Read Online In Search of Mary by Bee Rowlatt - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Bee Rowlatt
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excitement of joining her, here, and in the lines of the book.
Chapter Five
“In a Little Boat upon the Ocean”
The sun is dazzling, the whole sky is bright. The joy I feel as we slice through the clear waters is irrepressible like laughter. I am smiling away like an idiot. “Wow!” I shout, pointing out a large jellyfish. The muted response from the others indicates that this is a common and uninteresting sight. But I remember Wollstonecraft writing about them, I whip out the book and find the reference. She confusingly calls them starfish, adding:
They look like thickened water, with a white edge – and four purple circles, of different forms, were in the middle, over an incredible number of fibres, or white lines. Touching them, the cloudy substance would turn or close, first on one side, then on the other, very gracefully; but when I took one of them up in the ladle with which I heaved the water out of the boat, it appeared only a colourless jelly.
Her love of wildness and nature is clear. But I can’t help laughing at the idea of the great founder of feminism hoiking a jellyfish out of the sea and prodding at it like a kid.
Leaving the harbour, we look back to Kragerø, and can just make out the figure of Ingvild behind the house we stayed inlast night. She waves from high up on the rocks. We wave back. I feel so intrepid I keep catching my breath. Gunnar brings out a paper bag full of cinnamon buns, spiralled with sugar, and we stuff them greedily into our mouths.
Leaving Kragerø is not plain sailing. You keep going for miles, past more and ever more islands, unsure which is mainland and which is not, at sea but not properly out at sea. Finally there is the last island, Jomfruland. In full factual mode and using no emotions whatsoever, Wollstonecraft reports, translating its name:
One of the islands, called Virgin Land, is a flat, with some depth of earth, extending for half a Norwegian mile, with three farms on it, tolerably well cultivated.”
No farms there today, just seagulls. I look one in the eye and wonder if its ancestor saw her pass by. With this stern outpost of land behind us, we are finally out and away from the reaches of the rocky coastline. It feels different. The swell is much deeper, the spray flies higher.
Anjava
is properly at work now, her gleaming sides dominate the water. Will is still in the buggy, wrapped up warm and dozing. I realize I’d completely forgotten about him, and guiltily sniff him to check the state of his nappy. All clear.
There is so much to see in every direction – the wind chasing the birds along the skyline, the myriad rocks and islands rising all around. The idea of these being the peaks of some dark, undersea mountains makes my guts lurch. I feel vulnerable, even in a Colin Archer, and I wonder what Wollstonecraft’svessel was like, as she sailed these spiky shores, past “straggling houses” on “shivering rocks”. She writes:
Though we were in the open sea, we sailed more amongst the rocks and islands than in my passage from Strömstad; and they often formed very picturesque combinations. Few of the high ridges were entirely bare; the seeds of some pines or firs had been wafted by the winds or waves, and they stood to brave the elements.
Always unconventional, Wollstonecraft is celebrating the wildness here: this land untamed and unaltered by mankind. She then adds herself to the picture:
Sitting then in a little boat on the ocean, amidst strangers, with sorrow and care pressing hard on me – buffeting me about from clime to clime.
Here she has something in common with Mick, who’s moved from examining the map to telling tales of love gone wrong. Mick keeps correcting himself: “My wife… my
ex
-wife” – about how they fell in love, they lived on boats, they travelled the world, they were together for twenty-three years. But she grew away, she wanted something else. “She said she wanted some time out. I should’ve noticed, I
Chapter Five
“In a Little Boat upon the Ocean”
The sun is dazzling, the whole sky is bright. The joy I feel as we slice through the clear waters is irrepressible like laughter. I am smiling away like an idiot. “Wow!” I shout, pointing out a large jellyfish. The muted response from the others indicates that this is a common and uninteresting sight. But I remember Wollstonecraft writing about them, I whip out the book and find the reference. She confusingly calls them starfish, adding:
They look like thickened water, with a white edge – and four purple circles, of different forms, were in the middle, over an incredible number of fibres, or white lines. Touching them, the cloudy substance would turn or close, first on one side, then on the other, very gracefully; but when I took one of them up in the ladle with which I heaved the water out of the boat, it appeared only a colourless jelly.
Her love of wildness and nature is clear. But I can’t help laughing at the idea of the great founder of feminism hoiking a jellyfish out of the sea and prodding at it like a kid.
Leaving the harbour, we look back to Kragerø, and can just make out the figure of Ingvild behind the house we stayed inlast night. She waves from high up on the rocks. We wave back. I feel so intrepid I keep catching my breath. Gunnar brings out a paper bag full of cinnamon buns, spiralled with sugar, and we stuff them greedily into our mouths.
Leaving Kragerø is not plain sailing. You keep going for miles, past more and ever more islands, unsure which is mainland and which is not, at sea but not properly out at sea. Finally there is the last island, Jomfruland. In full factual mode and using no emotions whatsoever, Wollstonecraft reports, translating its name:
One of the islands, called Virgin Land, is a flat, with some depth of earth, extending for half a Norwegian mile, with three farms on it, tolerably well cultivated.”
No farms there today, just seagulls. I look one in the eye and wonder if its ancestor saw her pass by. With this stern outpost of land behind us, we are finally out and away from the reaches of the rocky coastline. It feels different. The swell is much deeper, the spray flies higher.
Anjava
is properly at work now, her gleaming sides dominate the water. Will is still in the buggy, wrapped up warm and dozing. I realize I’d completely forgotten about him, and guiltily sniff him to check the state of his nappy. All clear.
There is so much to see in every direction – the wind chasing the birds along the skyline, the myriad rocks and islands rising all around. The idea of these being the peaks of some dark, undersea mountains makes my guts lurch. I feel vulnerable, even in a Colin Archer, and I wonder what Wollstonecraft’svessel was like, as she sailed these spiky shores, past “straggling houses” on “shivering rocks”. She writes:
Though we were in the open sea, we sailed more amongst the rocks and islands than in my passage from Strömstad; and they often formed very picturesque combinations. Few of the high ridges were entirely bare; the seeds of some pines or firs had been wafted by the winds or waves, and they stood to brave the elements.
Always unconventional, Wollstonecraft is celebrating the wildness here: this land untamed and unaltered by mankind. She then adds herself to the picture:
Sitting then in a little boat on the ocean, amidst strangers, with sorrow and care pressing hard on me – buffeting me about from clime to clime.
Here she has something in common with Mick, who’s moved from examining the map to telling tales of love gone wrong. Mick keeps correcting himself: “My wife… my
ex
-wife” – about how they fell in love, they lived on boats, they travelled the world, they were together for twenty-three years. But she grew away, she wanted something else. “She said she wanted some time out. I should’ve noticed, I
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