ODE TO FATHERHOOD

St. Helena, CA

Chip says he wants to change the world, with a "we can DO this" sort of earnestness that would seem misguided if you didn't know him. What he doesn't realize is that he already has changed the world. He is part of a new brotherhood of fathers who have decided to get in the game. And they didn't just run out onto the field. They built a new stadium.

With some mysterious collective consciousness, these new dads decided to face down their fathers' demons: machismo, violence, stoicism and emotional unavailability, to name a few. They revolutionized fatherhood, making it vibrantly relevant, and have left a game plan where there wasn't one before, one already being followed by a young generation.

Chip embraces fatherhood with a rare passion and mad skills that he learned on the raucous field of parenthood. He's not afraid to get right in there, shoulder to shoulder with the kids, seeing their best selves and helping them get there. He's not afraid to show them how much he loves them, to be proud of them or to weep because of it. He taught Casey and Dylan how to make wise decisions, to use their instincts and how to live with purpose and self-reflection. He teaches them by his actions that there's a greater good, and that the universe is better when we contribute to it.

Thank you, Chip, for continually investing so much of yourself in changing the world, for setting a new high standard of manhood for Dylan and Casey.

Thank you, to Chip's brothers in arms for living, loving and learning alongside your kids, elevating them and by proxy every generation to come. The world is a better place because of you.

What will our children do in the morning if they do not see us fly? --Rumi

I DREAM

New York

dream |drēm| noun
to contemplate the possibility of doing something

The first time we sailed up to a tropical island and dropped the anchor, it almost seemed familiar, not because I had been there before, but because I had contemplated the possibility of doing it so many times. Extreme planning and years of hard work got us to that island paradise, but dreams were the ocean we sailed on.

Cruising, while being the glorious realization of a dream, is not a destination. We continue to contemplate possibilities, like spending a month in Paris with our kids or in New York seeing friends and family. And then we do it.

Even as we prepare to sail to the Bahamas this season, my imagination has been oh so busy contemplating our next adventure, the grandest and most sprawling one yet. Dreams are a big, big ocean, and I love sailing there.

I dream, and I hope it's contagious.

who are these people? me | chip | cara mia | our very long timeline

my column | my pre-cruising blog | contact us | blog log | resources

CLASSIC YACHT: MY LATEST COLUMN

According to my latest column in Classic Yacht magazine, we are in Warderick Wells in the Exumas. Never believe what you read.

In fact, Cara Mia is in Florida, and we are in New Jersey where Chip is finishing up his wine consulting job here with a major supermarket chain. He's training staff, overseeing a chain-wide wine reset and helping with the grand re-opening of a store that was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.

We will be back on Cara Mia the second week of February, ready (so ready) to hop to the Bahamas as soon as the weather allows.

In the meantime, I'll be updating you on what we've been up to the last few weeks -- working too hard on boat chores to get any blogging done!

HAVE A DREAMY 2013!

who are these people? me | chip | cara mia | our very long timeline

my column | my pre-cruising blog | contact us | blog log | resources

LIBERATION COMES IN MANY COLORS

Roswell, NM

"I couldn't be in a better place," Mom tells me about her new room in assisted living.

Today, on her 81st birthday, she looks better than she has in several years. She seems incredibly happy, even her memory has had a bounce, her sense of humor in full bloom.

I have worried that she's in denial, that she's suppressing her feelings or trying to make it easier for us. I have contrived dozens of ways to check her emotional pulse.

After explaining to her that we were clearing out some things in her old house, she asked me what on earth we were doing with all her stuff.

"Do you really want to know, Mom?" I asked.

"No, not really," she said. "Feel free to just throw it all away."

At that moment, I thought about apple trees and their fruit falling and finally understood why Mom is thriving.

When Chip and I left our home port in Manteo, we left behind everything we owned, house, furniture, business, photos, books and cars. We sold or donated the physical objects, but symbolically I had taken all the old chapters of my life, put them in folders and filed them in an imaginary file cabinet left behind in North Carolina.

Physically and psychologically I left my old life behind and sailed away, light as the breeze in our sails. In retrospect, the leaving was as exhilarating as the new life we were entering.

