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Not very long afterward, in an ongoing act of surrender to the world beyond my window, with no possibility of knowing what joy or disaster might result, I married her. And since that afternoon in Berkeley, California, standing along the deepest seam of the Hayward Fault - no, since our first date - this woman has dragged, nudged, coaxed, led, stirred, embroiled, mocked, seduced, finagled, or carried me into every last instance of delight or sorrow, every debacle, every success, every brilliant call, and every terrible mistake, that I have ever known or made. I'm grateful for that, because if it were not for her, I would never go anywhere, never see anything, never meet anyone. It's too much bother. It's dangerous, hard work, or expensive. I lost my ticket. I kind of have a headache. They don't speak English there, it's too far away, they're closed for the day, they're full, they said we can't, it's too much bother with children along.

She will have none of that... She is the curse and the wolfman charm in my blood, calling me to shed my flannel shirt and my pressed pants with their sensible belt and lope on all fours into the forest.

Once she and I found ourselves talking about this picture that hangs on the wall of our house. It's a magnificent Lothar Osterburg photogravure, shadowy and mysterious, of a miniature clipper sailing across a scale-model ocean. This picture seemed to both of us to embody our marriage - I was the sails, and she was the tiller. Or vice versa. Honestly, I can't quite remember how it seemed at the time. But I know that in considering the image of that great ship in full sail, what we both understood, have always understood, was that whether I am the wind and she is the waves, or she is the rigging and I am the rudder - at this point I have pretty much exhausted my nautical vocabulary - the crucial point for a moral landlubber like me is that we are embarked. I answered the call of adventure; I rolled the dice. I jumped out of the window, holding tightly to her hand. See us, sailing into the blue.

- Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon