Broken Heads and Cockroach Cookies…

Watching the cloud’s of Hurricane Sandy’s wake blow through Oriental, N.C.

It is November…the day after election day.  I have never been so lack luster about an election in my life…It just feels like this country is so divided, and in a time when we need to be the most united, and it is hard to believe anyone, even Superman, could turn all of it around.

Warning to all:  this post is not one of positive thoughts and optimism.  I am sorry, I am a realist, some say a pessimist…I just realize that while I know I have A LOT to be grateful for, I refuse to deny the reality of my present existence which is one of limbo, and challenge.  I am a person that realizes life is made up of the good, and the not-so-good, and the value of the not-so-good is that it exists so that you can recognize the good when you see it.

Today is Wednesday, it is raining off and on, and VERY cold for North Carolina.  We are still in Oriental in our apartment, and the yearly migration of cruisers has started.  Oriental is an essential stop on many cruiser’s itinerary, and today we are hoping to get to see some new friends of ours that we met while anchored in Long Island, Bahamas last season.  They are so much fun!  They are a sunny punctuation to my otherwise dreary, cold November.  We spoke with Bess this morning and she said, right after they perform some maintenance on their head they will give us a call…we wanted to know if there was anything we could do to help.  They left Annapolis, I am not sure when, and bet they are a bit tired after all the weather drama in regards to Sandy, and traveling in the cold.

Meanwhile, aboard s/v Asante, in Ft. Lauderdale, my virtual cruising friend, Brittany, is making ‘Cockroach Cookies’!  I have followed her blog since she and her beloved left Chicago a couple of years ago and now they are refitting their second boat to get ready to go South…this time with their baby…I love her blog!  Go check out what the first few days of November have brought to their cruising lives…http://www.windtraveler.net/2012/11/how-to-kill-cockroaches.html  I hope I get to meet Brittany in person someday…I enjoy her writing style, and have a bit in common with her like a love of sailing, chapstick, boats, and wine…and we were born in the same month!

I have a dear relative who entered the hospital today and it breaks my heart…in fact we have had three relatives who have all had serious health issues going on, two since April, a few weeks before we returned home from our first season cruising.  I am grateful to be here and in touch.

I am trying to not let a feeling of depression sweep me away, and I remind myself that we are here in Oriental for reasons we understand, and some that I believe are just meant-to-be.  Our boat still sits on the hard and so many people are inquiring how the progress is going repairing the storm damage.  Chris has been diligently chipping away at it, I, on the other hand have not been as much engaged after our initial painting of the deck and the topsides.

In all fairness we did a lot of traveling in September/October.  We went to Maryland twice, Houston, and then I went up to Pennsylvania for a writing retreat.  I was racing down route 95 South with cars full of Northerners all around me as they escaped the future ravages of Sandy the weekend Sandy was pressing in on the East Coast.  It was Sunday night and Sandy had already flooded North Carolina and had gone back to sea, and I was sitting right in the sweet spot of the Trough holding Sandy offshore…there was little rain and little wind…it didn’t mean everyone of my senses wasn’t on high alert.  As I stopped at rest stops, and saw the military who had also stopped for a break, I asked them what their thoughts were, and if they felt it was safe to keep heading South and they just replied, ‘Stay on 95′, that is all we can tell you.  Mother Nature can be a fickle broad, and I had my fill of her antics back in July when we were hit by the ‘no-name’ storm while we were docked in a travel lift slip…

So here I am, watching the days tick by, wondering where our lives are going to take us now, as we want to be there for our parents, we still have loads of boat work to do, our two year plan being morphed into an unexpected path, and all the while I am attempting to make it a productive time.  I am writing, which I have wanted to dedicate time to for years…I am taking a HAM radio class, hoping to get at least my Technician license, and I am spending time nurturing new and old relationships, oh yeah, and working on the boat.

As I ask myself where I want to be mentally and physically when we get back out there in the Big, Blue Ocean, I keep turning to relationships and how to me they are one of the aspects of Life that I value the most.  A friend of mine named ‘BeBe’ gave me a book before we left entitled, “There Be No Dragons” (how to Cross a Big Ocean in a Small Sailboat) by Reese Palley.  This guy spares no subject regarding  any aspects of cruising…there are NO subjects he leaves to the imagination.  Out of all of the cruising books I have read, and I have read a few, his delves into the psychological aspects of leaving on a sailboat for the wilds of the Sea, of both the cruiser, and those that love him or her.  I have found his words comforting and illuminating:

“The reality of going to sea is a matter of casting aside all that negates your life, the vague imponderables that anchor you into some unknowable future.  The passage to reality is littered with sailors stranded on the shoals of their expectations.  It is difficult to wrench your world around to allow you freedom.  And it is disastrous to have pie-in-the-sky expectations of what freedom will look like.  The far shores of sailing are dotted with the abandoned boats and dreams of sailors who finally made it out there but found that all was not beam reaching and glorious sunsets.  Sailing is hard, perhaps its chief attraction.  On a long passage you either recast your expectations into something closer to the uncomfortable reality that you are experiencing or you will spend those weeks in disappointment, awaiting only the end of the passage to flee ashore.

Only on a small sailboat at sea are you reminded of our proper place in the Universe.  The sea forces upon us a natural scale.  The sea limits one day’s passage to a hundred miles, not too different from the scale used by the ancient Hebrews to measure the throne of God.”

And then there is this passage:

“Leaving home is a little like dying.  The longer and more distant the separation, the more fatal it feels.  The changes involved in giving up life as you have known it for the unknowable adventures of the sea ahead of you are major and wrenching breaks, for you as well as for your family.  You are giving up all of the hard-won and comforting support systems that cushion you.  In a real sense, and possibly for the first time in your protected life, you are putting yourself out of reach of assistance, even in emergency situations.  It is not easy either for you or for those you leave behind, and the parting must be accomplished, if not with total understanding on their part, then at least with their acceptance.  When a sailor does actually take off for an unseen shore, a thousand miles away, it is no wonder that the folks left behind shake their heads in disbelief.  How do you explain to family and friends that it is the opportunity to measure your own still unopened gifts that you seek?  Those left behind are as bereaved as by a graveside.  They are in agony over losing you as if the separation were real death.  Their sense of loss can be so strong that it may diminish your resolve and bring self-doubt to your reasons for leaving.  Tears of family are a solvent so powerful as to dilute your compelling need to live your life freely and fully.  Where you see life, the family left behind sees only death.”

It is such an interesting dynamic, as you leave aboard a boat to go cruising, between the adventure ahead, and the comforting land based home and activities you once knew.  It is so tough at times to be out of touch with family and friends frequently and to be living a life that some have told me they feel is self-centered and self served.  I feel as if it is an epic journey, more like a mecca, to meet God and the Universe, and Nature in all her unabashed Beauty, without the blemish of society’s construction.  It affords me and Chris the time of quiet solitude to remember who we are as separate individuals, as well as a married couple.  It is time to discover new cultures, new friendships, and a new way to live every day.

I want to expound more on all of this, but I have to get to work on the boat today.  I find blogging so difficult because I want my writing to be all wrapped up in a package and perfect but I am beginning to see for me there are just too many thoughts and so little time so I am just going to let it flow to some extent as it sees fit.

I wasn’t going to post this because it is a bit negative but it is where I was living on Wednesday…Today, fortunately, is a NEW day and after spending the last couple days with friends and learning new concepts in my HAM class I am renewed and ready to go down to the yard and get focused again on getting this adventure of cruising back on the rails…