Mom too has embraced her liberation from her old life. She no longer takes care of everything and everyone, cooking, cleaning, buying groceries, doing laundry, paying bills. She is now on the receiving end of all the care she has doled out all these years.

The past is filed away in its proper place, and Mom has sailed away, light as the breeze, pragmatically wistful about her independence but exhilarated in her liberation.

A SAILOR IN THE DESERT: BITTERSWEET

Roswell, NM

"You know, Lynn next door? She and I have lived in the same neighborhood three different times in our lives. Now we're right next door to each other here," Mom says of her neighbor in assisted living.

Every day, Mom tells me that story about Lynn next door. Every day we laugh just the same.

Every morning Lynn and Mom discover anew that they have the exact same shoes.

Mom, at 81, is one of the youngest of the 15 residents at her facility. She was diagnosed last year with Lewy Body Dementia, a form of dementia with characteristics of both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. So far, Mom's symptoms have been mild. She has some short-term memory loss and her hands shake, especially if she's tired or upset.

Lunchtime parking.

Last year, staying with Mom in her townhouse, I watched every morning as she relearned where everything was in her own kitchen. (Unfortunately, at the end of the day, she would put all the dishes away in new places, allowing me to play along as well.)

With Mom living alone, it was hard to find any sweetness to counterbalance the sad reality of memory loss. We worried constantly that she would try to cook and forget the stove was on, that she would go for a walk and lose her way home, or fall and break her hip, which is exactly what happened in June.

Now with Mom safe here in assisted living with others to cook, do laundry and administer meds, I see dementia with different eyes. Mom, who used to fret about the past and worry about the future, now lives fully in the moment, the weight of the last one gone, forgotten. She has no concerns about a future that doesn't exist, because she can't remember to envision it and then worry about it.

For now, memory loss is a sweet gift wrapped in bitter paper. For now, I'll toss aside the paper and treasure the gift. And, if possible, follow Mom's lead and just let the future be.

And tomorrow, we'll laugh about the news that Mom and Lynn, yet again, live next door to each other.

The visiting minstrel at Mom's home. He was annoyed at me, 

because he thought I meant to take a photo and never did.

GONE MISSING WITH MOM

Roswell, NM

*NOTE TO MY READERS: I'm in Roswell, New Mexico, my hometown, visiting with my mother for three weeks. She fell and broke her hip the day before Chip and I flew to Paris in June. She spent several weeks in rehab and now lives, quite happily, in an assisted living home just down the street from my sister. This was written the first day I visited her.

@@@

"Oh Sixty-Seven," I called out loudly.

"BINGO!" Arlene shouted, her eyes alight with the thrill of victory.

Ten of us sat around a large family dining table at the assisted-living home where Mom lives now in our hometown, Roswell, New Mexico. Today was my first day to visit since Mom moved in two weeks ago, and I had volunteered to lead the afternoon activity.

"Great job, Arlene," I told one of Mom's new companions, genuinely sharing her joy. "But let's keep going. We're playing Blackout, so we want to cover the whole card." Arlene nodded happily.

"I 32," I called.

"BINGO!" Arlene shouted, and we all clapped for her and her new Bingo or maybe the previous one.

It didn't matter. Here, where the fire of dementia burns white hot, we were all in the present moment, deleriously happy with victory, whether it was a new one or an old one was irrelevant.

That fire consuming their memories burns the newest, freshest memories first, like the memory of what was said one sentence ago, but leaving intact old, old remembrances from childhood, like what the letter 'B' looks like and an 'I' and a '32.'

At lunch Arlene had told me, "I have two children, but they never come to visit me."

I was plummeting into the tragic sadness of this news when I remembered that Mom told me her sister had never visited this new home. I knew this wasn't true, that the memory of Hazel's visits had been consumed by the fire. Well, to clarify, Mom's statement wasn't factual, but, for Mom, it was and is utter truth.

And then I came back around to join Arlene in her utter truth that, even if the seat beside her is still warm from her daughter's visit, this moment's truth is that her children never come to visit.

"I'll come visit you, Arlene," I said.

