A small craft advisory is in effect for the triangle described by Point Conception, Santa Barbara (the island), and Point Mugu. Cold, southbound air is already accelerating past Conception then racing south and splitting into two streams as the flow finds its way past the bulk of San Miguel and Santa Cruz Islands. The offshore fork will continue south to worry Santa Barbara Island while the inshore branch will slot into the friendly sounding ‘Windy Lane’, just offshore of Santa Barbara (the city).
The Marina at Santa Barbara is a designated ‘safe harbor’ and craft are streaming in to seek shelter from the coming blow. Sailors check hatches, double sail ties, and add fenders as they double their dock lines in anticipation. As the other boats come in, the forty-three foot Beneteau, Tamsin, prepares to depart, seeking not shelter, but the shock of wind and wave. ‘Perfect Paul,’ the aptly named computer-generated voice behind the NOAA’s automated weather forecasts, predicts wind speeds in the ‘Lane’ from twenty to thirty knots with an eleven-foot swell at ten seconds; a bumpy ride.
Tamsin has a bent propeller shaft and, as a result, will exit under sail, a stressful proposition given the busy fairway. After careful consideration and lots of fretting, I cautiously ‘walk’ the ten-ton craft out of the slip and ease her into the finger before leaping aboard and quickly sheeting in the jib that has been made ready. Catching the still light breeze, Tamsin leans slowly over, then makes way, then steerage. I remember to breathe. A hint at the wheel and we begin to short-tack our way up and out of the harbor. Finally, clear of land and main sail set, Tamsin points to weather, quickens her pace, and begins the twenty-mile ferry to the island.
Soon the quartering sea builds, the hull pounding rhythmically as Tamsin shoulders each swell, rising on the frothy green faces, then succumbing to gravity and falling into the waiting troughs; never a rise without a fall. I settle onto the cockpit’s leeward bench facing aft, as is my wont for warding off seasickness, but doing little to enhance public safety, as I literally can’t see where I am going. To offset the risk of collision, every few minutes I stand and perform a complete 360-degree sweep, always making sure to bend and check under the jib for hidden traffic.
This is our last journey together. There is a warrant for my arrest, and in four days time, we will part at the dock. I will lock the hatch and simply walk away and abandon Tamsin (and myself) as I remand into the criminal justice system. I have done great harm and for that there are consequences. Now, it is I who shoulder into and climb a green wall, a wall of fear and panic, before succumbing to gravity and plummeting into despair, no rise without a fall, a rhythmic cycle, one where all closely held truths are now revealed as pure illusion; one where friendships and relationships weaken and collapse like cheap scaffolding.
I am sailing, mind in free fall, conscience searching frantically for solid footing, finding none. What IS real, what purpose is life now? These once philosophical questions take on serious import as I desperately seek meaning. Standing, I scan the horizon (making sure to look under the jib). Tamsin rises and falls, lifting with each swell and slamming into each trough, stopping short, cycling anew. Clipping into the overboard line I tour the forward deck.
On Tamsin, the lifeline is rigged amidships, waist high and bar tight. If I fall, then I will fall on deck and not in the water. In the water, I would be dragged until drowned. Never mind those that claim you can claw your way back onto deck, you cannot.
“Just unclip and be done with it,” whispers the voice in my head.
I reach around the mast to clip in my second tether before releasing the first. All is well forward and I return to my aft-facing seat but now I stay clipped in lest a sea comes over the side, flooding the cockpit, and taking me.
“What is real, oh my god, what is real,” I say to no one as Tamsin slams down, “Gravity! Gravity is real, this slamming is real enough!” Each thudding impact sings the truth of it and I grapple the idea, something to cling to.
Einstein once said his happiest thought was of a man falling out a window. To fathom this, I run a thought experiment to see if I can find the source of his joy… Einstein was fond of thought experiments. Closing my eyes, I imagine another Tamsin, an interstellar Tamsin, coasting along through the inky abyss. Inside, the captain and crew (a cat), lie in a deep sleep, a sleep designed to carry them safely through their long journey.
