Life is a voyage-and for some, a literal one embodies the metaphorical journey. Never one to conform, author William Storandt (B.M. '68, percussion) went from living in a geodesic dome in Vermont to sailing a boat across the Atlantic, and found his life's work and life partner in the process. He shares his story.

The thread running through what could charitably be called my career path has been an impulse toward self-expression-or, to put it more bluntly, the persistent wish that people would pay attention to me. Perhaps, deep down, some of you share this? In high school, music seemed the way: composing chamber pieces, writing the drum parts for the marching band. Writing words (apart from course-work) was too perilous at the time, absorbed as I was in keeping a secret that might slip onto the page. When I did first try words, it was at Juilliard, in an English class. They were violent, disturbing stories. I think I was trying to rattle the teacher, a kindly, older woman who I believed had a crush on me. I was encouraged by a fellow student, a charismatic composer a bit further along in coming to terms with himself than I was. He took to introducing me to his friends as a writer-a tag that not only left me feeling a bit the imposter, but that also, as far as my musical endeavors were concerned, smacked of damnation by omission.

After Juilliard, in addition to an odd assortment of freelance work-from whacking tambourines on sessions for the Monkees to whacking flower pots for the Juilliard Contemporary Chamber Ensemble under Dennis Russell Davies-I tried songwriting. The songs were not impressive-although, emanating from the ceilings of elevators, they did generate enough income over the years to pay for my 33-foot cutter Clarity, which has since carried me from Maine to Trinidad to Scotland to Turkey. These travels have been grist for dozens of articles for Cruising World, the largest national sailing magazine.

By the time I began those writings, I had burst into the clear and was enjoying life with my partner, Brian, and those articles offered ever more forthright tidbits about our lives to the mostly conservative readership. To their credit, the editors never flinched, and as a result, their readers were treated (or subjected) to glimpses of some salty adventures in which the protagonists happened to be gay. The sky didn't fall, so I wrote a memoir (Outbound: Finding a Man, Sailing an Ocean, University of Wisconsin Press) about our voyage to Scotland, and included in it the other journey of my life: from being married to my seventh-grade girlfriend to being in the middle of the ocean with Brian. Again, the sky didn't fall, so now I have written a saucy novel (The Summer They Came, Villard/Random House) about a sleepy New England seaside village suddenly becoming the next gay hotspot. So far, so good.

Looking back, I see percussion as an almost comically obvious choice for someone torn between making a racket and keeping a secret. Nowadays my percussion career has dwindled to playing timpani on the last two minutes of the Messiah in a community sing-along each year. But that noisy boy hasn't changed a bit.

—William Storandt