"I like you," she said smiling brightly, and moved, carefree, on to her next moment, taking innocent pleasure in a small bowl of Neopolitan ice cream, completely liberated of all that had gone before. I staggered into my next moment dragging the weight of the last one and the heavy burden of liking Arlene too, even though I was now alone, no longer liked by Arlene, consumed by the fire.

Later that day at the lunch-table-turned-Bingo parlor, the youngest resident sat to my right. Nadine is tiny and spry, impeccably dressed with an alert demeanor that made me think surely she was a visitor. She enthusiastically worked two cards and helped 97-year-old Gracie next to her.

"I never win at Bingo," Nadine declared.

Without thinking, I blurted, "But Nadine, you just won two games in a row!"

"Oh, really?" she said, shock and then joy filling her face. "Oh, good!"

We soldiered on. I turned the crank on the cranky metal lottery wheel, and Bingo balls dropped sometimes into the metal slide as they were supposed to and sometimes went flying across the table and onto the floor.

"B Six," I called as a loud, persistent beeper went off, indicating that one of the seven residents not playing Bingo had pushed the button that each of them have hanging around their necks on brighly colored ribbons.

"BINGO," Arlene called out in pure delight, and we all clapped.

"That's so awesome, Arlene, but we're playing Blackout, so let's keep going."

I was living so utterly in the moment, concentrating on the most important and fulfilling job I'd ever had, so free of my sardonic self, that I completely missed the tragic irony of playing Blackout with eight women caught in an ultimate game of Blackout.

"What was the last number?" Cora asked me in her gravelly, expressionless voice.

Our eyes met. "I have no idea," I said.

Cora was fine with that.

At the end of the Blackout round, there were only six balls left in my metal cage, so I took them out and placed them in the master Bingo tray to see if we were playing with a full set. As I feared, we were not. One ball was missing. G 50. G 50 had gone missing.

With much fanfare, all the extra-large, Easy-Read cards were cleared of their poker chips. I scooped up all the balls but G 50 and put them back in the cage. Everyone who could remember reminded everyone who couldn't to put a chip on the FREE spot in the middle of the cards.

"G 50" I called out in a heartfelt effort to make up for all that had gone missing.

THE GERM OF PLACE

Corte Madera, CA

My life, as a story, is a disorganized mess, words and chapters strung together with no preplanned narrative arc, a writing disaster with a nut but no nut graf divulging the real heart of my story.

The news peg (timely relevance) here is the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference in Corte Madera, California, where famous, accomplished travel writers pretend they are regular people with regular shoes and sit around tables with credentialed regular people (like me) to discuss narrative arc, news pegs and story pitches.

It's lonely now, writing down here below that last weighty paragraph where you stopped reading about a banal writing conference in, where was that again? If you'd pressed your nose up to the plate glass window at Book Passage, you'd have observed that same paragraph (oh no, not again!) in 3D, and you would have thought it looked scratch-my-eyes-out boring. That's because magic doesn't travel through glass.

My life underway on a sailboat, even with another person, is inherently solitary, disconnected from land and, unfortunately, its people. Writing about traveling by sailboat is more solitary still. I'm a lonely, nomadic writer without a tribe. I thought.

I so love being wrong.

Robert Louis Stevenson said, "For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."

No, Robert Louis Stevenson was not at the conference, which, quite frankly, is his loss, but he describes the soul of those who were there. Travel writers are addicted to going somewhere else, to smudging our consciousness with the fresh soil of a new place -- and then writing about it. We carry the germ of place, and we want to infect our readers.

Gathered all in one room, we carriers of place incubated our germ into a raging epidemic that fed and consumed us by turns. It was an enchanted inspiration frenzy in the feverish way that, after the fever has broken, you crash into a dark, healing slumber, and upon waking, wonder which part was real and which part merely delirium. Did I get all weepy at the end? Did everyone?

We did.

I think.

We reached out from our solitary worlds as travelers and found a connection made of passion, passion for place and words and being transported. We exchanged shards of paper with @s and .coms, yearning to maintain the arc of extraordinary connection made in a room with ordinary blue carpet and ordinary blue chairs.

