institutionalized:

i realize i have been somewhat lax at keeping the dream alive with frequent updates.  mostly due to lack of interesting subject matter paired with some laziness.  there are many layers of change that happen when someone like myself finds themselves settling down, and it isn't as simple as i'd like to think.

for one, the more time goes by, and the more bits i chisel off my thickened exterior, the more issues i find that i hadn't known were there, and need dealing with.  and frankly its a new surprise every day, and sometimes caught off guard.  it's the little things- every single thing and the way i go about it that has been shaped by absolute necessity to a life offshore.  and it all is brought to my attention.

for one, i don't know how house plumbing works.  i have no idea.  there is no water pressure pump, there is no grey water tank.  there are no valves and no hoses that need frequent servicing.  you can't just lift up hatches in your bathroom or living room floor and have access to all that you need.  I can take a shower without running the sump.   I can take a shower without shammying the whole bathroom down afterwards.  I can take a shower with hot water.  I can take a shower while RUNNING water.  the whole TIME. 

apparently when you use the sink, it does something to the temperature of the shower water.  this notion is completely foreign to me, nor is it a part of my built in common sense.

i also lean against kitchen counters and especially the stove  there's usually three points of my person in contact with something solid if i can help it.  especially around knives, fire, and electric utensils.    marine ovens and ranges do not simply turn on with a push of a button.  first you flick the solenoid on the panel.  then you open the gas.  then you turn the knob on the range.  then you flick the lighter.  it's never an accident.  i've never accidentally turned the oven on.  half the time i can't get it lit on purpose.  and then there's the leaning.  and it doesn't just apply to the galley.  if i can wedge myself into a secure space just about anywhere i will.  and these fancy new house stoves have the ability to spontaneously ignite just by having someone lean against the knob directly on the front of the oven...  i need to look into setting a child safety lock for myself.

flushing toilets is another matter.  i will avoid going to the bathroom almost to the point of an emergency solely on account of not wanting to operate the skipper II head.  that thing is a total upper body workout no matter how you look at it.  i've been on land for two years now.  my brain still has a tiny celebration every time i just push a button and the toilet flushes automatically. 

what else?  oh.  sleep.  you know those nights when the wind is crapping out, you're downwind and there's a gigantic beam sea?  the starfish plus the one bent leg is in full effect, and you're mentally channeling your own center of gravity to your toes and fingertips so that you don't roll off the damn bed.  sure you've rigged the lee cloth but honestly- has anyone ever slept soundly against one of those?  nothing makes you feel more like a refugee than a lee cloth. 

and then it rains.  nobody ever sleeps when it's raining out.  is there a hatch left open?  i think i hear a drip.  where is it dripping from?  the mast boot seal is bad again, i bet.  curses.  nightmares of rotten deck wood and rotten mast partners and rotten covering board joints flood your mind with worry and all hope for a restful "cozy" night in is lost. 

but houses don't have lee cloths.  houses don't need lee cloths.  and houses don't have teak decks or hatches or ports or deck prisms or mast boots or any of these things.  but it's not your first instinct, and it isn't an instinct that others readily understand, or comprehend the place in your brain where its coming from.  except for those of us who are there now.  or once were. 

until you sit straight up at night in bed because you think you just heard the anchor dragging or think you've just smelt propane or heard a flare being fired, or the sickening sound of something very large, very strong exploding under heavy load- or the bilge alarm go off- or hell... just about any alarm- there's just no way to describe the tacit irregularities that cannot translate between the practicality offshore and the luxury of terra firma.  

hello, goodbye, and everything in between

  i've been sitting on some feelings and haven't really done anything about them for a long while.

broad street came and went, and although it was not a banner year, essentially, I ran an 87 minute ten mile race for something i did not train for.  and i wasn't even sore afterward.   and yes, i'm an asshole for this.  sorry. 

  i don't recommend this method, but i told myself at the start of the race that i had already done 16.2 miles, and i needed these next ten to just get me through to the finish.   there was discussion on the ride up among the usual suspects that none of us had decided to bust out a PR this year and that was that.  we had already given up.  i sortied to the start fashionably late for my impressively early gate assignment ... (which i had earned fair and square the previous year, mind you) and sloshed through the raining course, grabbed my metal and silently went with my buddies to the car to go home- all vowing to return the following year with a game plan and proper prior planning.

  it wasn't a bad winter.  in typical fashion, decided to winter at my usual haunt in Antigua with indeterminate plans to take up residence in Palma so Owen could be with his father on Lionheart- as Ayds and I were getting on unusually well, short lived as it was...  but as it was, the northeast United States was having a banner winter, so I decided to see where things lead on a different front, and enliven my weeks with someone unapologetically not a mariner and therefore a breath of fresh air to a drowning person.   I was surprised that it made even the least bit of sense honestly.  It wasn't my original designs, or even an idea i entertained in the back of my mind, but life often leads us to all the best places completely by chance... i've learned this enough to not ignore what will most potentially be an incredible thing. 


