For a year and a half, I have resided at Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle. On a boat. A sailboat. Some people, upon hearing what we have done, say "Cool!" or "I've always wanted to do that!" Others say, "Sooooo... are you homeschooling your daughter? Do you have heat? Do you have running water? Does the boat rock at night?" (No, Yes, Yes, No.) All legitimate questions. But, living on a boat is really not as primitive as it may sound. It is merely an alternative lifestyle and one that we share with about 30 others on our dock. 10% of the boats at this huge marina are "liveaboards." So it's not as strange as it may seem.
For 20 years, during the summer months, our family of 4 has traveled the waters of the Pacific Northwest, cruising anywhere from 2 to 7 weeks between Seattle and Prince Rupert (near the Alaskan Border). These magical summers brought us closer to nature and to each other. I credit these trips with helping to create our family culture and for giving us solid memories of our happiest times together -- not to mention the best photo albums... So it wasn't as big a stretch for us to make this move as it may have been had we not had the cruising experience we have had. There is an art to living on a boat and we had a pretty good idea of how to do it.
Living aboard was always a dream of ours. But it meant different things to each of us. My husband and I shared the desire for simpler living, for financial freedom, for a healthier lifestyle and a smaller "footprint." But the reality of living on a small boat created a lot of stress for me when I began to think about holidays and storage and, well, dinner. The energy a woman puts into making a house a home is considerable and, on the boat, this has been very challenging for me. Sometimes you can just give it up when it doesn't work. But I can't give this up - it's what I do, it's who I am.
Or is it?
My struggles with this move have at times been debilitating. I'm actually embarrassed by some of the things that have troubled me. Like going to the laundromat. Yes - I know - what a snob, right? Get over it, Irene. But hear me out. "The Laundromat" reminds me of my early days, slugging it out in the theater, barely making ends meet, dragging a Santa Bag of laundry through the streets of Greenwich Village and then sitting for hours in a hot, flourescent-lit room, hypnotized by the constant droning of machinery, sharing the space with people acting like they are alone: reading, drinking coffee, stretching, stepping out for a smoke -- but never making eye contact. It was kind of like being in an elevator for 2-3 hours, waiting for the bell to ring and the doors to open on your floor so you could get out and breathe again. Laundry day was never my favorite day. So how could it be that at age 51 I was returning to that same suffocating scene because we had moved onto the boat? I felt punished somehow, like I was going backwards.
But then I discovered something. The people I met in the laundromat were happy. Practical, positive, happy folks. Boaters. They talked to each other - about interesting things: cruising; kids; life adventures. No one was acting punished or put-upon. And-- bonus -- there was a newfound feeling of single-tasking for a change. Rather than throw in a load and then do 50 other things, forgetting about the load and then having to re-do it, I got all of it done at once -- all three or so loads -- and, when not chatting with anyone, I took in the view of the marina -- boats, the Olympic mountains, the water -- and read my book in the sun. It takes an hour and a half - 2 tops - and it's kind of a break. When do we take 2 hours to sit and wait for the laundry to be done? Have I ever put my wash in (in the house) and then picked up my book and read while it was churning away? No. Never.
Thus the idea for starting this blog. To take the time to write and muse and make sense out of this extreme change of life. To stop multi-tasking and start doing one thing at at a time. It won't always be written while in the laundromat (especially because I've since discovered drop-off services around town). But that's where it started. The Laundromat gave me hope.
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