December Blues

It’s 6:23am, the obstinate deep honking of our anchor drag alarm has awoken us abruptly. John slides over me, bleary eyed, and trips up the stairs to check out the situation. And though the wind has been howling all night, we are not dragging. The anchor is holding well, buried deep in the sand no doubt. Just a 6am false alarm to remind us we are not in Kansas. Or anywhere in a secure land home for that matter. We are on a boat. And I’m up now…

Up in the galley/salon, my feeble efforts at Christmas decorations have been thwarted in the night. The beaded white anchor ornament that serves as our ‘tree’ which I hung with care on our mast has fallen, along with the little Christmassy animals… adhesives are no match for salty sea air. Ah well. I open the hatch for some breeze and the silver and white ‘Christmas flowers’ I had stuffed strategically into my bowl of seashells are blown out and around the floor. This is a boat. And it just doesn’t feel like December anyway.

The water all around us turquoise blue. 

However, it’s colder than I remember. We’ve never been in the Bahamas in November or December before. We have been welcomed back by disturbed skies and intermittent squalls. And chilly waters.

Three weeks ago we arrived back on the boat after a three month road trip. She was tucked into a safe hurricane hole but she was all closed up and the heat and humidity took their toll. As I cursed and scrubbed stubborn black mold from the ceilings, I was worried. Would the weather hold up for my boy’s visit? Would the water be warm enough? Would it all be perfect for him and his girlfriend?

And as usual I had to learn a life lesson the only way possible. By discovering for myself that it’s not the water temperature or consistency of the sand on the beach that makes a great family reunion/holiday. It’s the people. It’s the overwhelming, heart crushing love a mama feels for her baby. Her ‘all-growed-up’ focused, talented, gorgeous, charming, mature, well adjusted boy. The boy she sees no more than once a year if she’s lucky.

And it’s the bittersweet satisfaction of witnessing that he has made it out there on his own and has found love. True, honest, beautiful young love.

We had some amazing days together. Barbecues on the beach with the other boats in the bay. Walks on the beach, collecting shells, marveling at the power of the ocean. They swam with sharks, fed the sting rays, got more than their fair share of mosquito and no-see-um bites. Bahamas wildlife couldn’t get enough of them. Neither could I. And yet 10 days was over nearly before it began. Another dinghy ride with luggage in tow. The reality of the cruising lifestyle. Family is far away and the visits are too short.

Seems like five minutes ago I was a 27 year old idealist, headed from suburbia to West Africa; a single mom with her three year old boy headed into the unknown. Hoping the world would stretch out and embrace them both. Off to learn and live and love him as best she could. 

Time is a gift. Time is a gift and it’s slipping away. 

Swim in the chilly water. Hug your boy. Call your mom. Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s just stuff. Let the ocean carry you. Let life be the adventure it’s meant to be.

Miss people. Then smile for having known them. Kiss the sky.

Happy December.

The waves of Christmas

Forgive me blogger for I have sinned. It’s been 52 days since my last post.

I’ve been caught up. We’ve been relaunched – set free from the confines of a dusty boatyard and allowed to sail along a waterway that offers up town and city, each becoming warmer as we head further and further south. 

Our amazing friends in St Augustine have set us free, cut the cord. The farewells were part of our nomadic reality.

We’ve been hugging a coastline and clinging to it’s landlubber luxuries. Getting caught up in it’s busy motorway reality…

Seasons have changed. Holidays have come and gone. To some, it’s now winter.

B

Enjoying the lights and sand Christmas tree in West Palm Beach

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Accosted by perfume wielding retail warriors, shoving by glossy displays of patent leather footwear, obese flesh in motorized lazy chairs, shrill echoes of the kids swooshing by below the adult faces, sneezes, sniffles, we wind our way through the mayhem of pre Christmas in a shopping mall.

Dry air and jolly carols pumped through the vents above, tinsel, trees, BOGO signs, we are drawn along with the crowds in a cinnamon scented coma.

On days like these I remember 20 years ago where this was the norm. When I headed into that, armed with gift lists. When my family lived close by. When I was part of it all. Days of stocking stuffers, huge turkey in the oven all day, a fresh new Christmas outfit for when the relatives arrived.

