Now before you launch into your best Christopher Cross impression, that’s not quite what I mean. However, after a little thought, perhaps it could be considered less literal and more symbolic. When I was little, I had this handkerchief. It had a little sailboat on it with a patched up sail. If memory serves me, it also had a duck in the boat – much like Donald Duck…but not quite.

Now I had it folded up neatly in my drawer amongst my girl things for years and years. I never once used it to blow my nose; I liked it too much. I thought a lot about that little boat nestled in among the reeds at a softly drawn shoreline. I wondered what it would be like to take that boat out past those reeds and beyond the handkerchief. I imagined all sorts of things and in a way, it represented freedom for me as I had a difficult childhood and one of the ways I escaped was into my imagination.

I still do that, by the way, I day-dream constantly.

Anyway, that scene on that little piece of square cotton always had me wondering what it would be like elsewhere and I often wished I could simply pick up and wander off into an adventure. Now that I’m no longer 9 years old, I realize that I can do that. I have the means and the ability – I just lack the confidence to make the choices that I need to.

I’ll make those choices soon and although there is no wind in my sail, I can see the windline from where I sit, the genoa is luffing and the sheets are loose. I am minding the boom. My rudder is pointed east; all I have to do is hoist up the anchor and get past those reeds.

Soon. Very soon I will set sail – head to wind.