There is a line in my hair that marks the day we left Mexico. Sun-bleached, split-ended, blonde hair hangs below that line, and seven inches of brown roots and healthy locks grow above it, unaffected by the North Pacific and the Alaska summer. It looks like the hair of someone who hasn’t been to a salon in over a half a year. That would be true. It also looks like the hair of someone who has had a drastic change in her life. That would also be true.
That line marks the day our lives pivoted. They pivoted north instead of southeast. They pivoted toward home rather than away from it. They pivoted toward figuring out how to get home and what our lives might look like in a new Covid World. For all the tumult and chaos and change of plans, though, we have been happy to be making our way home. We have been happy to start shifting our mindsets to a different life.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t posted our arrival due to lack of time. I’ve had plenty of time in the past two weeks since we made it back to Anacortes after the (not uneventful) 6-day passage from Sitka. Somewhat intermittent time, but time nonetheless. More often than not, I have used that time to read, nap, organize, stare at the wall, cook, or watch a movie with the kids. No, it’s not about lack of time.
It’s not writer’s block, because I’ve been spending an hour or two a day working on my book, managing to get 300 to 600 words off my fingertips each day. What sweet satisfaction to feel the story emerge.
And it’s not about a lack of emotion, because there’s been plenty of that. The surprise of seeing our friends arrive to escort us in to Anacortes. The relief of pulling into the dock. The happiness of seeing our family awaiting us. The apprehension of dealing with the prospect of online school. The suffocation of not being able to get together with a whole bunch of friends to celebrate. The mixed emotions of hauling Korvessa out of the water. More relief than sadness, really, with that one. Relief that we and the boat all made it back safely. But seeing her blocked up on land the other day choked me up. And for all that we talk about coming “home,” we know very well that Korvessa was our home all along. The kids are the first to remind us of that. No, there have been plenty of emotions to write about.
My delay in making a “we’re home” post has been much more about not knowing where to start, not finding quite the right words. How do you write about homecoming after a voyage that has upended and changed your life, your perspective, your confidence? How do you give that moment the weight it needs?
The answer: you wait until you have had the chance to process it. And that time is not now. That’s what the book will be for. I’m learning and realizing lessons even as the story spills off my fingers. I’m processing it as Tom and I revisit various memories. I feel and see the story more as I make my way through journals warped by salt water and the buried stores of cans and jars with Spanish labels, slightly rusted and disheveled from a Pacific circumnavigation. As are we. No, it’s not time to sum it all up. It’s not time to talk about all our lessons learned and transformations we’ve been through. That will come.
In the mean time, know that we are home. That we are happy to be home, along with all the other emotions. That I will continue to post stories up here that never got written, such as the case of the disappearing cat and a summary of boat-school (which may give me a mild form of PTSD for years to come). And know that I will finally get Tom on the blog to write about some of his own wickedly funny and harrowing stories; he has lots to tell about fishing, alternators, transmissions, and cat feces. Remember, our final passage from Sitka to Anacortes was NOT uneventful. A story will eventually follow.
My hair tells a story. Tom’s hair, cut oddly by my inexpert hands, tells a story. Andy’s haircut, thickening by the day, cut into an awful bowl cut from another century, tells a story. And Dylan’s hair – that bright blonde hair bleached white by the Mexican sun now darkening at the roots as mine is, that hair that sent him into hysterics when it was touched by too many well-wishing hands – that hair tells a story. And we will continue to write our story as we live this adventure of life.
