Diarist: Sea Letters

Letters. What we say out loud, but written. I'm fascinated by letters that capture a specific moment of being; when we sit down to write a letter we pour our presence onto the page. We send a piece of our minds, our bodies in an envelope or a satellite wave.

My Diarist: Sea Letters series explores the letters and emails I sent while working as a merchant mariner. I reflect on who I was, what my priorities were, and how I've grown since then.

This letter is from when I returned to work in August 2016 after losing my focus, picking up and moving across the country with no plan, and resuming a more stable life on the ship. Looking back, I realize that my "home" was not stable--I didn't feel safe anywhere. The ocean, work, the ship was the most constant part of my life, and it was usually on the other side of the planet from me.

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01 August 2016

Dear Diane,

Hello! It has been so long since we have really spoken! I hope you are enjoying working in Diego Garcia. I remember you said it was much better than your last job. Will you be able to pull a [name redacted] and keep going back? That would be awesome. Honestly just being able to not worry so much about when or how or where you’ll be going back to work is such a relief. What else has been going on? Have you been doing your real estate readings? How are you feeling? You need to tell me more about the you and [name redacted] situation also. l hope you guys are doing alright. But if he keeps being a freak ya gotta put him in line ma’am!

I’m doing very good. I was off for, like, five months. I did do some Washington State Ferry jobs and an Alaska gig but that was not really working so much. I mean, it was and I made like 5,500 dollars for 2.5 weeks of work haha so that is actually not bad at all haha.

So there was a lot going on. I don’t even know what I’ve told you of any of it, and it seems like so long ago since I got off. So maybe I will just go ahead and try to tell you all of it in a chronology, probably a multiple-email deal. Give you something to read at least haha.

Right now I’m doing well. I’m making sure to take time everyday to refocus and take care of myself. Also reading and writing a lot. We’re at SUNY Maritime until next Saturday, so I did get to see my grandma and uncle, and my friend Nicholle, and Meaghan came down from Connecticut. And I feel good and capable at work, and am enjoying it. I’m meditating every day and working out for 10 minutes at lunch, making progress on a poetry chapbook I wanted to write (while breaking from some of my other ongoing projects, I think it’ll be good to finish something soonish instead of continuing to turn my wheels on huge things that are no where near done, just as an encouragement and because I set a goal to finish something this year). The third is really nice and we are friends. I have some down times but am dealing with it.

So…. I got off this boat in Cape Verde in …. February. On the 25th. That was a long time ago. I was a mess. I was so stressed from work, and depressed majorly. I was blaming it on hating work, and hating myself. I really thought the ship was what was causing me to feel that way, and as soon as I got off I would be so much better, all fixed. In Cape Verde on the night I signed off, we were in a hotel. I got really drunk with the crew and blacked out. I was super ashamed about that. I actually had a mental breakdown with [name redacted], who is a good friend. She comforted me and in our connection she actually had no idea how to tell me I was okay except to kiss me so we actually made out a little (PLATONIC) and took me to my hotel room. The next morning my flight was scheduled. I was still drunk at the airport with all the crew that were flying out. THE FLIGHT WAS CANCELLED. So we went back to the airport to wait, no word was given, they don’t even speak english in Cape Verde, I was drunk and then hungover, so ashamed of myself and my actions the night before, afraid if I slept in my room/bed I would be left if the flights were rescheduled so I was just passed out in the lobby armchair waiting and hating and being anxious….Then I finally sobered up and just was so wrung out and filled with anxiety. All I wanted was to be home, home being not in the Cape Verde airport, home being New York, home being the little getaway airbnb up in Beacon that I’d gotten and planned to live in for the next two months to be away from the city, to have time to think and write, home being I don’t even know because I honestly felt homeless. So that’s how hopeless I was during all of that travelling. The other guys didn’t understand why I was so anxious about it—there’s nothing you can do but wait. But I was just a mess.

So that took the airline three days, including a move to another two islands, an all-inclusive resort (that did calm me a bit haha free booze too), and running through the airport in Lisbon to make our original connection (including going out of customs, rechecking in, going in through security and customs, all in 45 minutes…. oh brother) and landed in Newark finally on the 28th or 29th.

So that was that. I was finally “home” or something. I went to my grandma’s for the night, and to my storage unit to swap out my stuff for Beacon.

(to be continued…. haha hopefully it gets less depressing/ridiculous but U SHALL SEE MA’AM!)

So now it is 0651 (I try to get up at 05/0530 so in the mornings I can shower, meditate, write in my journal, eat/drink coffee, write a few haiku, read “Some of the Dharma” (about Buddhism) by Jack Kerouac, and write a letter, also sometimes do a spurt on the rowing machine) I go to work at 0700, work until 1730 with half hour breaks at 1000, 1130, and 1500.

So hope you are doing well! Will write more soon, and hope to hear from you too.

Love, Doe Kasta

:P

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Pops from SUNY MARITIME

7/21 (Sunrise)

*

Sun, just risen, peaks

under northern arm-sprawl

of the Throg’s Neck

*

From even dawn, the

stream is steady flowing

cars and trucks

*

But the glossy green of

sound sits—soaks,

unmoving

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