As a reader of my own messy story, it isn't clear yet if this conference is a significant plot point in the narrative arc of my life. Like the shocking discovery that you have a tribe and then melting into a feverish, 4-day, whirling Dervish-ish inspiration dance with them wouldn't be? (It would be if I were writing this. I'm not.)

So, reluctantly leaving behind the clarity of Book Passage and my newfound tribe, I drive south onto the Golden Gate bridge bathed in too bright, post stupor sunlight, disappearing, me and the bridge, into a chilly shroud of fog -- and a new place.

To be continued...

Linda Watanabe McFerrin introducing Andrew McCarthy,
 who is about to interview me at Book Passage.*

*Sincere apology to the magnificent Don George for this gag.**

**Sincere apology to Linda and Andrew as well, as if they'll ever read this. Carry on.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

Menlo Park, CA

Is impostor a career path? If so, I think I've got a solid resume.

Journalist Pretender :: Washington, D.C. :: 1996-2005
Across the room from where I sat hung the NIXON RESIGNS print plate of The Washington Post, which actually reads SNGISER NOXIN, because, of course, it's a print plate. It's backwards. At 36, I had flipped my own life around and signed up for Journalism 101. Nine months later, thanks to a boost from my professors, I had launched my new career posing as weekend editor of washingtonpost.com in a tiny conference room with the top editors at The Washington friggin' Post.

Impostor Wine & Beer Expert :: Kill Devil Hills, NC :: 2005-2010
Chip and I decided to open a wine shop, where, overnight, I stopped posing as a journalist and started impersonating a wine and beer expert. I worked across the room from a DOGFISH HEAD sign that was printed correctly and much easier to read, even if I'd been drinking. Our shop morphed into a raging success (because Chip's not an impostor).

Sailor Impersonator :: Water :: 2010-present
Two years ago, we sold the wine shop, so I could impersonate a sailor on a boat where I'm required to display a sign that tells how far out in the ocean it is legal to dump dunnage. (Don't even ask me what dunnage is. I don't know. I'm an impostor.)

Impostor Travel Writer :: Corte Madera, CA :: August 2012
This week I sit in a small room across from a sign that says, "BOOK PASSAGE" at a travel writers and photographers conference, sharing the same air with the gods of travel writing, real live people whose head shots appear on the cover flaps of my books.

Yesterday, I was honored to be scolded harshly by Georgia Hesse, the founding editor of the San Francisco Examiner, for a) writing in the vein of "what I did on my summer vacation," (just like I'm doing now. Sorry, Georgia.) and b) telling me I needed to look up the word 'enormity.' (She was correct.) (I love her.) The verbal spanking would have bothered me more if I hadn't been so mesmerized by her glasses frames, each side large enough for a yak to walk through. (That sentence ends with a preposition. I'm really sorry, Georgia.) I was also delighted to be told by Jim Benning, editor of World Hum, that my blog looked like it was a holdover from the '90s, and apparently this is not good.

At the end of four 17-hour days on a travel writing bender, I'm left with a inspiration hangover, caught between motivation and intimidation, certain to be busted when I string little letters together and unleash them out here on the worldwide web.

Masquerading is stressful but gloriously so.

Exec Editor of Afar, Travel Editor of Sunset, Author (and my mentor)
David Farley, San Francisco Chronicle Travel Editor.

Author Susan Orleans and
Don George, Contributing Editor of NatGeo Traveler, author, magic dust producer.

RAFT UP: SAILOR OR TRAVELER?

Paris, France

"I soon realized that no journey carries one far, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within." -- Lillian Smith

It's time for Raft-Up, where a group of sailing bloggers writes each month about a common topic, one of us each day, to offer readers varying perspectives on the same theme. You'll find links to the other blogs at the end of this post. This month's topic: Sailor or Traveler?

Traveling by boat obviously makes me both a sailor and a traveler, so the real question here is, which one is not optional. The fact that I write this during a one-month stay in Paris is probably a good hint.

I am a tumbleweed raised in a family of oaks, born with an itchy desire to find out what else is out there, who's out there, and what they're doing. I seek out new places, new cultures, new anything, new everything.