On this Tamsin, the captain floats peacefully in a bag clipped to the wall, a halo of golden hair swirling slowly around her exposed head. Meanwhile, her first mate is curled into a ball and wafts through the cabin riding currents of circulating air. The pale cold light of an instrument panel is the only sign of activity in the quiet ship. Beneath this peaceful facade, lie batteries of sensors, all awake and actively monitoring for threats in the vast expanse where even now, an uncharted, icy moon draws close. This unyoked moon wanders, aimless and forlorn, between the stars, cast off eons ago by an unknowable calamity. In its long travels, the moon has met no other, and now, in its loneliness begins to gather the little ship in its gravitational embrace.
No alarms ring aboard the coasting ship as it slowly veers off course and gathers speed. No mass detection alarm sounds to wake the captain, for in truth, there is no such thing as a mass detector in free fall. The spinning gyro in the navigation system notes no change in direction as the small craft arcs from its carefully planned path. Likewise, the accelerometer needle reads zero even as the ship accelerates, faster and faster. Even this moon’s dusty surface conceals it from ships sensors as it absorbs and scatters light, defeating both LIDAR and RADAR instruments. Finally, the deeply frozen moon emits almost no heat and does not trip the ship’s infrared detectors. Faster and faster the little ship races towards its rendezvous wile inside everything remains quiet: the cat caroms gently off the instrument panel taking a new heading towards the galley.
The end comes suddenly as a new crater (the first in millennia) appears on the pocked surface. At the last instant, and far too late, the accelerometer notes a sudden change in velocity, a huge acceleration, but no sooner than noted, the device itself, ceases to exist, is reduced to dust.
The captain and her cat do not feel a thing. I will now be so lucky in my coming impact. In his thought experiment, Einstein imagines a man falling out a window and marvels that the falling man experiences no acceleration though clearly he is accelerating at thirty-two feet per second squared: one gravity. The ground is coming, and it is coming faster and faster. In other words, the man is in free fall. We take free fall for granted; the idea that a falling person experiences a sensation of weightlessness as they plunge. Einstein, however, paused to consider how curious this actually is.
Videos of astronauts floating weightless in space cause no surprise in us because that is simply how free fall works. A Tesla will crush you back into your seat as it rockets forward, yet, when you fall out the window, you feel no resistance at all (barring wind) as you accelerate towards the ground. This is odd! You should, right? You are, after all, accelerating, you should feel resistance, but you do not, and that is a paradox. This is Einstein’s happy thought. He has found a paradox. In science, paradox lets you know you are close to learning something about the universe, something approaching truth, something in other words, real, or at least closer to real. We could all use a little truth.
Einstein came to understand that space and time warp around massive objects. In fact, space and time are simply aspects, characteristics, of this gravity field. Orbits and ballistic paths are straight lines through four-dimensional space-time, and the falling man feels no acceleration because in warped space-time, the earth is racing up to meet him more so than he, to it. Running counter to sensory experience (and basic common sense), these revelations approach truth nonetheless.
Try this tomorrow morning. As you stand in the kitchen watching the coffee brew, feel your weight balanced on slipper-clad feet as you bear down on the earth. But, as you breathe in and take that first waking sip, allow the truth to dawn, that it is the floor pushing on you and in that realization, Einstein’s joy becomes your own. The floor is accelerating you at exactly one gravity, holding you in place, keeping you from progressing naturally, as is your tendency in warped space-time, deeper into the earth. In a gravity well, you need to accelerate to stand still. Put that in your pipe!
It is past time to stand and scan the horizon; all wind, waves, and sky. I turn on my collar against the cold, Tamsin is heeled over and the port rail is in the water. I ease the vang, depowering the main, and the boat flattens out. I will need to take a reef soon. I sing to myself: “Gravity…., it’s working against me, Gravity…., it’s holding me down. Ohhh, twice as much, ain’t twice as good…”
Time is collapsing now, space is very limited. I am in free fall and come Tuesday, I too will experience a sudden acceleration as my life impacts the social contract. Unlike the Captain of the starship, I am wide-awake, all my alarms blaring. Trapped by the curvature of my own actions, I fall from the face of life into an inky black trough.
How deep the fall this time? Whence the rise?
I scan the horizon, making sure to look under the jib.
