She might pass close to your route maybe once a week, a month, a year… sometime she’s so close, you can almost make out her flags; at others, she’s a flickering light in the dark distance.
All you can do is keep muscle and coal on hand down in the boiler, the decks swabbed; lines and flares at the ready in case she passes so close, you can read her welcoming semaphore.
Playing the long game requires patience, timing, restraint and dignity. You can’t be a Jake Barnes, though you may feel like one; no one respects a cuckold, anyway. You have to learn to embrace the good thoughts, and drive away the bad ones. The nights when she is probably with another, while you are alone in the wheelhouse, peering through fog and mist.
It requires dedication, and the knowledge that your ships may never pass close enough. Is this love? Sounds like it to me.
Paul Kelly does a much better job with his poker metaphors than I do with nautical themes.
– Steve Stav
