Writing Offshore: The Disappearing Coastline of Composition Theory Cynthia Haynes There is no longer a rational explanation. Reason has awakened to its limitations and, embracing the reality of the paradox, is compelled to transform itself. The natural space for this trans- formation is the borderline. -Lebbeus Woods There is a seal or sepulcher to be broken, a rock to be broke open, to disclose the living water; an emption. Begin then with a fracture, a cesura, a rent; opening a crack in this fallen world, a shaft of light. -Norman O. Brown It was quite possibly the coldest, wettest, and most frightened I had ever been, perched on the bow of a small converted seal-hunting boat as it chugged straight into the Arctic Sea, the coastline of Northern Norway barely visible above the mist, rain, and choppy seas whipped up by a storm into which, against all logic, we were apparently heading. I was tom between two worlds. I wanted more than anything to see a whale, but I was unable to take my eyes off the disappearing coastline, its security beckoning, the warm duvet on my bed, the clean wool socks I had forgotten to put in my backpack, the safety of the streets of Andenes, home to a handful of whale researchers and northern lights scholars. It occurred to me that I should have made out a will. When the coastline disappeared altogether, I turned to face the stinging rain and willed a whale to surface, to blow some warm air my way. I tugged my coat tighter and asked myself more than once what this Texan was doing on this boat. jac 23.4 (2003)