You stand on the deck of a forty-four-meter wooden pinisi-rigged boat somewhere in the Flores Sea, close to where the Komodo dragons live. A brochure claims that this boat, the Ombak Putih, was made by hand in accordance with the traditions of the South Sulawesi people. You will spend the next five days on board.
Salt sparkles on your skin. A thin line of sweat traces your backbone into your butt crack. You are menstruating heavily. The sea swells under your feet. A crew member steadies you, his hard black eyes searching yours.
You are one of six men and three women: doctors, management consultants, captains of industry. Until recently, you were each highly successful at home and at work. Nowadays, you fight with spouses, children, parents, colleagues, the man who mops the floors at night.
You have come to this master class on “groundbreaking leadership” to reclaim your greatness. You expect Sigma Six principles, flowcharts, and tests. Instead, you are asked to fine-comb your memory and find the moment, most likely between the ages of ten and eighteen, when you discovered the survival skill that led to your success. This is the skill you must now unlearn.
You meet in the morning when the crew unfurls the blue sails.
You meet in the afternoon when heat drops to the deck.
Each time, you must reveal your deepest fears, your most tender hopes, the soft hollow at the base of your throat.
In Indonesian Bahasa, Ombak Putih means white wave. There are no waves on the Flores Sea. It is a mirror of a birdless sky, the line that leads to a flat horizon. There is no escape.
Some of your boat mates swim in the tepid broth. You do not. You have been going through tampons every two hours. You don’t know whether you’ve brought enough or where you could buy more in the middle of the Flores Sea.
By day, the Indonesian boat crew gives you the side eye trying to decide whether you are one of them. By night, your boat mates sing sea shanties in the saloon while fear holds you down by both shoulders to press you into your sweat-soaked mattress.
How did it come to this? You were never one to sit in circles singing Kumbaya. You don’t share your soul with strangers. Yet here you are, damp thighs glued to a wooden bench, listening to your boat mates fumble their way through the story of their lives.
One man speaks of his alcoholic father climbing the attic stairs in search of someone to wallop. What you hear is his rage at the mother hiding in her bed, the parent who never protected him.
Another man speaks of the family ship-building business, the in-fighting and the jostling and the weight of a tradition one hundred fifty years old, when all he really longs for is to go to sea.
You imagine these speakers as they once were. You sketch them in your journal with knobby elbows, blunt cut bangs, a smile that still reaches the eyes.
Soon, it will be your turn to tell your story. What will you say?
Don’t blame your husband for the affair he had. The original sin belongs to you both.
Don’t congratulate yourself for having avoided divorce. The hard work of marriage will never be done.
Don’t blame your job or the stuffed shirts you work with or the hours you are forced to keep in six-minute billable increments. Don’t think that quitting your job will change your life.
Don’t look for the island where the Komodo dragons live. You are no apex predator so stop baring your teeth.
Listen, for once, to your heart. There are no distractions on the Ombak Putih. The boat has dropped anchor. The wind is still. That sound you hear is a pearl of sweat falling on the waxed teak floor of the deck. That taste in your mouth might be hope.
You have always believed yourself to be unlovable. Say it out loud.
Tell your boat mates that a Komodo dragon takes fifteen to twenty minutes to swallow a goat whereas fear has stopped your throat most of your life. Tell them that you might now be ready to write.
And as you do, observe the fistful of light break through the clouds. Feel it expand your body until you become the wind that fills the slack sails. Now, let this boat fly.
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Karen Kao writes lyric essays. Her work has been chosen as a 2025 Special Mention by the Pushcart Prize, a 2024 Notable by The Best American Essays, and winner of the 2022 Kenyon Review Short Nonfiction Contest. A native Angeleno, Karen lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where she is at work on her debut essay collection. You can find her at swimmingupsidedown.substack.com.