My fourth-grade son is required to write a 600-word biography of the Portuguese navigator Esteban Gomez, a man known for establishing that there was no easy trade route to China through the New World, around 1524. Because the young Chattering can’t type and because I’m a little irritated with his school for not teaching him, I am typing Gomez’s story as my son spins around in an office chair while dictating.

But here’s my take: Gomez had such a dysfunctional relationship with the more famous, formidable explorer Ferdinand Magellan (Daddy transference, most likely) that his story leaps off the page as a parable in how not to behave. Always fuming for not getting promoted, Gomez navigated–but didn’t command–one ship of the five in Magellan’s fleet. After being reprimanded for criticizing the boss, Gomez inspired other men to mutiny, then seized control of his ship and returned to Spain, where he was incarcerated. Once out of jail, Gomez charmed the emperor into letting him sail west again. When he reached what’s now America, he cruised up and down the waters of our east coast, only going far north enough to discover that the riches of China weren’t near.

Henry Hudson, by comparison, is the Hudson River’s namesake because he simply explored Manhattan’s river. Gomez, by comparison, was a generalist, always acting for himself, and has nothing else of consequence attached to his memory–except maybe my son’s paper, which thus far, reads rather nicely.

Can’t we also see ourselves in the furtive, ambitious Señor Gomez? Last week, I came home depressed, thinking that my Chattering Mind blog was going nowhere. Where’s the book? There’s no money in this. And so forth. I was sinking into Gomez Country….

Today, I’m so pleased to have this lovely outlet, this opportunity to speak and perhaps even help people. Some days I feel I’m writing in the dark. Other days, I know I’m seeing beautiful New World territory.