Metaphors, To-Do Lists, and the Poetry of Why

Is there a condition in which you suddenly convert everything happening in your life to metaphors? I seem to be doing this, and against my better judgment, I’d like to share two of them. Perhaps it is because I haven’t put pen to paper in 6 weeks and my brain is purging its (not necessarily good) creative juices. But I find these are apt metaphors for what life feels like right now.

My most recent metaphor came to me during a morning swim workout, during which our coach had us doing broken 200’s at race pace. For you non-swimmers out there, this means: sprint your fastest for 75 meters; grab oxygen for 10 seconds and think about how great this set is for helping you reach your goal; sprint your fastest again for 75 meters; grab oxygen, pant, and curse your coach for 10 seconds; sprint your fastest again for 25 meters, feeling the burn spread like lava into your legs and lungs; grab what little oxygen you can, wonder why on earth you got up at 5:15 a.m. for this, why on earth anyone would swim anything longer than a 100, and, while you’re at it, why on earth you started swimming in the first place; sprint your last 25 meters; grab oxygen, pant, get really excited when you find out you actually hit your race time, and know definitively – once the oxygen returns to your brain – that this set will help you reach your goal. Repeat. With more pain each time.

Our lives right now are currently at the “wondering why on earth” phase.  We feel like we are in a constant sprint that allows us short gasps for air before we have to put our heads down again and do yet another sprint, and another, and another. We’re tired. We hurt. Our house, cars, and minds are complete mess.

I haven’t written in a while. Perhaps it is because I have had my head down trying to get to each wall, perhaps because I’ve been a little depressed and struggling to manage the transition away from work into an unknown future, perhaps it is simply because I haven’t had the time to let enough oxygen get to my brain before the next sprint. But in this brief moment of oxygen, I’d like to share where we are on this journey. We have ticked a lot off the (capitalized) Multi-Tab Google Sheets To-Do list:

  • We have new sails and running rigging from UK Sails and Black Line Marine in Sidney, BC (pictures to follow later); we’ve installed a chart plotter, AIS transponder and receiver, and new anchor roller; we have (but have not yet installed) a Hydrovane, SSB radio, VHF radio, line cutters for the prop, and material for new curtains. We also have our first offshore insurance quote and an out of water survey scheduled. Next up: buying and installing a functioning anchor windlass and new chain. Hooray for not spending 4 years at anchor on rope! The Fortress anchor has served us well, but it’s better as a secondary anchor, and we’re looking forward to being back on chain and our 85-pound Mantus anchor.
  • We have researched and bought our curriculum and have begun organizing the books and crafts we’ll have aboard.
  • We have our new passports, as well as all necessary doctor’s and vet’s appointments scheduled.
  • We designed and ordered our boat cards and have researched and purchased (but not yet had time to test) new toys that we will we use for videos and vlogging. We even created our first test video so I could play with fun editing features. Next up: stay tuned for a video post in a few weeks!
  • With the help of parents, friends, and contractors, we painted the inside of our house, made it look pretty, painted the outside, cleaned the roof, cleaned up the yard (okay, gutted all the weeds and overgrowth), signed a contract with a real estate agent, and are ready to put the house on the market tomorrow.

All the while, we have also been working full time, dealing with the emotional upheaval of leaving jobs, attending swim meets, and making time for important events, like friends’ bar mitvahs, baby showers, birthday parties, and just simple time with friends and family.  

Something had to give. We’re not super-people. Meal planning has gone the way of the dodo, cleaning is something I vaguely remember doing in a former life, caring about odd unknown smells no longer takes priority, sleep is even worse than it was before, and when we thought Dylan lost his second-favorite lovey “Friday Harbor,” what gave was my sanity. I felt like I was about to collapse emotionally. And that’s when the other metaphor struck me: both our boat and our lives are boatyard mode: torn apart, pieces everywhere, so many things in the process of being fixed, planned, dealt with, or thrown away. But this is why you do repairs in a boatyard, on solid ground, so that when a wave or an unexpected gust of wind hits you, all those torn apart pieces don’t go flying; maybe they just jiggle and shift a bit, but they stay in place.

 

 

Our minds are in boatyard mode, too. Everything feels torn apart; some of it is in the process of being fixed, some of it is being planned, some of it is being dealt with, and some of it will be given up or thrown away.  And when your life is a complete chaos like that, it helps to find your stability on dry land, so that when that big wave or wind gust hits you, things may jiggle a bit, but they don’t topple you and everything aboard. When I lost it over missing Friday Harbor, my friends and community helped me find perspective, support, sympathy, and my dry, stable land.  I also realized that – despite the havoc that our lives are now and have been over the past few years – that our family is on solid ground, that we have a foundation to keep us stable when the waves and wind hit. And part of the joy of this trip is exploring how to strengthen the set of that foundation even more and have our kids add to the strength rather than weaken it. I recognize that I could take the metaphor further: that when we find a place for everything and aren’t in chaos mode, that it’s time to find the strength not in our foundation, but in our hull, challenge the dips and swells of life, and figure out how our little boat can ride with them.

In this time of questions and “why on earth!” musings of why we decided to do this, there has been some children’s poetry to remind us.  Dylan’s teacher told me that he is talking about how he is “going to explore the world,” and it made my heart happy to imagine him with wide eyes and an open mind asking questions about forest mushrooms, new languages, kangaroo pouches, and why starfish don’t have eyes. And when the kids were asking questions about their great-grandma the other night, Andy said:  

GG’s body is in the ocean.
We’re going to sail on the ocean.
We’re going to sail on top of GG!
Maybe we’ll hear the water talk.

This is why we’re going. Because when you have a dream, you put your head down, push for the wall, and remember – even when you’re short on oxygen or when you need to find your personal stability when you feel the waves and wind coming –  that you’re going to explore the world and listen to the water talk.