OUT IN THE OPEN

There is regret. Always there is regret.
But it is better that our lives unloose,
As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light,
Break from an estuary, with their courses set,
And waving part, and waving drop from sight.
-- Philip Larkin

Until you return home your lives floated evenly down a current determined by the lay of the land and the banks constraining it. Suddenly the river ends and you find yourselves in an estuary. You still feel the tug of the flow that until recently sufficed to keep you moving. But now there are winds and tides to reckon with. Neighbours who speak in foreign tongues jostle you. You find friends and form flotillas. You learn how to hoist your sail, how to navigate, how to drop anchor. Slowly you earn your sea-legs. In the harbour are some grizzled sailors who bark advice at you. But you pay them little heed. You listen more keenly to the tales of voyagers from distant lands who speak of the fabulous Indies, of the Roaring Forties that you may have to brave, of the icebergs that may sink the best of you. You can feel the daily pull of the tides, and the salt smell of the sea is inescapable. 

When you leave, the harbour-master will give you a cachet of competence, but in the open sea it is your own true strength that will matter. Most of you will quickly fall into trade routes and head for well-known destinations. Some will explore a little but stay in sight of land. A few of you, more brave, will chart your own routes. There is so much out there! – not just the shores to the west where the streets are paved with gold, but high in the frozen north there's Greenland where I hear the sun never sets, and deep down under there's Tierra del Fuego where, I've been told, the Earth suddenly ends. 

So you must break free of this estuary now. Remember it with affection, come back once in a while (we'll bring out our best rum), but don't spend the rest of your lives at its edge. Bon voyage, my friend! May you sail true.