Nowadays, after 17 years worlds away in Ghana, I find myself nearly 4 years living on a boat. A boat that takes me to remote islands, that has taken me to the feet of the Statue of Liberty. A boat that now sits anchored outside a touristy little enclave south of Miami called Coconut Grove.

Here, the people go to malls with gift lists. They buy turkeys, they drag 8 foot tall Christmas trees home and decorate them.

It’s easy to forget that we are here in the mall to check the weather online. That the impending cold front is due to bring in high winds and choppy seas. That we may have to re-anchor the boat or at least let out more chain so we don’t drag into a pole and have a hole in the hull for Christmas.

It’s easy to forget, when in the mall, that for us there is no pine tree or even a turkey. That my galley oven can barely fit a small chicken. That there is no family close by and that the Christmas outfit will be flip flops and shorts. Maybe I’ll wear my new novelty light up Christmas earrings to the cruiser’s potluck on the 25^th.

For now we head out of the mall as darkness closes in. We need to take two buses to get back to the dinghies and get across to the boats before it’s too late. Others in the mall are thinking of supper, of the weekend ahead. Of all the plans for Christmas. Me, I’m thinking this: We don’t have regulation navigation lights on the dinghy, just a flashlight and the Florida boat patrol police do not approve. We’ve heard they pull  little dinghies over and they hand out harsh fines. We need to get back before it’s too dark.

My new pants are tacky with dried salt water from the ride into shore earlier. My waterproof backpack is sealed up and ready. We arrive back at the dock and climb like awkward spiders across the dinghies in the watery parking lot. Flashlight on, and we’re off.

 

And since then two days have passed. Days where my view of shore bounces by 4 feet every two seconds. I hold on to everything I can as I bump my bruised hips along from one side of the boat to the other. The wind is blowing 25 knots and gusting to 32 knots. Shore life is a far off concept. Our dinghy bounces and flails wildly at the back of Shiloh, drenched with salt water, thrown by waves and tugged back violently by it’s ‘leash’. Heading toward land would mean a full salt water shower. Probably closer to a bath.

Days like this I can barely remember what it was like to live in a house where weather is something separated from your life. Where the winds don’t play a role in your plans for the day. Where the floor of your house isn’t moving 4 feet up and down and the view out your window is stationary.

Mantras about travel and expanding horizons run through my head over and over. They try hard to drown out any naysayers up there in my mind who may wonder what the hell I’m doing out here a mile from shore being thrown around for days at a time. 

But there is one little voice that remains strong and steady. It is strongest at Christmas. It’s the voice that makes me wish the world was small. Where I could see the faces of my niece and nephew on Christmas morning, begging to open their stockings, excited that Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk, tearing open presents, while the adults sit blurry eyed clinging to coffee cups, looking for strength to face this hectic day.

It’s those moments that travel can never replace. For us, home is where the anchor drops and that is a glorious indescribable freedom. But for a big part of my heart, it comes in waves of emotion: home is where that family is on Christmas morning by the tree.

My sister is practically a body builder

My sister is practically a body builder. I live chicken wing to chicken wing fix. While she holds down a high power job, two awesome kids enrolled in everything from gymnastics to hockey, a hubby AND works out at the gym like mad, I can barely figure out where each week disappears. 

While I opted for a completely off-the-wall life, taking off to volunteer in Africa years ago, getting an expat job there along the way, and retiring at 42 to live on a sailboat, my sis is sticking it out in the ‘real’ world. A world I know almost nothing of.

She likes designer bags and high heels but she’s no airhead. She might look like Pamela Anderson on a night out on the town, but at heart, she is as down to earth as they come.  And smart. Very smart.

She’s got more than her fair share of charm and gusto too - she could sell meat to a butcher. In fact, she does sell meat. Like a boss.

She has always looked up to me – the big sis, the role model. But what for I’ll never know. I’m not the highly ambitious type. I enjoy bargain hunting in Walmart and I did live for 5 years in Africa quite happily on $200 a month. AND I was a mother of a 4 year old at the time. Some say I’m crazy. Maybe they’re right. Irresponsible, wayward, a drifter. But not my little sis.

She doesn’t see my lack of self control around fresh cut French fries or 3-for-$10 t-shirts. She thinks I’m great.

While she’s pumping big iron in a gym at 6am after prepping kiddies lunches, I’m sound asleep, only hours later rubbing the sleep from my eyes and wondering which bar has the best happy hour deal today.

