“We have begun! Last night, when we sailed by the stars along the Connecticut coastline on a trial run, I thought my heart would leap out into the sky. Overhead, all was velvety blue-black pierced with pearly stars and blending into shimmery black ocean. The smell of the sea, the feel of the wind on your face and your arms, the flapping of the sails—oh, it was magic!”
This quote initiates Sophie and her company’s voyaging. Manifestly, the drifting is mystic based on the portrayals of the ‘stars, ocean and the wind’; the night-time imagery enlarges the magnetism of sailing. Sophie is absolutely delighted because wandering is her passion. The germinal sailing unambiguously sways Sophie’s carnal sensations (smell and touch.)
“Out here, there isn’t day and night and then a new day. Instead, there are degrees of light and dark, merging and changing. It’s like one long stream of time unfolding in front of you, all around you. There isn’t really a yesterday or a day before, which is weird, because then what is tomorrow? And what is last week or last year? And if there is no yesterday or last year—or ten years ago—then it must be all now, one huge big present thing.”
Sophie’s portrayal of time intervals at sea is wholly transcendent. The time is constantly fluid unlike on land where time is pigeonholed into day and night. Sophie contemplates that while cruising, time is unbroken which would make it seem as though seafaring is equivalent everlastingly inhabiting and colonizing the present.
“We’re still on Grand Manan, and sometimes I am longing, longing to get under way again, and I am longing to see Bompie (Ulysses!), but at other times, I get hypnotized by this island and the life here and forget that time is passing or that I’ve ever lived anywhere else or have anywhere else to go.”
The spell-bounding implication of the island summarizes that Sophie is captivated by the island’s ambiance. The mesmerizing quality of the island impacts Sophie’s perception of the passing time. Evidently, Sophie is completely intimate with the island.
“I have never, ever, ever, ever in my whole entire life, seen my father cry. Once when I was about eight and I came home crying because I’d fallen off my bike, he said, “Stop it! You don’t have to cry about it!” And when I didn’t stop crying, he went berserk. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” He whipped off his belt and waved it at me. “You want some-thing to cry about? I’ll give you something to—” My mother came tiptoeing in the back door and when she saw that belt, she tried to grab it, but my father is a strong man and he snapped it back and hit her with it, right on her bare arm. Then he threw the belt on the floor and stormed outside.”
Cody’s reminiscence hints at his long-standing programming vis-à-vis ultimate manliness. His father’s engagements automated him to parade masculinity by being stoical. Cody’ father teaches him that men ought to be firmly aggressive based on how he responded when Cody’s mother endeavored to liberate him from his father’s battering.