Travel is both my teacher and my muse. I never tire of seeing what a very tiny piece I am in this gigantic human puzzle, how different I am from the other pieces and yet ultimately, if I look hard enough, exactly the same. It is that fuzzy line between foreign and familiar that feeds my writer's mind.

Sailing for me is secondary but a perfect mode of transportation, teaching me to slow down and savor, to notice and digest. It requires me to be in touch with nature, to live outside myself. If I am a very tiny piece of the human puzzle, in the midst of gargantuan nature, I barely exist at all. It is humbling and at the same time invigorating.

It is uniquely rewarding to sail into a faraway harbor, knowing I came under my own power, that I have earned my way, inch by inch. It's an accomplishment that cannot be matched by stepping off a plane (although I like that too).

And, best of all, when I've explored that new harbor, I can go home, because I have brought home with me. Every day I travel. Every day I am still home.

For Chip, sailing came first and gave birth (or is it berth?) to an avid traveler. Sailing quickens his pulse but travel tunes him into the pulse of the planet. I have to say, he embraces the planet. I am an observer, but Chip is a member of the global family. He walks right in and sits down at the table. He will communicate with any form of language at hand, by sharing his meal, holding the door open, surprising them with his thoughtfulness. He is a keen observer of the human condition and should be the writer here. Instead you're stuck with me.

We both find that cruising comes with limitations. That little bit of water we cross to go ashore separates us from the people on land in a way I don't quite understand. We can interact with them, but we are perpetually separate, always the outsiders. While that might be true of all forms of travel, I have found it much harder to make that arc from the water, an arc we will keep trying to make.

So we are one traveler who loves to sail and one sailor turned traveler. We have no immediate plans to stop sailing, but when we do, we will not stop traveling. How else would we find out what's waiting just beyond....and just inside. How fortunate for us that we are kindred, roaming spirits, the further we extend into the world around us, the better we understand the world within.

Read other Raft-Up bloggers on the same topic.

who are these people? me | chip | cara mia | our very long timeline

my column | my pre-cruising blog | contact us | blog log | resources

DREAMS, COME ON DOWN!

Marathon, FL 24º42.366N | 81º5.669W

"Thanks in part to you two, we are realizing our long held dream of moving to Arizona this year. We decided to be brave and just do it, methodically making trips and looking at properties in earnest for the past year. Everything is falling right into place at the right time. I was one of your last customers at the wine store when you sold it. Took the card for the blog and have been a faithful reader ever since. Reading the blog really helped cement that we were doing the right thing. So, I thank you." -- A Facebook reader

One of my readers posted this on Facebook, and, first of all, I'm honored. We did not set out to inspire anyone. If that has happened it is a delightful byproduct of following our own dream.

But what it really got me thinking about is what dreams are made of, which sounds like a corny song from the '60s, I know. In this case, though, isn't it interesting that I, a girl from the desert moving onto a sailboat, have inspired someone to move from the Outer Banks near the ocean to Arizona in the desert. The content of the dream is not important. All that matters is that you have one.

I often ask people about their plans after the kids are grown or when they retire. Most often I'm answered with a blank look, as if I just asked them the Gross National Product of Zambia. There are people who haven't thought to dream. It hasn't occurred to them that there's another life possibility out there, that they might just pick up and do, well, something else.

And what difference does it make in your life to have a dream? I can tell you from experience that our plan to go sailing, even 10 years back, was a great stencil for drawing in almost everything else in our lives. We drew a smaller house than most, almost boatlike, and were better stewards of it, knowing our ultimate goal was to sell it for cruising cash. We drew a better business than we would have otherwise, making more prudent decisions that, we hoped, would make it more marketable when the time came to sell. We downsized, stopped buying useless things, drove older cars, sat on worn couches. I could go on here, but you get the idea. Our dream was the outline that kept us marching toward our goal for 10 years.

Try it. Get one.

Dream a dream. A big one or a little one.

Put a flag out there.

Start marching.

You'll be so glad you did -- and you'll be there sooner than you think.

HAPPY WHAT?

Coconut Grove, Miami, FL 25º43.533N | 80º84.321W

[ heart ]

It's Valentine's Day and everyone in the world is deliriously in love, right? Well, looking at Facebook, you'd think so.

