Bye Bye Stuff, Hello Time

When people hear that I live on a 42’ sailboat in Ballard, the most common reaction I get is, “You live on a sailboat?  Wow. That is SO cool!”  I suppose it is. But during the decision and then the transition process I felt anything but cool.  I didn’t just say, “Yeah, let’s do it!  Let’s sell our house and all our stuff and live simply and shrink our footprint.”  I cried and argued and worried and stressed and resisted – qualities and behavior not often associated with cool people. So while it may be “cool” to live on a boat, I feel like an imposter accepting this particular designation. 

When my husband first started talking about it, I didn’t take him too seriously. Dan had had so many schemes and plans to move us toward financial freedom over the years that I began calling him “Ralph” after Jackie Gleason’s character from the Honeymooners.  “OK, Ralph, sounds great,” I’d say when he presented me with another idea.

I was sure it couldn't happen because, well, what would we do with all our stuff? How would we ever find the time to sort through our things, decide what to keep, what to store and what to toss?  How could we stomach putting the house on the market and having strangers traipsing through every day?  What about actually moving - leaving our dear little house? Changing our mailing address?  It paralyzed me to think of adding such daunting work to all we were already juggling.

Truthfully, we had been toying with the idea for a while.  During our many summers cruising the west coast of Canada, we traveled deeply into the rainforest and even more deeply into ourselves. After a month or more on our floating home that provided everything we needed, I would dreamily say, “I would be happy if we lived on the boat full-time.  I could do this.” And I really believed I could.

But once Dan started getting serious about it, I learned pretty quickly what a faker I was. I panicked when I realized that this one wasn’t going away.  The universe has a bothersome way of calling you out when you start patting yourself on the back at how cool you are.  “Oh yeah?” it seems to say, “let’s see just how you deal with THIS.”  And suddenly you are looking in the mirror, stark naked, not an undergarment or hair-product or tube of mascara in sight to disguise the flaws, the raw truth of how far you still have to go to that perceived coolness to which so many of us aspire.  Grasping at straws, I demanded the impossible:  a boat with three dedicated sleeping rooms, a couch, and a master bed that could be gotten in and out of from either side.  “It won’t happen,” I secretly thought.  That way I would never be exposed.

Thanksgiving Sunrise and Rutabagas

Thanksgiving has come and gone.  Again.  Our second since moving out of the house and on board our sailboat.

One of the challenges of moving onto the boat was how to do the holidays.  Our oven doesn't hold the usual 20 lb turkey and I'm not ready to "just get a small turkey breast" as my mother suggested.  Someday, yes, someday.  But not yet.  Last year we borrowed a friend's beach cabin on Anderson Island and went there with my sister and her new Brazilian husband.  Sarah was in France so it was Dan, Julia and I.  It was nice, yes, but it felt really odd to me.  Not my house, not my stuff, nothing familiar, nothing that felt ritualistic.  My sister was happy because she was back in the states after nearly 3 years in Brazil.  And she had spent quite a bit of time at this cabin in years past and had many memories of happy gatherings.  So for her it was a homecoming of sorts - but for me it was baffling.  I missed Sarah and kept tripping over myself trying not to run the show, as I am wont to do, or complain, as I am also known to do on occasion...   C'mon, Irene - positive attitude!  It's not the place, it's not even the food, it's the gathering, the people, the attitude of gratitude.

Our tradition for over 20 years was that Dan would wake early, make the stuffing, stuff the turkey and put it in the oven.  At some point, one or both girls would wake and make their way down to the kitchen to keep him company and comfort the poor turkey who Dan would make dance and talk back to them as they assured him that it was okay that we were eating him today.  They called it "turkey psychology" and they did it every Thanksgiving.  At least that's what they told me because I wasn't there.  Thanksgiving morning was my turn to sleep late - a well-earned sleep - my reward for nights on end cooking cranberry sauce, rutabaga, pies, extra stuffing...  after shopping and cleaning and inviting and planning.   I would wake up to the smell of turkey just starting to brown, smile, roll over, and go back to sleep until it was seared to perfection.

Feast on the Silence

Friday evening.  I'm on the boat alone -- a rare treat that I am savoring like my last piece of chocolate.

One of the downsides to boat life is that alone time is a rare commodity.  For me, time alone is as essential to my health as food and water.  If I don't have time to myself -- time to think, write, reflect, create -- then I start to lose emotional weight.  I cannot function in the way that I want to be in the world because a part of me is literally starving.  I become cranky, impatient, critical and everything but loving and kind.  It's ugly.  And it feeds on itself.

Saving Starfish

It's been raining hard in Seattle for several days now.  The gusts of wind at night are intense - I'd guess last night's blow to be at times in the 50's (knots per hour, that is).  During the night, while we slept, the boat strained on its lines and the rain beat down hard, waking me up repeatedly.  I was okay with it because a) I knew we were perfectly safe and b) because it is the most delicious feeling in the world to snuggle deeper under the covers, safe and sound, while a storm is raging just inches away from my bed.  The boat is warm and dry and we are completely protected - but we are as close to the weather as we could be and still be unaffected.

Last night, before turning in for the night, I realized that Lovey (my 10 year old dog and the love of my life)  still needed to be walked.  Mind you, on a boat, way out on the end of the dock, this is no small feat - not even close to opening the front door and letting the dog out for a quick pee, shivering on the front porch while waiting.  We chose our slip out at the end of E-dock, intentionally - it's quiet, it's private, and we have easy access to an unobstructed view of the sunset over the Olympics.  But it's about a quarter mile down the dock, a sharp right on the last finger pier and then a hairpin left to the ramp.  Then up the ramp to the parking lot and then a little ways to a place where Lovey can do her business.  So - last night when I realized that I still had this considerable chore before pj's and book time, I groaned, but then suited up and suited Lovey up (yes, she has a raincoat, too) and began the process of helping her off the boat and then starting our snail's pace walk (she's kind of a creaky old thing) down the dock.   The temperature was on the warmer side, the rain had slowed to a fine mist and it was actually pretty in a rainy sort of way.

As I turned right at the end of the dock, heading towards the ramp, I saw two oddly-shaped things on the dock.  At first I thought someone had dropped a couple of banana peels.

But as I got closer, I saw that they were starfish. Both were upside down and therefore unable to move on their own to safety.  The light shining on them illuminated their many little "legs," wriggling, waving, seemingly frantically, but making contact only with the air above them.  I wondered if the extreme low tide had caused them to fall off a pier pole, but then surmised that a seagull had dropped its snack, unable to carry it and fly in the rain. (I have watched a seagull swallow a starfish - hard to believe if you've never seen it.  The starfish ended up lodged in the gull's neck, protruding at odd angles, rendering the gull more of a cartoon character and a comical one at that.)   Lying on the dock, these two creatures could easily become a midnight snack for an otter or a more determined sea gull.

I picked one up and tossed it gently back in the water.  Lovey and I watched it float slowly down to the bottom of the clear night water.  I nudged the other with my foot until it plopped over the side of the dock.  I forgot about the rain for a few moments and looked into the water thinking about the life down below and the starfish finding their way to safety, snuggling under their covers while the storm raged overhead.  It was lovely and something that would never have happened except for my old dog who needed a walk.  We saved a couple of starfish tonight, Lovey and I.

The Laundromat gave me Hope

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.