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Somewhere Just South of Hope,
But North of Despair.
The wind is fair, the tide plays with the fate of ships, and the hour is not quite real. But it is now – at 17:65 by my reckoning – a time unknown to Greenwich and unacceptable to the Royal Navy, that The Good Ship Ephemeral Dawn is launched.
Built not to schedule, nor scale, but rhythm – one known only to her captain – Ephemeral Dawn is a ship laid down in a dockyard of near-despair, seasoned by a hopeful sun, optimistically destined for some lost utopia not yet charted on maps of the Known World.
I can’t know what awaits me on this endeavour. Perhaps I’ll discover new horizons, or perhaps the fears of those early seafarers will come true, and I will fall off the edge of the world, plummeting into a nameless abyss to be lost to time. But I would have tried and there is beauty in that. Like every tree that is struck by lightning; every flower trampled; every warrior slain; to fall, they all had to stand, and to stand was to defy darkness and defeat for so long as they could.
In that beautiful act of defiance, they left us something that lasted far beyond themselves. Something eternal; the seed of the oak from which this beautiful ship, Ephemeral Dawn, is built.
Hope.
Why Now?
I am, by my nature, a private individual, and beginning this blog marks a bold leap of faith for me. I have so little confidence before a camera that it may yet be some time until you know who I am by sight. But here you may know who I am by my heart, which I hope may through my words dance with yours, dear reader, on this gift of a journey we know to be life.
I have for years abhorred the exhibitionism of modern ‘influencer’ culture and seek not to imitate it here. I do, however, wish for my work and ideas to touch the hearts and minds of kindred spirits; to be part of a movement, if only of one, in pursuit of an antiquated but mature sort of good in this world.
Ephemeral Dawn represents a bid at an escape from a life the world had not sold me on. That was a life I regarded to be devoid of adventure, meaningful growth, purpose, and beauty; one locked away at the back of an office, working so hard to be of no account, to die having left nothing behind by way of a legacy. And for all that, to have broadly hated doing it.
This, I hoped to resolve, would not be my future – and so Ephemeral Dawn was born. There are a good many things I feel I can write about here though, and which I would like to share with you. It seemed like it stood as good a chance as anything else I’d try.
There is some close symbolic depth to this particular time for its beginning, too. H.M.S. Victory (Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar, and Jarvis’ flagship at Cape St. Vincent) was launched on the 7th of May in 1765. Though 17:65 is not a real time, it sits essentially five minutes past six. On a 24-hour clock, that is 18:05 – the year that Victory and Nelson both sailed into eternity at Trafalgar: one on our side of mortality’s fragile precipice, and one harrowingly lost to the other in his finest hour. That their exeunt shall be my entrance is, I hope, a fitting and beautiful metaphor on life’s circularity; a legacy’s endurance, and a homage to two dear and treasured parts of English heritage. This is, not by accident, published on the 7th of May, at 18:05.
Naming The Good Ship Ephemeral Dawn:
Back at secondary school, I started working on an idea for a novel set in the context of one of my deepest, and most enduring interests: the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. It was very much ignited by a childhood love of Hornblower, following C.S. Forester’s titular character through his career from a young Midshipman aboard H.M.S Justinian to his promotion up to Captain of H.M.S Hotspur, and beyond (in the books – sadly the films ended there). Mine, too, was to follow a young up-and-coming officer: a Lieutenant aboard the Ephemeral Dawn. I adore the name. I love how it sounds and how it looks, and think it suits the beauty and majesty of a ship perfectly. It is also so deeply rooted in nature and metaphor, and this, too, I love. It captures the idea of something beautiful but transient, and I couldn’t think of a better way to view our very lives. We, each of us, are the Captains of our own ship – our own fleeting beauty; our own life, our own Ephemeral Dawn.
There are too many (and yet not enough) great nautical fiction writers, though. C.S. Forester with Horatio Hornblower, Patrick O’Brian with Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, Alexander Kent with Richard Bolitho, L. A. Meyer with ‘Bloody’ Jacky Faber, and though not nautical, I can’t overlook Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe stories as another major influence, and love of mine. Any comparison between my work and theirs would be unflattering, I worried, and so stifled by self-doubt and indecision, I shelved this idea to work on another one where I’d be freer to do my own thing without such rigid comparison to others. It is a fantasy-historical series by the name of Daughter of Fury, still very much in the works. I will introduce it properly at some point and link it here for you to look at, if you are interested. This, I would like to publish one day as a trilogy.
Charting The Course:
What this blog ultimately becomes will manifest at the interweave of effort and fate, and is not mine to foretell. I created it as a way out of a life I did not want to live; a way to escape some part of the world I struggle to love. I have a far stronger urge to experience the beauty of the world than I do to while away my life at the back of an office, expending the best years of my finite time under the relentless weight of a crushing bureaucracy.
It is hard for me to be very specific about what the blog will be, but it is my hope that Ephemeral Dawn will cultivate something special – the dancing of the human spirit. Awe, wonder, and reverence at what is truly good and meaningful in this life; a place to revel in beauty and freedom, where the intellectual and artistic spirit may flourish. A Liberation.
Free On Paper:
I have too many interests for there to be any appeal in confining myself to one of them, yet the less I am able to do that it feels like I merely alienate readers who are not interested in a vast amount of what I write. The tension borne of social media to ‘niche down’ is not abated here, but for now I do intend to resist it. I want this to be the place – for if indeed there is to be any, it is here – where I can write completely freely. The best I can say is that you will find reflections on history, nature, literature and philosophy, with some personal musings and pieces of my own creative writing too – all bound up in what may characterise a life’s pursuit: a yearning for meaning, and an admiration of beauty.
I hope that in the subject and content of things written about there is food for genuine thought, and that all of it might somehow tie into a desire to feed both the soul and the intellect. The intention is to do this with particular focus on the past, and on nature, where I believe wisdom is to be found in abundance.
I would be very happy if I was able to make you smile, or even laugh along the way, and happier still if I could leave you each time feeling inspired or hopeful, too.
So, welcome to Ephemeral Dawn; to the blog of a 24-year-old aspiring writer setting sail into the vastness of life. I have an enduring passion for writing, a love of nature, history, and beauty, and seek to pay homage to each here. Whether it be comfort, inspiration, knowledge or entertainment, I hope you will stay and find something of value here through my writing, dear reader.
In Loving Memory:
Though it is now that I set sail, it is an occasion also stung by tragedy as life often is, looking back at one we left behind. It was the 6th of May that the tides played at too dear a cost.
The same sea over which one ship sails, is the one under which another ship sinks.
As I write these lines launching my Ephemeral Dawn, twilight closes for another soul in their harrowing, but dignified exit from life’s stage. Each of us on a different precipice, bound imminently to go over its edge into the feared nothingness that calls, completing life’s circularity in tragic harmony; one where my sunrise is his eclipse – both of us irrevocably undertaking a leap of faith from which there may be no return; one of us in search of a legacy, one of us to leave one behind; one of us to make memories, and one of us to remain only in them.
Ever in those memories you will remain, our hearts warmed by those delightful recollections of your cheeky humour and your most beautiful laugh. Rest in Peace, Paul.
