Shipping Out – David Foster Wallace
Progym: Narrative
As a person who loves to be around water, it is no surprise that one of my favorite places to be is a cruise ship. The warm weather, smell of the sea, and the slight swaying of the ship. All of these point to relaxation. The first time I got on a cruise I was only around 10 years old. I remember going on board, seeing all the bright lights in the indoor portion of the ship. It didn’t feel like a cruise, it felt more like a hotel; a long hall with doors on both sides. About 30 minutes after getting to my room, I could feel the ship start to move. I walked out onto the balcony, I could hear the sound of the seagulls chirping. I felt the warm breeze of air push up against me as I looked down to see the bottom part of the vessel slowly slicing through the water. There was a peacefulness in all this. I sat on the balcony for an hour with no specific purpose, no activity. It felt like the ship was taking me away from my world. I was quite literally getting away from everything. Wallace states that “Your troublesome capacities for choice, error, regret, dissatisfaction, and despair will be removed from the equation. You will be able-finally, for once to relax” (Wallace) This is one of the simple, yet unexplainable feelings of being on a cruise ship.