When you first set eyes on her, the lump in your throat tells you you’re in for a hell of a ride. The next several months are going to be full of wonder and learning, all about her.

But before you actually get to meet her, you recall what you've heard so much about her. How to greet her and how to board her. You recall the stories that have indoctrinated you to her majestic stance, her task in life, her tonnage.

Yes, when you first peer upward at the behemoth that will be your home for the next several months, you are truly in awe. An inspiring sight she is. Towering above the pier, her stark gray hulk issues a foreboding call to those that cast their eyes her way. As one whom had never seen a WAR SHIP before, I was but a minion in her shadow, a trifle, little more than something to be tolerated.

"SADDLE UP", comes the call, as you hoist all that you own onto your back, not yet realizing a canvas bag and 1 cubic foot of her precious space is all you will possess. Not knowing, yet, that indeed it is all you will need.

The introduction of your life is at hand. The meeting you have yearned for, the spark that is about to kindle into a flame. The anticipation of the coming adventure turns to a knot in your gut as the moment approaches. The moment you have rehearsed in your mind so many times. Will you stumble in your approach, stammer in an awkward childhood stutter your intentions. The smells having permeated the air are now in turmoil of attitude to your senses. The pitch of the waves change her gentle roll into a heave that wants to burst free of your gut.

Up the gang plank, halt and face and salute the National ensign, HAND SALUTE, turn and continue on to the Officer of the day; HAND SALUTE (while clumsily balancing your worldly goods); "SIR, rank and name REQUEST PERMISSION TO COME ABOARD, SIR"

Following the throng of your comrades, you watch as they juggle drag and bounce their own worldly loads down the narrowing passages and ladder wells. You tell yourself you will maneuver YOUR OWN load more skillfully than your friend ahead, until you make the mistake, and bounce your gear even more clumsily than he, and upsetting a Sailors coffee in the process. DAMN. There is something shiny on his collar. "EXCUSE ME SIR, I'M SORRY SIR"

"SIR!! WHERE DO YOU GET OFF CALLING ME SIR YOU…”, and you relapse to boot camps days when all the yelling . Well, this time you don't take it personal.

And time sets into a routine. You learn your way to the head, the mess deck, and your own bunk space, getting lost less and less as time goes by. The fitful sleepless nights on a canvas rack make way to welcome slumber. Your 'sea legs' are coming along. Your shoulders are no longer bouncing off corners like your canvas world did on your first trip thru a hatch. You were lucky it wasn't YOUR fingers that got caught, as the ships 'breathing' pulls a hatch closed too quickly.

Yes, she breathes.

And as routine turns into chores, duty, you gain a 'feel' for her. Her deck plates now vibrate you too sleep. Her hum, now a mechanical lullaby. Her once noxious odors of fuels and lubes, churn to aromas and become as her own life's blood.

She breathes.

You assist in her re-supply, hauling and carrying stores thru the now familiar holes in her labyrinth of passages that now guide your steps. You begin to understand why she is. Just that, SHE.

She breathes.

She vibrates, has aromas, and sounds. And she sustains you. For her task in life is to sustain you, and all aboard her. Because without you she would have no purpose, save but to rust away in a harbor of neglect. But for all that she is, and gives, you grow to feel that her cooing breath, her coziness, is there for you, to sustain her. For without her, you too would have little purpose in life.

As with all summer loves, the day comes when all of your time spent learning her secret places, her nooks and crannies, her wily ways, you must depart. Like a summer camps fling of new experiences and friendships you must part ways. And as your canvas world is again perched, expertly, upon your shoulder you "REQUEST PERMISSION TO GO ASHORE, SIR".

A few steps from the now familiar quarterdeck, you again turn to face the National ensign, HAND SALUTE...

Only, something is different. You have everything you came with, and more, but something is missing. You are leaving something behind. It is something beyond your scribbling on the bottom of the rack above you. Not the deck of cards that vanished some time ago, not the skin from knuckles, or sweat, or blood. But something that makes you feel hollow inside.

She has KEPT something. It is something that beckons you back. It is something that keeps HER alive, and full of purpose. Something you will never feel again, like that summers love at camp. It is with a fleeting remorse that you depart.

Only a few, oh so few, get to return to her one day. Again to feel the writhing under your feet, that now gently rocks you to sleep. To hear the gentle cooing as breath wanders the decks and ladders. Only a few get a chance to recover that which they left behind. But return only to discover, that for all they are, for all they missed, for all of that feeling of something that is gone.

They discover that they don't want it back. But rather, wish to leave more behind.

So she can breathe.