Splash Study

by Leigh Lucas

Hippocrates detailed the ailment, Darwin suffered it sailing to the Galapagos and Lawrence of Arabia on camel crossing sand.

Seasickness comes from confusion of the senses, a dissonance between expectations and actuality.

Get to the deck, eyes on the horizon

: I double down on avoiding anyone who might ask me how I’m doing, or who I suspect might care.

: Compulsively, and like a champ, I date. You wouldn’t believe how rarely death comes up.

This one is sweet, he speaks slowly, he thinks it’s dark that I’m researching seasickness. I resist the urge to pat his pretty head.

His father was an engineer in the Merchant Navy—that’s the direct translation to English, I don’t know what you guys call it—and his job was to make sure the motor never stopped. He traveled everywhere and saw the world. But mostly what he remembers is seasickness: You get dizzy in the beginning, but then you learn to cope.

Get to the deck and find the horizon. It will pass.