Our favorite game on board is Dixit. I am not a paid fan of it, it is my genuine opinion that this board game ( pun intended ) is perfect to play while sailing. It consists of a set of cards - images depicting certain emotions, states, actions, archetypes, personas through surreal imagery, dream-like logic, fairytale visual narrative. They look like taken from a dream, from a myth. Winged horses in the forest, open cages with butterflies coming out, dead trees holding flowers, spirals, open crests, bejeweled jungles, starry skies, monsters and angels. They bring to mind magical realism, paintings of Salvador Dali, psychoanalysis, childhood. Playing it flexes the imagination.
How does it work exactly? Each participant receives five cards. One person has to come up with a category or a word that sums up one of their cards - they put the chosen one on the table. Other participants have to present their cards they think are adequate to reflect the word the initiator used. The trick is for the person who gave the idea to get at least one player to guess their card. If everybody gets it - the riddle was too simple, if no-one does - it was way too niche, too personal. Hence - no points. You have to find the sweet spot between what is an obvious association and what can be read only by some people in the room.
The master of the game is someone who can understand how other people think - will they go the easy way or the hard way? Do they like to tease? How does their mind work? What do they see when they think about love, death, politics, archetypes? This game is group therapy disguised as fun. It’s a great way to get to know each other, to have quick insights. What I love about it is a fact that it is not only about intellect but also your gut feelings, intuition. When you spend a lot of time together on the boat it is a perfect bonding game and perfect commentary on mental state of the crew. And how that looks right now? Very appropriately, it is in a flux.
Some people instead of gazing at the stars, started to play Mortal Kombat on the x-box player. Some people read frantically to finish all the books they prepared for the rally. I am already mourning the end of the journey and getting arrival fever. I am starting to get stressed about e-mails waiting for me in my inbox, what happened when I was gone, what did I miss. I fear the amount of attention I will have to give and receive - what used to be normal before, now is terrifying for me. I don’t want to lose my precious calm, my ocean chill, the depth of my free thought.
We’re out of coffee and alcohol ( we have 5 cans of beer and 2 bottles of bubbly for the finish line - that’s all ) so people have nothing to work with except their pure, sober selves. With the end of holiday looming near it is not a very relaxing situation anymore. Games like Dixit help reduce the tension, take mind off the fears and stress. We play like mad.
According to our calculations we’re going to arrive in 2-3 days and I feel like it is way, way to soon. I would need another half a year to cleanse last years strain off my brain cells. But I am also a bit tired of myself - I haven’t been so close to my own thoughts for a long, long time. Now it is almost too close. Me, myself and I all the time. Come on, give me something to do!
I thought I will figure out my life during this journey ( poor, silly me), but things just got a lot more tangled then before. The answers are a riddle to me, mysterious and full of hidden meanings like a Dixit card. I am trying to guess what my subconscious it telling me. Is it that easy? What do I mean? Is my mind playing tricks on me? No solid ground around, no solid ground inside. I think everyone on boat have this disease and by the look on their faces they’re examining their own mental Dixit cards all through the day.
The sea never promised us a definite answer. It promised to flood us with ourselves and it did. Now we have to figure out how to carry this ocean of ours to land and keep it ready for us to stare at or dive in, when we need inspiration.
And we really had a glorious morning today - pinkish and violet skies contrasted with clouds white like icebergs, the sun was blood orange red, the water glimmered with gold and rose colors and there were ( I do not kid you, promise) two rainbows in all that at the same time. I realized I don’t need solutions. I need perspective. I need to remember about the bigger picture. The ocean in me will always give me a new horizon, a new spectacle of light and shadow. I should just trust its ever changing flow and the notion that beauty is something you don’t find and have. It just comes to you sometimes and you have to learn how to let it go. Only then it will not be afraid to come back again.
Karolina