Best Self

I’m tucked into the corner of the settee, wedged in with seven pillows so I don’t move and I don’t have to support my own body. The bucket is next to me but I’ve taken my seasick pill and I hope to sleep instead of vomit. The dorade vent that goes under water only drains on the outboard side of the box, so instead, when it fills, water pours on my right shoulder. Some of it makes it into the bucket so I feel pretty clever, but I still don’t want to move much so the pillows and the settee and my down vest get wetter and wetter. ...

A few days ago I was told that my dorades were dusty. The next day another person mentioned how dirty my decks were. And yet another person asked me why I had so much crap in my cockpit. All of these criticisms hit me deeply and personally and brought back every single boat insult ever slung my way. I emotionally fled to a perfectly polished tiny cottage where I could live alone in shiny silence with a hand blown glass vase full of pink peonies on the table and not a single crumb on the floor. ...

We have an odd tradition on Convivia. I would like to believe that it was modeled after a trait I picked up in my wilderness canoeing days, but really , it is probably more just good fortune. We tend to set a day for departure, work our butts off to make that schedule, and then we realize that we have no real imperative to leave. So we postpone a day. This day, is a special kind of day because unlike other chilled out days, we really didn’t expect it (even after many many iterations). So we end up swimming around the boat (because Fatty is often either on deck or hipped and ready) eating popcorn, and generally being a family of extreme leisure. This photo pretty well captures that spirit.

Back when I was a dirt dweller, I used to buy coffee beans from this little warehouse in Oakland. The company, Sweet Maria’s, was owned and operated by a guy who personally flew around the world, visiting plantations, sampling coffee beans at the source, and then buying small batches from the best of them. I have wanted his job ever since. When I imagined this sailing adventure, I pictured myself, sailing through the world’s finest coffee growing regions, making dozens (if not hundreds) of forays into the mountains to restock my ever dwindling supplies of green beans. As the journey wore on, it became apparent to me that this dream was (perhaps) a bit unrealistic. The resources and local knowledge needed to find and visit the farms change with every locale, and the time and money needed to make the trips is not insignificant on our modest budget. ...

I don’t know what exactly it is about passagemaking that brings out these feelings but it’s so common as to be a phenomenon. Despite the sleep deprivation, and subtle (and sometimes acute) hardships of crossing hundreds of miles of ocean. Despite being cramped in a small, often roughly rolling vessel with two lovely but demanding children, I often find a moment, or a long string of moments where I am just so overwhelmed with gratitude for my great good fortune that it feels transcendent. ...

Parenting is *hard.*I still find myself waking up at night to tend to bad dreams, or bug bites, and there’s the constant sibling squabbles, and, with us, homeschooling battles. That’s not to mention the challenges of ushering our kids through their self-identification. I have noticed, several times over the busy few years past, that I haven’t really been focusing on those moments that make parenting awesome. On Lizard Island, we got our first real break of this leg of passage making. We snorkeled, and hiked and spent time together having fun. It really frustrated me that Olive wouldn’t get in the water. We know she can swim, and she is excited about her new wetsuit and mask, but she just wouldn’t take the plunge. Then one afternoon, after getting really upset about it, she and I were playing in the shallows and I started acting like godzilla, stomping and grunting, and she pretended to fight me. After a little of this horsing around, I asked her if she would like me to teach her something. She agreed, and we got her mask. I showed her how to clear her snorkel and how to put it on underwater. She was really good, and I let her know. She was visibly proud, and something changed in her. We spent the next hour or two snorkeling in the shallows and now she asks constantly when we will get another chance. ...

It’s not an unfamiliar scene on Convivia. It’s the night before a present giving event, and Vick and I are wondering if we should run out and get one or two more things. “We have Ruby’s presents (the most substantial expenditures this year at $24), and my 6” handmade felt pterodactyl, and… that’s it." Our cultural programming was going haywire. I pretty much assume that a birthday or christmas is going to run ~$300/kid when it’s all said and done. Was this going to be the worst birthday ever? ...

