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Fine you say, that sounds okay and makes some sense in a circular way. But how can you take out your boat for a sail when the everyday world is its everyday way. Do you just step out in the middle of the street and roll your poles at the cars going by? What if they hit you? What if you hit them? What if someone walks by on the sidewalk and wonders what you are doing? What about neighbours? What about cops? And what in the world will your mother say on top of everything else?
Listen, boating is gentle. It doesn't intrude in the way you might think. It's merely a different manner of seeing, a bit more emphatic I'll grant you that, but all things considered, it's only a more dramatic way of walking around the world. The way it is now in the everyday world, there's so many people out there already doing amazingly crazy things in much less gentle ways. Bikes on the sidewalks, rollerblades too, fitness freaks and Jehovah Witnesses, they're all just waiting to run over you. Advertising lurks everywhere to invade your peace of mind. Stores on sidewalks, cars beeping horns, horny old men who will drop their drawers or at least a line, everyone's out there just waiting in line, lying in wait for a personal chance to push their map on you.
Boats don't do that, they don't intrude. All they're doing is just sailing through. They don't take a thing from the people they pass, they're much more inclined to give something back. When you boat you create a crack in the border that people have placed between themselves and the Territory. For a moment or two people follow you through, the view of a boat as it sails by is such a surprise they look up from their map and catch a glimpse of the world as it is before they even realize. And they smile at you in a friendly way, they actually see the boat you're sailing and they're really quite pleased that they do. Oh they're curious too and they want to know where you are going and why. But they catch a bit of the breeze in your sails and a smell of the sea and they smile.
And you aren't the only one out there you know, there's a whole cast of characters waiting to play with whoever turns up in the Territory. You've seen a few here in the Boaters Cafe - Beau Weevil, Francis and Seaside Sue. And what about me? I'm here too, I've been talking to you and you've been here listening to me. We're all just as real as you are you know, and there's more of us here in the Territory than you probably realize. Now I know what you're saying, at least to yourself, we aren't like the everyday people you know in the everyday world. That's true I suppose, as far as it goes, but it doesn't go all that far. The moment you let yourself slip on through a hole into the Territory, you've opened yourself to a whole different level of being yourself. Even to sit in this shadowy seat at the back of the Boaters Cafe with me, that's no small thing.