I’m learning how to sail. Or more accurately, I’m learning how not to capsize. That’s what goes through my mind when I’m crouched in the boat’s tiny cockpit, holding onto the rope for the sail – I mean the mainsheet for the mainsail. I’m desperately wondering if I push the tiller away from me or towards me, tighten the sail or loosen it, towards or away, tight or loose, and then: tack, duck, tack, duck and suddenly I’ve switched directions, madly scrambling under the swinging boom (yes, it’s already clipped me in the head several times) and hoping that when the tack is over, I’m not barrelling towards the rocks on the shoreline.
When we first moved to Abu Dhabi, four years ago, I promised myself that I’d learn to sail. I was sure that there would be sailing schools along the shoreline of the Corniche because it’s perfect for the novice sailor: no surf, warm water, consistent breeze. Sailing schools were hard to find, however, probably because sailing boats would just get in the way of the weekend jet ski warriors. It’s only now that I finally have the tiller in my hands.
With a few other women, I signed up for these lessons to prove to myself that even at my age, I could learn something new – something out of my comfort zone. Think about it: as we age, there comes a point where learning new things doesn’t happen very often. Maybe you get a new project at work but it’s likely to be a version of what you’ve done before. Or maybe you move to a new place, but then don’t you start recreating what you’ve done in other places?
The cow-path of routine can be seductive: we all like to know where we’re going, and when, and how to get there. But as one of my sailing partners asked, when is the last time any of us learnt something so new that it was a little bit frightening? And won’t it be satisfying to conquer that fear, as we gain (even a little) mastery of this new thing?
They say that stretching the brain can be a good way to ward off some of the mental erosion that comes with ageing. I’ve read that even doing the crossword puzzle regularly can help stave off dementia or Alzheimer’s.
I remind myself of that fact as I attempt nautical knots, which are just puzzles done with rope, I think. “The squirrel comes out of the hole, goes around the tree, and back in the hole,” says the sailing teacher, and voila, a perfect bowline knot.
My squirrel comes out of the hole, apparently drives off to Yas Mall, sees a film and eventually meanders back. “Let’s try that one again,” says the sailing teacher. My knots are abysmal, but my brain is getting a great workout.
The French novelist Colette, who knew a thing or two about ageing gracefully, wrote that being astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly. There is a moment on a sailing boat– if you’re an experienced sailor, I suppose you get a long unbroken string of these moments – when the tiller steadies, the sail catches the wind, and all I hear is the water against the hull as the boat skims forward.
It’s the joyful expression of geometry in motion: if you angle the sail here as the wind comes from there, the boat goes one way. If you angle the sail differently, you’ll change direction. For that one moment, I am astonished and not just because I’m skimming rather than capsizing. I’m astonished by an almost dizzying connection to history: from ancient Polynesian explorers, to the pearling boats of the Gulf, to the high-tech yachts of the Volvo Ocean Race, the technology of sailing boats may have changed, but the basic premise – harnessing the wind’s power with a piece of fabric – has not.
I’ve no plans to sail around the world, but by the end of the year, I swear I will be able to tack without panicking and maybe even get that wretched squirrel around the tree and back in the hole.
Deborah Lindsay Williams is a professor of literature at NYU Abu Dhabi. She is the author of The Time Locket, a novel that she wrote as Deborah Quinn