I have a hard time assigning superlatives. I tend to experience life in an abstract way that doesn’t depend heavily on specific, quantifiable metrics. So when I say that this was the best day ever, take that with a grain of salt. There were other best days. They might have been better, who knows. Not me :) Today started slowly, in the usual ways. After coffee and breakfast I headed up to the cockpit to knock a quick tiller repair project off the list. With that success behind me I focused on the horizon. ...

“I wish everyone who knew me could know the sailing me!” I posted this on Facebook today. It was one of those thoughts that popped into my head ready to publish, and didn’t require a lot of fact checking. As the day passed though, I found myself coming back to that thought. What makes the sailing me noteworthy, why do I prefer it to the geeky me, or the business me, or the city slicker me? ...

I’ve been noticing a lot of articles, podcasts, tweets, and other coverage lately about slut shaming and rape culture. Maybe it’s that I have decidedly feminist sexual politics and my friends and news feeds tend to reflect and amplify those topics, or maybe (I can hope) it’s because our society is starting to realize that feminism and (more basically) respecting women is an issue that men have a serious stake in. When I hear on the news that people are sympathising with rapists who’s “futures have been ruined”, I assume that the part of the population that thinks that way must be incredibly small, uneducated and dim witted. When I read the dozens of brave letters from women (some in their middle years, some in high school) who have been sexually bullied, slut shamed, and raped I would love to believe that they represented 100% of the population that has been saddled with such a burden. ...

I just had one of those rare pure moments of perfect bliss. It happened when I went forward to let out the boom vang. After letting it go I paused for a moment to look around (something we do almost constantly out here). Something about the familiar vista caught my attention and I went forward to the bow to figure out what it was. As my hand grasped the forestay I time-warped back to my childhood. In that moment I was standing on the bow of our Luders staring down Muscongus Sound. Ahead of me (it seemed then) was the whole world and my life, just waited to be experienced. ...

They came—finally—on the approach to the Bay Bridge. The saline evidence of a soul deep sadness that I have suppressed and longed for all week. This has been a week of goodbyes. A week of goodbyes, following another week of goodbyes on the East Coast. As my colleague and compadre of 12 years bade me an emotional goodbye on Friday, I felt my tears well up and then, mysteriously, they were squelched. I felt robbed. This week has been filled with replayings of that vignette; with a friend I’ve known almost as long as I’ve lived in California, to those who’s child I’ve seen birthed. Each time the tragedy of having to move away from these relationships that we have nurtured in order to pursue a life long dream, filled me to bursting. And yet, tears eluded me. ...

New parents, new lovers, newly converted, people discovering a great new ashram, sport, hobby, or any other infatuation. We all share a common stigma. Most people want us to just shut up already. There is something about falling in love that puts a shine so bright on us that makes some people just want to turn us off. What kind of trips me out about this phenomenon is that it is socially accepted that shining too brightly is annoying (at best). Like new parents who just can’t stop talking about their beautiful perfect babies are somehow rubbing the rest of our noses in it. I was that guy (okay, I’m always that guy). I couldn’t stop talking about my kids. Even now, I have to remind myself mid-emote, that the general contractor of our new headquarters really doesn’t care, he was just being polite. ...

Way back in 2009 I promised Ruby that I would take her backpacking. She had forgotten for a while and I will admit that in the flurry of buying our dreamboat, selling all of our stuff, and moving aboard, I was happy for the furlough. Recently the topic came up again. First it was just “Daddy, do you remember that camping trip we were supposed to go on?” Before too long it turned into crying tantrums with doozies such as “You promised me you would take me hiking when I was just TWO (or three) and you’re never going to do it.” With our family adventure deadline looming, I feared she might be right. ...

Amanda (of Britannia) came over last night and we got on the topic of love. Specifically “True Love” and “Soul Mates.” I have a complicated opinion on the topic of soul mates that provided good fodder for our conversation. Too soon we noticed it was midnight and had to say goodnight to our friend. As we were falling asleep I wondered aloud*: I’m not sure how to reconcile the seemingly antithetical views I have on what makes a relationship work. On the one hand I believe that an awesome relationship demands that both partners periodically choose to remain in the relationship. On the other hand I know that it is essential to believe, with the completeness of your being, that your love is immutable. The latter, I believe, amounts to a sacred commitment to the relationship (spoken or not). ...