I built a boat this summer, so if you see me don’t ask me what I did… I’ll probably just tell you that. If you’re wondering why, you’re like most everyone else I’ve told. Isn’t it obvious? Why does anybody build a boat? To float, naturally.

I guess there was no reason from an outside perspective. There was no reason to raid dumpsters for scrap wood in the heat of summer; no reason for using a dull handsaw to cut wood made solely of splinters; no reason to spend so much time around four girls with whom I had nothing in common. But build it we did, myself and Simran, Marin, Shannon and Elise; four people I now consider friends, maybe even close friends, though I’d probably never tell them that.

I imagine these girls, to whom I gave the endearing title “the sirens,” had their reasons for building the boat. If you asked them they would probably tell you that it was to have fun or to hang out with one another or to have a story to tell. For a long time I didn’t know why I built the boat, why I put so much time into something so seemingly worthless and menial with four girls I didn’t know. I wasn’t asked about it very often, but I couldn’t help but read the question in the faces of everyone I told. Maybe it was because I was tired of getting drunk with my friends all the time; maybe it was because I missed female companionship; maybe it was because I was bored.

Or maybe it was because I just wanted to float.

I doubt the project meant as much to the other girls as it has to me. The memories I made building the boat mean the world to me, though I’d probably never tell them that. I couldn’t even tell you why I have this feeling that I have somehow grown because of the project. And I have absolutely zero idea why every moment I spent building that piece-of-shit boat still burns in my memory. But it does.

I have a groundbreaking theory about why I built the boat, and it goes something like this: I like the girls I built it with. I like the fact that I don’t have to engage in masculine competition with them as I often do with my friends. I like the way they do weird and spontaneous things. I like how they enjoy having intelligent conversations about stupid stuff. Somehow I even like that these girls make fun of me constantly. And, more than anything, I like that these girls have given me a type of camaraderie and friendship that I don’t always get hanging around all guys. But even my affection for them is overshadowed by the fact that all I wanted to do is float.

I’m not really sure what I’m writing about or why, which explains the choppy syntax and organization. I think I'm just trying to express something that happened. Maybe it’s out of appreciation for a friendship that, by all standards of social wisdom, shouldn’t exist. Maybe it’s because the month I spent building that boat actually impacted me in some way. Or maybe I just need something to write about this week. I don’t know, but the desire to tell people is too strong to say nothing.

When the boat was finished we took it to the lake to test. It was a beautiful evening (as seen in the picture) and the water was warm. We got in the boat and I stood up to paddle. The boat floated low in the water as we made our way across the lake. After a couple feet water began to pour through holes in the hull and the boat started tipping back and forth. Eventually the tipping became too much and I fell out. As I came up I looked and saw the four girls in the boat laughing and yelling and pressing towards the shore. There are moments in our lives that leave a mark… this was mine. Something about seeing them in the boat, rocking against a peach sky, hit me. And then they all got out and pushed our boat onto the sand. But we floated, together, if only for a while. Against every law, social and physical, the five of us floated – and that’s all I wanted.

So here’s to our boat, and here’s to the people I built it with.