A conversation with Thanatos and Eros on the River
Patrick McDonnell ©2007
I almost died last Saturday, the 24th of June 2007. But like last March,
in Borne La Mimosa when I chocked, I was saved. How many times in the past two years have I
had close calls with Thanatos (death) and Eros (life energy)? In Belize I didn’t know it, but I had a collapsed left lung and still I was diving on the reef, until I had a panic attack -
then I couldn’t catch my breath in the ocean – again saved. God must think I am
one hell of a sinner who has a lot to atone for, because he keeps sending me
his angels to save me for some purpose only He knows…
Freud believed that humans were driven by two conflicting central desires:
the life drive or Eros (incorporating the sex drive) and the death drive or Thanatos (seeking of
oblivion). Freud's description of Eros and Libido included all creative,
life-producing drives. The death drive (or death instinct) represented an urge inherent in
all living things to return to a state of calm, or, ultimately, of non-existence. The presence of
the Death Drive was only recognized in his later years, after World War One,
and the contrast between the two represents a revolution in his manner of
thinking. The death instinct is also referred to as the Nirvana Principle.
“No one has ever committed suicide because of me!” she whispered as she
looked at me avidly, I recall her hungry black eyes, after I had confessed how
depressed I was over our so called relationship. It was like a bucket of ice water
striking me in the face and my desire to give into death disappeared
immediately. She would have to find another victim for the bonfire of her vanity; I no
longer worshiped her. She later whispered an apology to me on the phone.
Now as I straddled my capsized sailboat in the middle of the choppy waters of
the river, I remembered that moment when I refused Thanatos’s siren voice,
and the memory gave me the strength to fight on. Again I plunged into the cold
waters, got tangled in the ropes, got loose, walked the keel, got my hands on
the edge of the cockpit and pulled her up and over. Again she heeled over,
rearing up like a breaching whale, me hanging on to her like Captain Ahab, the
rising wind catching her sail and over she went then down onto her other side.
How many times could I go on doing this before I drowned?
Thanatos whispered, ‘Give up, give up, it is no use, you are too old…”
“No, fight on.” Eros answered back, “Fight till you are dead, then she can
eat your corpse along with her wormy friends - jealousy and hate.”
I made a conscious decision, crying out like Zorba, “today, I will live!”
It began so simply. The sailboat had waited two years for me to recovery my
lung capacity. Funny. It is like riding a bike or making love, sailing
inculcates itself into your soul, and you never forget. It took me awhile to lie out
the ropes, step the mast and attach everything till it was ship shape. The
tiller always gave me trouble - where did the lines go, over or under? She was a
one-man sailboat, a tight squeeze for two, and she and I had plied the waters
of the river for years in all weather conditions. Patched and repaired
repeatedly, she was part of my heart; I called her ‘Libellule’, French for dragonfly.
With the sail and lanyards set to my satisfaction, I cast off, and she
responded to the river’s pull. The wind seemed to be blowing across the water and
not down river. Still the Bernoulli effect sucked me forward into the boat
channel where I raced the speed boats and the odd sailboat motoring along. Rounding
the Island of Heads I made another wrong decision. We continued past, into
where the river widened into a sort of bay, where the winds were stronger.
“What is a Vitologist?” I asked her when she told me what kind of art she
did. “We use life experiences as part of our art.” “You mean vicariously?”
“Sometimes we observe people sometimes - we participate. I pick and choose.” “
But,” I interjected, “life isn’t like that.”
Her words echoed in my mind, carried away by the rising wind, as I put the
rope into my teeth, pulled the tiller hard and leaned over the side to counter
balance the boat. Life isn’t like that, you can’t pick and choose, and you
can’t always walk away. Life is raw – unpredictable. Like the twisting eddies of
wind that turned me around and around – pushing water into the cockpit, forcing
me to bail like crazy. I refused the possibility of capsizing here in the
dead zone of the bay. Suddenly she returns to my command, responding to the
tiller and sail, and we turn home, racing back towards the lee side of the island.
“The sail has to be tight as a woman’s breast, ‘ my sailor friend used to
say. We had rented a twenty footer to sail the islands of lake Champaign. We were
three men, without an inside toilet, and I was trying to outrun Thanatos’s
cold smile. He was a master sailor used to open oceans. Storms at sea. I was
just a fresh water minnow.
Meanwhile my boat was riding low in the water. She dug into the waves,
shipping water. Somewhere the hull was leaking and the sailboat was sinking.
Abruptly, the waves filled the boat and she keeled over – capsized.
I didn’t panic immediately; I had righted her countless times when she had
been dry, but not when filled with water. My first attempt to pull her up failed.
Then I felt panic taking over, my breath came in and out like a bellows
lighting a winter’s fire.
“Fear is the great equalizer, “ Thanatos smiled as she continued to lecture,
“All men loose their heads and then their masculinity.” She knew and she had
worked hard at instilling the buttons that others could push.
“Remember, women have a hard life – you have to be kind to them.”
Hand over hand I hauled myself on to the boat’s side, while the tangled ropes
gripped my legs and pulled me down. She rolled over again and the ropes
sucked me into the cold water. I gave up carrying a knife since 9/11 so I couldn’t
cut the tackle.
Eros whispered into my ear, “Keep calm, breath slowly, you can do this. Don’t
give into the fear.”
I ended up straddling the sailboat, sitting Zen like, looking around the
river. No one had noticed my plight; most boats had disappeared with the growing
cold and wind. If I stayed on the boat long enough, maybe the current would
push me into the shallows of the island. But she was riding lower, dragging her
sail underwater. I was in the sea grass, it made things worse.
One more try, I thought, so again I went into the water and pulled her over,
only to feel my arms grow weaker, and my life force flowing into the river.
Shock was setting in.
In the distance a motorboat with two fishermen ignored me. They were my only
hope now, and I swallowed my pride. “Hey, are you deaf? I need help here! “ I
yelled at them. They came by to throw me a rope and save me.
“I dreamed you were in trouble,” Eros told me after she found my prostate
body. “For two hours I have been a worried sick.”
It had only seemed to be a few minutes. Adrenaline had compressed time.
“You didn’t give up?”
No, Thanatos would have to find another victim today.
Later, after a hot bath and painkillers, I hauled the sailboat back into the
boathouse. On the way, I picked up her stopcock - in the grass - it must have
been pulled out as I had put the boat in the water. I felt like a fool. Like the Titanic, I had
been fated to sink. A victim of circumstance.
“We cannot direct the winds, but we can adjust our sails.”
Post scriptum; 3 people drowned that weekend, I was not the fourth...
