In his book First You Have to Row a Little Boat: Reflections on Life and Living (Warner Books, 1993), Richard Bode presents a thoughtful, lesson-packed story of his youthful adventures along New York’s Great South Bay.
Reflecting back on his life lived on the open water, Bode passes on timeless advice that relates as much to sailing as it does to decisions we make and actions we take every day.
As a boy Bode took an interest in sailing. He pursued the sport and was surprised one day when a captain he had befriended sent him out into the ocean on a boat with no sails.
A Story About Finding Your Way
“First you have to row a little boat,” the captain told him, giving him the first of many valuable pieces of advice.
So Bode rowed the boat around the bay and began to learn the ways of the water, without focusing on a mast. From this he learned patience and that starting small was the safest, most effective way to accomplish his goals. Eventually he graduated to sail boats.
With the help of a generous uncle, Bode bought himself a blue sloop when he was a teen. He had taken to a few sailors and yard workers around the bay, and through them he taught himself how to sail. Without knowing it at the time, his mentors were also teaching him how to navigate the sometimes choppy seas of life.
In a manner similar to Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s in Gift from the Sea, Bode uses sailing as a metaphor for all of life’s trials and tribulations as well as its triumphs.
In a chapter titled “Fogbound” Bode gets caught in a swath of fog so thick he can’t see the stern of his own boat. He writes:
"I had no idea where I was heading, but in that dim, bewildering world I believed my only salvation was to keep moving, moving somewhere, moving anywhere, even though my sense of direction had deserted me." (p. 98)
But, with some advice from his captain friend, Bode realized that constant movement is not always the best choice in sailing or in life. He writes:
"I am sorry for those individuals who are unsighted, but I am sorrier still for those sighted people who have lost their bearings, for they are truly blind. Unable to see, they steer without purpose, without direction ... Whenever I feel myself slipping into that hopeless state … I remember the words of the captain, uttered so long ago, and I let go of the tiller and head up into the wind." (p. 105)
Universal Lessons
Bode wittingly uses his personal experiences to weave a story about his life with his blue sloop into a telling memoir about the human experience. The author uses simple prose as he describes difficult periods of his youth, each not without a moral to the end to its story.
Bode takes those lessons into his adult life, and, when watching his son sail a small craft haphazardly around a beach, he resists his urge to correct his son’s untidy navigation skills. In doing so he lets go of regrets he has of his past and plunges wholeheartedly into his present life.
First You Have to Row a Little Boat is a book for readers of all walks of life, in all phases. The sailor’s reflections speak those who navigate land and sea.
Review copy details:
First You Have to Row a Little Boat (ISBN 0-446-67003-0)
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