Though my experience as a mariner is limited, I've learned to appreciate the sound of a sail unfurling.

The roll and snap of canvas billowing in the wind resonates against my tympanic membranes, eliciting a sharp inhale as chills run outward from my core to my extremities. Blood swells from my lungs to my brain and muscles; I feel alive.

Yet I am daunted by the idea of floating untethered on an ocean so broad and deep that only stars and magnetism provide orientation. Waves and weather consume sailors regularly and tragically, yet only rarely is an individual at sea against his or her own will.

Desperate migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean, trafficked humans from the undeveloped world, they do not have the same choice of will. Some will never see their families or homeland again, and too many perish altogether. Yet here I am fantasizing about sailing.

It could be called a question of fear, but I'd prefer to call it a question of trust. I find it difficult to place absolute trust the timbers or metal of any man-made vessel against the unfeeling kinetic energy of Mother Nature. 

I suppose this means I must trust my own mettle. Trust that I've chosen the right sail, one that will fill and not tear. That I can grip the ropes which determine that sail's angle, that I will know just when and how far to turn the rudder. 

This trust sounds more and more like faith now, which can be a blind and blinding thing. But I know that the wind will howl and whip my sails when it chooses, and that sometimes the balance of pressure in the atmosphere will leave me adrift. 

So I'll call this surrender. Acknowledgment of the liberating idea that

"A fish does not swim; it is swum,"

and:

"A bird does not fly; it is flown."

Gliding along the water with nothing but buoyancy and a sail, I would find myself somewhere between fish and bird. 

I should learn to sail, if only to know this feeling of surrender.