farmdoc's blog post number 339

There’s a film – I can’t recall its name, but you probably will – I think directed by Robert Altman, with a multi-stranded interweaving plot. And at its end, all the characters converge in the one scene. Last Saturday I sailed on the Spirit of Tasmania from Devonport to Melbourne. Though I did some work and finished a library book, I spent most of the 9-hour daylight voyage observing my fellow passengers. In my day-to-day life I hardly ever get a chance to sit for hours and watch a large group of people. It’s several years since I was on the Spirit, and last Saturday I didn’t know anyone else on board, yet I felt like I knew everyone. Like I was in the last scene of that film. I marvelled at singlets stretched over beer bellies, old men in tracky dacks and big white sports shoes, sunnies perched atop baseball cap visors, goatees of various lengths and colours, a moustache whose droop mirror-imaged the upturned brim of its owner’s leather cowboy hat, limping motorcyclists, beanies pulled low over simian brows, even a tracheostomy plug. I wondered about these people’s thoughts, dreams, fears, joys. Are they, like I am, fascinated by other people? Or are they content to play cards or watch motor racing on the ship’s TVs? And are they bloggers or, even better, diarists? I’m glad I chose a day-sailing. Overnight and I would’ve missed most of the passing parade.