in the wilderness when we land shall we expect we have docked and left this boat.  This one here, this one on which I shall always sail.