Uncharted Waters

A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are built for.
John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic, 1928

I am a ship going out into the open sea. This is the beginning of a great voyage into uncharted waters: a doctorate in philosophy. I have spent the last six years as an undergraduate, I wrote my honours thesis on Kierkegaard and love, late last year, in a mad rush, I managed to cobble together a thesis proposal for a scholarship application.

Now I have an office, a computer, a supervisor and the support of the university

And here I am...

Ready to embark on a new voyage.

But then I stop...

And realise this is not altogether a new adventure...

When did I begin this voyage?

When I returned to University study in 2003?

When I began to question my faith after the death of my daughter in 2001?

When I first began undergraduate studies as a naive young woman,

on the threshold of adulthood in 1995?

When I arrived in Australia as an awkard twelve year old in 1989?

When I began school as a four year old Dutch girl in 1980?

When I was born into a loving family in 1976?

Was it when I wrote my honour's thesis?

Fifteen thousand words of intense pressure

With the support of my husband and three children?

I can't claim a time and place.

There is a paperwork trail to satisfy a fastidious bureaucracy.

There are the musings of my own life

I can read my way through pages of journal entries,

I have a box of undergraduate essays,

I have a growing collection of books,
These are the credentials of my own journey.

The causes and results of sleepless nights and bleary eyes;

a restless mind and a troubled soul.

Perhaps that's why the image of the ship at sea endures.

I am not a landlubber,

But a sea-farer

And my restlessness reminds me

I need to be out on the ocean

My ship, my mind, is built for the open sea.