Life on a Bamboo Boat

It is Monday night, and I am nearly ready to climb into my bed and sleep, to get lost in pleasant and peaceful dreams, until morning light shines through my open window to welcome me to Tuesday. But this is not a typical Monday night, and it is not actually my own bed in which I will sleep; nor is it my own window through which the sun will shine in the morning. In fact, the bed and the window belong to a beautiful bamboo boat, which has docked beside a tiny waterside village to rock silently through the night while its passengers enjoy dreams that float in on the breeze.

We boarded our boat at noon today, when the sun was high in the sky and the air was hot and sticky. As we waited, sweating and starving, for the boat to leave the harbor, we wondered if we’d made a mistake in thinking that life on a bamboo boat would be a romantic way to end our time in India together. But we were not to be disappointed. In no time, our bellies were fuller than they needed to be and we were sitting contentedly in our bamboo chairs as our beautiful bamboo boat treaded Kerala’s backwaters, a light breeze catching our hair and cooling our skin.

We placed books on our laps, but we spent no time reading them. Instead, we talked. We talked about home, about India, about finding a way to feel at home in India. We talked about the past we have shared as parents and child, about the futures we are all creating, about the wonders of the present moments. And then, we were silent. But our books remained unopened as we sat on that bamboo boat and simply let the world go by, and I was reminded that one can never, ever tire of looking at beautiful green palms set against a perfectly clear, blue sky. And as the sun disappeared beneath the beckoning horizon, and the stars began to dot the sky above, I was reminded that one can never, ever tire of looking up into a black night, waiting for stars to appear, one-by-one, as if by magic. Oh, it was beautiful.

Now, although I’m ready for bed and my eyelids are growing heavy, I’m slightly afraid to go to sleep because once I do, that morning sun will shine through my window too early, too soon, and, once it does, we will have to bid goodbye to our life on this bamboo boat. I wish I could stop time, make the world stop spinning, while I soak in the beauty of these moments on the bamboo boat. But time will not stop; the world will continue spinning. And tomorrow morning I will step onto dry land with wonderful memories to sustain me while I wait for life’s next adventure.

I may never have another adventure like living on this beautiful bamboo boat, but surely by now I know that life consists of one great adventure after another. So, goodbye to life on the bamboo boat, and hello to whatever life has to offer me next.