When I was a young woman, my friend and I sailed to Europe on an ocean liner.. We sailed out of Montreal down the mighty St Lawrence at the first spring ice break-up-in April. It was an exciting and hearty and embracing trip.
it took a week and we certainly enjoyed ourselves toughing it out on the stormy spring sea. As you know-those of you who have been on a ship- the ship resembles a micro cosmos.This fact automatically makes behaviors follow a certain pattern. One has to be reasonably friendly and reasonably polite and there is no doubt that shipboard behavior follows these rules if you want a good trip. The first meal is the crucial meal and the table you are assigned to and table mates with you will reflect the success of your life on board. Very quickly everyone takes on a persona. There is a lot of speculation, and overt observation of behaviors and attire. Friendships are cemented, cliques developed and couples watched for budding romances.As friendships and romances deepen, promises are made to always keep in touch and addresses exchanged which are rarely kept. .Where am I going with this? Frankly I am not sure except that I increasingly am beginning to feel a vivid Deja vieu, a feeling I am on an ocean liner again. The similarities are there. We are confined in a specific space-limited by our challenged mobility -so no escape. We all start on this journey with an accident, and our destination is all the same-" going home reasonably independent." We are dependent on the Captain of this ship who is the surgeon and the physio-first mate - who have the power to give us "bathroom privileges and other basic needs and the key to freedom-a "pass" outside and eventually going home. We are assigned to a table-wined [well not really wined] and dined and all our needs met by a cheerful dedicated staff who are ,poor things , on the same voyage-really very much like stewards on an ocean liner. Great efforts are made to be polite and accommodating under a rather difficult situation. Meal times in particular are trying and a sense of humour essential as our peculiarities are exposed-some of us talk too much-sometimes me-some of us are in ill humour and cross-sometimes me and sometimes some of us try to be the life of the table-also sometimes me-and of course sometimes some of us are seductive with the male staff-never me but definitley"J "who flirts outrageously with the cute male nurses in their shorts and nice long legs..What is the matter with me and everyone else is what I ask myself, exhausted at the end of each meal! Friendships are made and always speculations of an "Aberdinian" romance. A bit of a stretch of the imagination of course as this is the "senior section" and we also all are maimed in one way or another- but romance is romance.A few evenings ago at dusk while the big storm was raging outside, I wheeled myself hard up against the window and for a long time watched the lucky pedestrians struggling against the wind and rain.Another inmate in a wheelchair did the same and we both looked and wished to be out there. Then he spoke and talked about his youth when the Aberdeen did not exist and this was "his back yard"-his house was on the ridge opposite and we reminisced as people our age do.Finally we stopped and just looked with longing at the freedom of the pedestrians, wishing for those days when we walked with freedom -a long mutual communicative moment - a typical "Aberdinian" spark of what-romance?? well- at least a mutual bond of wistfulness. Sorry-this is the best I can think up about romance on the HMS Aberdeen-and it is more than enough.
