If you wake up early enough and make your way to the bow, the first thing you will see that confirms you are approaching New York is the gently curving inverted W of the Verrazano Narrows bridge, once the longest suspension bridge in the world, connecting Brooklyn to Staten Island and marking the entrance to New York harbor. You will see it in the distance, like a lazily hung string of white Christmas lights, the reflection glistening on the still black water. And then, after a while, one of the other passengers will point and say, "There it is! The Statue of Liberty!" And there it is, at first little more than a bright point of light, the iconic shape only gradually becoming distinct. And then the skyline of Lower Manhattan, a clump of jagged light slowly resolving into a postcard. And then the sun begins to rise behind you. It is a moment for poetry and strong emotions. And it is a moment that fulfills a life long dream for me. As long as I can remember I have wanted to cross the Atlantic on a great ocean liner, perhaps in part because I did so 49 years ago as a baby when we emigrated to Canada.
When I am ancient and bent and drooling, put me on an ocean liner and leave me there as it sails round and round to Cape Town and Istanbul and Sydney and perhaps Yokohama and Valparaiso and Montevideo and Mombasa. It does not matter where. Only the going matters and the ocean and a spot on deck for me, facing forwards towards the bow. Always facing forwards. Unless it is very windy. Then you should shift me.
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