I've been thinking (yes, your cue to click somewhere else) about how we represent ourselves and our relationships publicly, serving as our own image handlers. I say 'represent,' but what I really mean is 'misrepresent.'

This thought process was prompted by a call last week from some dear friends who, seemingly out of the blue, are getting a divorce. Having weathered a divorce myself, I know it is rarely out of the blue but rather a long time coming. But as close friends why didn't we talk to each other about it before and not just after?

Why don't any of us talk readily about the challenges of our relationships? I think we are betraying each other by not recognizing and exposing how hard it is to craft a healthy relationship. When we don't, we allow each other to believe that everyone else has a perfectly awesome relationship, seemingly effortlessly. Then we harbor the very false belief that our own relationship is uniquely challenging and perhaps ultimately broken.

THIS IS SO WRONG. All relationships are flawed, because they are built from two flawed people. The only way to make the relationship awesome is for both of the flawed people to work individually and together to fix those flaws.

As part of my new campaign, I will start: Chip and I have relationship problems.

I thought our problems were worse than others until I started reading relationship books and was completely bolstered by the examples of relationships in far worse shape than my own. (I recognize this makes me a shallow person.)

What are Chip and I doing about our problems? We have been using a book Chip found called Getting the Love You Want (info below). It is an intensive program with specific exercises to help couples work through their issues. It includes a structured method for communicating about emotional topics in a calm and productive manner (amazing).

I use the word 'work,' because it is work, actually hard work. It helps you look into your own thoughts and behaviors and ferret out the ways you contribute to the issues at hand and then, consequently, avoid dealing with them. Ouch.

I am delighted to report great progress. We are only halfway through the exercises in the book but have learned surprising and liberating lessons already. We have stopped avoiding and suppressing issues (a challenge itself on a 38' sailboat!) and instead, learned a healthy way to discuss and deal with them.

So, in addition to saying, Happy Valentine's Day, I've come here to say let's be honest, and let's get to work!

Our relationship is the richest, most rewarding and most valuable thing we have. It is like a big chunk of marble that, with a grand vision, heavy labor and hours of polishing, can be transformed into a beautiful masterpiece for the ages. Yours is too.


Here is the book in our Amazon.com store (you pay the same price, Amazon gives us 15%):
Getting the Love You Want -- paperback
Getting the Love You Want -- Kindle edition

HELM REFLECTIONS

Daytona, FL 29º11.486N | 81º00.063W

Well, it's time to get this show back on the water. After two weeks in St. Augustine, we untied at first light and turned south toward Daytona. It felt so good to be moving again. I was standing watch at the helm ... thinking  so feel free to stop reading here.

we should not complain about impermanence,
because without impermanence, nothing is possible.  -- thich nhat hanh

Sometimes at the helm I think about how water gets sucked up into the clouds and comes falling down again as rain. Sometimes I think about candy canes or squirrels, but today I was thinking about the march of life and the certain irony of the tug-of-war between physical decline and internal growth. You know, how as time passes, our bodies slowly deteriorate while at the same time our brains and souls are on an opposite trajectory toward enlightenment -- at least that's the idea.

And if the one constant in our lives is time passing, why, as if there's an alternative, do we lament that very passing and even the growth that comes along with it? We protest the sweet baby growing into a toddler into a pre-schooler, sigh at last year's picture of a puppy now full grown. We rankle at the emotional growth that would give us the happiness we think we want.

Somewhere down there, our reptilian brain must be saying, "we are safe, fed and free of pain. We're surviving, don't change a thing!"

It must be our other more progressive brain that, if indulged, seeks and is gratified by change. It's not the ordinary moments that stick with us, it is the times when we've stepped out of the stasis of our lives and experienced something new, the birth of a child, a farflung vacation, an epiphany that sends us down a whole new path.

But what happens if your daily life is ever new, if you have so embraced change that it becomes your only constant? My "normal" is movement, new scenes, new places. I now live at the whim of currents, tides, wind, storm systems, seasons, all moveable targets, and though some have patterns, many are just plain unpredictable.

All the external markings of stability have been removed and even the floor beneath my feet moves. In this ever-changing environment, just as my surroundings do not remain stationary, neither does my self.

