I am enjoying the irony of rain falling here in Portland, Maine, as it's snowing south of us in Massachusetts, but, Lord, they really need the snow in Greenland and so forth, as the ice melt is at record levels there!
As is true for most weekends,one of the Icelandic container ships is in port. This weekend it's the Lagerfoss--I love this about Iceland: they name their ships after waterfalls, and their airplanes with the names of Icelandic glaciers! Sitting here at my desk, I enjoy the movement of the containers from the yard on to the container ship. I wonder what might be in all those containers: most all of them simply arrived on the back of a truck or are transferred from the rail spur, but occasionally I see them loading automobiles into a container. Sometimes, tightly veiled objects that look like vats for a brewery, or shrink-wrapped, oddly shaped components that are too big to fit inside a container are loaded on top, strapped to a flatbed, along with the occasional boat.
I wonder just who knows the contents of the myriad, mostly uniform containers? Do the various equipment operators and deckhands ponder these mysteries? Do they wonder just how many dead bodies, or kilos of methamphetamine are headed for Europe? (Or, am I reading too many thrillers and mysteries?)
Did you know that container ships have a deck that, like a bifold closet door, opens up to allow several layers of containers to be stowed below decks? Having (mis-)perceived container ships as ungainly, top-heavy waddlers through the waves, my own sense of equilibrium was improved in seeing that a fair bit of the load was serving as ballast, below decks.
And how true of life...we all need some ballast to rely on, as we negotiate the heavier seas of life. Faith, faith in something vastly bigger and more permanent than myself, outside of myself, helps give me a sense of stability.
May fair seas, following winds, and stable ballast be yours!
D.
