adrift in the Horse Latitudes

The word ‘deriva’ occurred any number of times in the Spanish language novels I read for my book club but I just kind of drifted along without pinning down the meaning. It turns out, it describes me exactly: it means ‘adrift’. What made me look it up was reading a book in English on Haitian religion and seeing the French version, a la derive (acute accent on first e). The phrase was used to describe what is going on with the gods as they travel to Miami, New York, and European cities. They are either drifting or adrift. I have to read on to find out just what the writer meant.
The English word esp grabs me, going back to what is one of the words that inspired me to open this category, Word of the Day, “leafdrift”, used by Helen Waddel in her book on Medieval Latin poetry, The Wandering Scholars”; ‘the leafdrift of centuries’. Also, the word contains that great prefix from OE, a. My wife still says something is “aloose” where I say “loose”. Of course, the Mavens would assure her she will never get a job talking like that, but at 73 she’s not looking.
BTW, did anyone read the H. Allen Smith books like Lost in the Horse Latitudes?

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