She juggles a mortgage and temper tantrums. I helm a catamaran around Bahamian beaches and bays. And she thinks ‘I’ do something to admire.

Letter to my little sister:

You are a wonderful woman. You are far too hard on yourself and somehow somewhere along the line you came to believe you need to be superwoman. You are doing a great job.

But I love you behind all the muscles and the beauty and the promotions and the amazing kids you are raising. I love you for you. The pudgy blond baby I used to push around our 70’s shag carpet in a car seat/speed machine. Back then I told Mom that you were MY baby, so she should get pregnant again and have another one for herself.

You were determined even back then – to a fault. Holding your breath in the supermarket until you turned blue – if you didn’t get what you wanted. Your skills at moving your life in the direction you want have improved immensely over time. But I still see those eyes squeezed shut. That spirit has not changed. You are ambitious.

You are worth looking up to.

I not only love you with all my heart, I respect you. I have no idea where those genes came from - the dedication to a goal, the motivation to succeed, the positivity you bring to it all -  they missed me completely.

I am me, so very different. And you are you. 

I wish for you everything you want in this life. I wish this with every fibre of my being. But what I wish even more than that is for you to look within and see how amazing you are. And believe that. 

You have enriched my life and made it whole. I was an only child. A lonely child. You made it both a challenge and you brought the rewards. To this day I've never laughed so hard, until I am bursting, red faced, spewing, snorting REAL LAUGHTER as I do when I'm with you.

Thanks for being my little sis, and mostly thanks for being you.

 

New Years and warm tears

This morning when I woke, there was a magical transition going on between night and day. A handover from darkness to light. The full moon, weary from his long night shift, sat at the water’s edge, sagging ever so slightly, ready to slip in. And when he slipped away so quietly, the sun called my attention to the other side of the sky, bringing up the new day. I felt a tingle, the privilege of the early riser, to witness something grand and divine that happens every day.

Of course I was not awake of my own accord, in normal circumstances I think it’s obscene and unnatural to be up before the sun! But this morning my mother left the building. Or the boat to be more accurate. We barreled along to shore in the dinghy with her luggage in tow, and handed her over into a pink car, and a tired looking cabbie who was getting off night shift. She has begun the day long journey on buses and planes, back to the bitter cold of home.

A few days ago I stood by a shuttle bus, choking back the inevitable hot tears as we also said goodbye to my son.

These are the realities of living ‘somewhere else’. We live hundreds and at times thousands of miles from family, but the moments we have together are special. They are held together in a finite number of days, a holiday, a visit. They can be calculated on a calendar but not in our hearts. There is no earthly definition for that kind of love. 

And love it, we did. Great holiday. We’ve been living on Shiloh for three years and finally at least some of the family have seen our home and experienced a snapshot of our lifestyle. I really hope it was fun. I know we’re not going to create any converts in my land lubbing family, but at least they had fun. No seasickness, no problems with the quirks of boat life (limited water supply, must dinghy to shore, wakes from boats, side on swells). Go family! 

We’ve made it down to Key West and it’s the kind of place everyone loves. You just gotta. It’s a milestone as the Southernmost (is that even a word?) point in America. Of course as we cycled around the town yesterday we saw the Southernmost café, the Southernmost bar, the Southernmost hotel and even the Southernmost beach hotel. So everyone is milking that for what it’s worth. Key West has a million restaurants, bars, café’s, drag shows, beaches, busker shows, and people. It’s the people. Weird and wonderful sums it up. Everyone should come here at least once. Preferably during their FantasyFest!

It’s the end of a season, of a lot of bucket list visits under our keels, and a finale with family. Couldn’t have asked for a more amazing 2014.

And 2015 is a blank canvas with so many adventures to be written. We have graduations and new babies in the family and in the meantime, sailing adventures to places and countries new and old.

So my tears today are joyful though sad. We’ve chosen a life far away, a life of new and scary and exciting and fun, but a life without mom and boy nearby. A life where my niece and nephew grow in leaps and bounds in our absence. Where babies are born and life goes on ‘at home’.

We’ve untied the bow lines and left the sight of our shores and I don’t regret it for a second, but when I have the chance to see my Mom’s green eyes light up, hold my boy tight, hear their laughter, those precious memories fill me up and I cherish them, I see them in every sunset and sunrise we are away.