The Last Few Days
10.04.2017 - 14.04.2017
We ate fries that evening. It didn’t feel like we were back. It felt like we’d stay for a few days, and then go off again. Everyone went into a kind of mourning state. A lot of people gave school the finger, because enjoying the last days was more important. I’m one of them.
The red and blue sponsored sails came aboard, and we started to take the old ones off. The squaresail had already been taken down a few days before, and the yard looked bare. Tuesday was a school day, with a spontaneous “let’s sleep in the salon” party. Everyone ran downstairs to get their stuff, mattresses were dragged to the tables and cushions laid on the floor. Music on loud, let the pillow fight begin. These are the moments I love, impulsive ideas that make everyone happy in the moment. The crew and teachers had all gone out, but Pascal had stayed to babysit, and pooped the party. Sadly everyone listened, didn’t just wait for him to go to bed and sleep there anyway. His authority is simply an illusion, it was 33 against 1 in the end. But most of us aren’t rebels, and to sleep there with two or three isn’t much fun. So we ended up singing and dancing, before all returning to our own beds.
We were allowed to sleep there the next evening, but the thrill had gone. I did do it, though.
Yesterday we filled in the same thing as in Amsterdam, for research about how SaS influences us. In the afternoon sponsors and ex-sassers came by. They told us how depressing coming home’d been for them. That it got better after the summer. Each and every one of them. But also how to get through it. They did the same, yet not completely, so we exchanged stories, also of the shit we’d done against the rules. And, which of last year’s rumours were true? We might be the bleakest year of SaS, when it comes to breaking the rules. But we had a f*ck*ng amazing time.
Now it’s Friday, and we have 24 hours to go. Everyone’s packing their bags, the walls are bleak once more (that's my cabin up there, in the process of packing (it wasn't always that messy - not always)). The nets where we always hung our fruit and the lines from which we hung the bananas were just taken away, leaving an empty space behind. All I can think is: F*ck. It’s almost over. What am I going to do? There’s no stopping it. As I read in Shantaram, sometimes we have to surrender first, in order to win. Just let go and flow with the current, go wherever the wind takes you. But how? I don’t want to. But I have to. Next year another group will call this ship home, experience the journey of a lifetime. We’ll be the ones throwing the mooring ropes loose in October, and the ones coming to the ship in April, telling our stories. Year after year the body of memories will deteriorate until only the bones are left, our diaries the scraps of flesh that still cling on. I’ll say, “I sailed on a tall ship for six months when I was fif- and sixteen. Gosh, what a life that was.” I might be living in a Volkswagen camper T1, or sailing around the world. Perhaps I’ll be climbing Everest, or horse trekking through continent after continent. But I won’t rot away in an office building, go college-work-family, like so many do. I want to live, see every country in the world. Live with as little money as possible, and in the end perhaps without any at all. Change the school system, together with all the others that want to do so. “You say you want a revolution, well we’d all love to see the plan,” The Beatles sang. I’m going to make that plan.
School at Sea might almost be over, but I have a life ahead of me. And I’m going to make it count.
