Nicholas Heiney - remembered
On this day, in 2006, a young man ended his life. He was a student of poetry and left a record of travelling the world on a three-masted tall ship (the barque Europa) where he instructed young Koreans on classic sailing skills.
26 June - in memory of Nicholas Heiney
Brave soul - setting his sails
faithfully against a sea of demons -
who does not look on his battered voyage
and wish him the dawn of angels?
Extracts from Nicholas’s sailing log and other writing are published in a short book which provides a close-up portrait of his adventurous spirit, the sensitivity of how he understood his experiences and his struggle with the burdens that life presented.
Nicholas writes well; here are two contrasting quotes which appealed to me. One is a conversational quip:
“So … whose day begins at midnight with the task of telling young Koreans how to clean out a toilet? Mine does.”
while the other is a glimpse of his unselfish battle with feeling low:
“The biggest challenge is not letting my dip affect others. By being glad to be in their company, I am achieving this. Every time a surge of bad emotions comes, I think of angels and try to wash the feeling away. Not to suppress it, but purge it completely.”
More on the book:
http://www.songsend.co.uk/
More on the tall ship Europa:
http://www.barkeuropa.com/
Picture credits to:
Barque Europa (ship and iceberg)
Songsend Books (NH portrait)
Ogden Trust (NH in the rigging)