What I realize is that this fluid environment reveals the things in me that are static -- some good and some bad.

Busy life used to mask my foibles, but here with only sky and water and a changing landscape, those flaws rise up and demand attention, changes of their own, because, well, everything must change -- get with the program!

And those are the things I think of while standing at the helm watching water and Florida pass me by. I think of all the other things that are slipping past in my wake, youth and years, tears and triumphs.

But why am I out here? To seek the water ahead and learn its lessons, to nourish and feed that little sprout of understanding growing somewhere deep within and pluck the weeds that hold it back.

And press on toward the light ... at 5 miles per hour.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!!!!

Swansboro, NC 34º41.151N | 77º07.108W

The sun rising over Beaufort, NC.

"My wracking sobs were bubbling up from a deep bilge full of emotions: relief, sadness, nostalgia, excitement, profound joy and even a little fear laced heavily with exhaustion." 

I wrote that sentence one year ago today as the wind off Roanoke Island breathed life into our hard-earned dream. We had at long last reached the end of a 10-year plan and set off on our new adventure -- and I sat on the life jackets and cried. (You can read more about that here.)

People often ask if sailing around in this 3D dream is all that we had hoped for, and our answer is a hearty "hell yes"! It's hard to describe the rich experiences of our last year without getting sentimental and maudlin, but if you read this blog much you already know we have lived much of it in a veritable series of postcards, complete with lovely people sipping drinks in shockingly beautiful settings.

But the joys have been tempered by an equal measure of new demands. Being green as Kermit the Frog has tested our fortitude, cleverness and wits (and wit too). In fact, I frequently wondered aloud if there would ever be a day when I did not learn something.

While it's way too early to do a retrospective on our life afloat, I do realize that we can now reef the main without utter chaos and reach for the Cheerios without rifling through the pantry. We can remove the fuel filter without scraping off our knuckles and operate the toilet for weeks on end without it breaking -- usually from user error (I wish I hadn't said that).

We've packed a lot of joy and learning into a year, and looking back at our wide-eyed selves, I know we had no inkling of what thrills and challenges lay just beyond our horizon.

Perhaps today is no different -- only this time I'm not crying.

"You can turn the clock to zero, honey

I'll sell the stock, we'll spend all the money.

We're starting up a brand new day."    -- Sting

NOT ONE SINGLE TIME

Darien River, GA 31º23.046N | 81º20.043W

We humans love to push nature around, scraping it right down to the bedrock in order to pile up sticks and bricks and steel to cover ourselves. Then as an afterthought, we spread nature like peanut butter around the edges of our buildings, in little squares and rectangles, in pots and barrels, on porches and balconies.

We say silly things like "wildlife management" and "climate controlled."

We stand shoulder to shoulder on our steel girders, waving our arms, believing ourselves large and victorious.

This morning I opened the companionway to see this.

I was confused at why the sun looked so pale and exasperated when I realized it was sinking.

In 50 years, some 600+ times in my life, the full moon has set at sunrise and not one time, not a single time had I seen it before today.

Brickhill River, GA 30º51.832N | 81º28.368W

An eagle perched atop an ICW marker.

St. Simon Sound

THE SCIENCE OF PINK

Wahoo River, GA 31º36.092N | 81º013.008W

The grandeur of nature rattles my senses. 

A pale yellow sun timidly struggles through clouds 

and reflects on steely gray waters. 

Surreal, endless water, 

glistening, marsh grass gold, 

explosive against the sheer artistry 

of gray on gray on gray on blue.

The sweeping and overwhelming subtlety 

makes me feel inadequate to appreciate 

what's been spread before me. 

And yet, I partake. 

I attempt to capture. 

I hack at description. 

I fail.

Nature's splendor is larger than words, 

larger than lenses 

and my tiny human effort to capture it.

I am reduced to the single moment. 

The utter silence of gray. 

The screech of gold. 

The sweet and gut-wrenching science of pink 

wrought by sun and bits of atmosphere.

Which cloud cares if I have traveled three miles 

or fifty 

or five thousand 

or none at all?

Darien River, GA 31º23.046N | 81º20.043W