  

New World Symphony

there are few more recognizable composers of the Romantic musical era than Antonin Dvorak, and his symphony number 9 will always stand out as a gleaming, beacon and breath of fresh air.  When I was a little girl, I played his New World Symphony on my father's record player over and over.    more notably, his second movement has made itself a familiar household tune, and something I've found myself humming in all corners of the globe while underway to a familiar harbour.  Some nights are quiet and calm- offshore, with the loom of shore thousands of miles in either direction- nowhere to be seen in the black night sky uninterrupted by light pollution- watching the countless shooting stars zoom by overhead- the night well lit by thousands of the stars I am so familiar with.  Some nights are tumultuous and violent- and I cling to the helm, feeling each windshift and keeping prudent to sail trim, chart, fellow marine traffic, and any other impending factors that will get us there safely and with little incident as possible.  this song has come with me for tens of thousands of miles, and now it is time to impart these instincts upon my son.   

the older i get, the more homes i have.  the more places and people i have fallen in love with.  the world is my home now.  it is quite a feeling being homesick for Greenland, Alicante, Roma, Nantucket, English Harbor, Cane Garden Bay, and Gustavia all at once!  They say home isn't where you originated- it's where your heart chooses to be.

  we're going back to one of our homes to be with friends who are family- where we've not been for 7 months, and it will be a good healing time for our souls, and to live the way I feel we were designed to be living.  it was a hard decision to make, but i know that this is 100% the right decision for us now.   See you when we see you.  Xxx.

  That awkward moment when you think you're considering a Hal Higdon training plan, but it turns out to be Amby Burfoot and Bart Yasso....  which I would have known had I opened up the no less than 394872394872938742094812093 emails Runners World sends imploring me to buy their latest (3 years ago) marathon themed literary masterpiece.  I bought this book when it first came out, and yet- that is still not enough for the powers that be.  they want me to own.... six, i'm thinking. 

  i selected an intermediate schedule after convincing my ego that I in no way have the mileage inside of me for an advanced program.  i can peak at 55 miles easy.  I can't peak at 70 miles, with sustained 50 + mile weeks before and after.  hats off to those who can, though.  i salute you.

Owen's been coming with me on all my runs.  i've decided to train for this race by pushing him the entire way.  and on race day, run alone.  i hate to make a claim so bold as to say i'm out for a BQ, but really I am.  I fell pregnant with Owen literally the same week I got into Boston, so i've been on the warpath since, and can rest easy once i take care of unfinished business. 

i've been too exhausted/busy/lazy to chronicle my fall running pursuits, but that's what i've been doing instead of keeping everyone up to date on our activities. 

Owen did it.  he Toddlered me.  I tried to nudge him away from the trash can, holding his hand.  and he sat down.  he just sat down.  that was it.  he knew what he wanted to do.  I wouldn't let him.  so he crumpled when I tried to pull him away.  stubborn kid. 

what impresses me most about his little spirit is the amount of confidence that he has.  he's not afraid to fall.  to fall hard.  he gets right up.  he's a rough little ragamuffin.  and nothing's cuter than hearing his little voice say "momma" 

i think spring might be starting.

it's always a tease to visit Philly in April because I'm reminded of the springtimes of yore- which begin in earnest in march.  The island is still relatively quiet, and the laughing gulls are squeaking away.  the ravine and the pines are full of such lush verdure that there's no trace of there ever being a winter here at all. 

Spring, more than any time of the year is a time I reflect.  It's scent for me that is most strongly tied to memory, and the lilac and wisteria and hyacinth all bring me back to days which were nothing short of enchanting.

I brought Owen to the ravine- which conveniently enough is my father's backyard- and I showed him the words and dates on the trees that a much smaller me carved out with a knife- memorializing a more innocent time of tree climbing and poison ivy having.  He is much closer in age to myself then than I'll ever be again.  and still the creek trickles on below whether we're down there or not.  I haven't been there in ten years.  Well, I have.  but not in earnest.  just one of those instances of never really being able to go home, I guess.  so much time offshore has brought me to new homes, and I suppose I've seen too much to ever really sew roots somewhere and not find myself restless for the places and the people I have loved.   

all things considered, I find myself wondering how I've arrived at this station of life.  a tiny little barefoot alpha girl in her dad's race shirts who wanted just to run forever and never be assed by the norms of society- have her heart (and her Champagne glass) always be full, and always have lots and lots of wide open space that goes on forever.  That was me. 

I never thought I'd be somebody's Mom.  But here we are- and it is Springtime that  introduces the urgency to go back and be sure that my son lives out a childhood full of every single thing that made mine so astounding.  I feel like I never did construe a proper anthology of the days spent wholly out of doors, with dirt beneath our nails, swinging hammers, and running through rock quarries, along the dunes, and through fields of wheat. 

final thoughts before race day-

time to head south-

 
   bags are packed.  I cannot go back and change any of my training.  all that is left is to pin my number on and perform the way I've always performed.  with more efficiency.  this is not an ultra marathon.  this is not a race I aspire just to complete.  there is no trail, and no track.  just one long, straight sprint from A to B that I've done ten times before on this familiar course.  it is not scenic.  but the city streets are full the entire length of crowds watching all forty thousand of us pass.    

it's just a run.   and every year I make it to the finish faster than I ever did before.  I only race against myself. 

because that's all there is.