Tag Archives: Mid-life

Work, Play, Semantics; Oy Vey!

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Sometimes when I meet people and they find out we are planning to live aboard a boat for awhile, especially a sailboat, I am faced with a little bit of eye rolling and generally a comment such as, ‘Sailboats? They are too much work.’.  Then I have to do a little eye rolling of my own because usually these are people who own their own homes, some even bigger than the 3000 or so square feet we have! Boats are a lot of work? Really? I think this is a matter of perspective. Unless you allow your home to literally fall down around you, (or you can afford a staff to do your bidding) homes are much more work than a boat ever will be. I know this to be true because as I sit here gazing at my beautiful home, I realize that it is falling down around me because, HELLO!, it’s too much work!

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house,… And you may ask yourself-Well…How did I get here? (Talking Heads)

I am so convinced that the ‘boats are too much work’ group is dead wrong that I set out to prove this point for you loyal blog readers so that you will be armed with scientific facts. That’s right. Due to the completely valid, evidence-based research I selflessly did just for you, when the day comes that you are faced with the complete blindness of others regarding this subject, you will be prepared to wow them with facts.  Please go easy on the persuading,  however, because sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone. There are already a lot of boats on the water.

Let’s take a look at the data and define terms. The verb ‘ to clean’ here means deep cleaning, including scrubbing stains, ridding the surface of algae or moss, bird poop and the like. “All available time” means these tasks are unending and you could spend your entire life doing them if you have poor boundaries. Also this research is about on-going day to day maintaining of a decent living space, not about major repairs. Everyone knows boats need repairing regularly. So do homes, but no one wants to talk about that.

                    Scientific Data Measuring Amount of Work in Hours

 Task                                                   Big Boat                                 Big Home

Clean kitchen floor                               .0333                                         1
Clean roof (boat deck)                           2                                              5
Clean up after cleaning roof                   0                                              2
because it’s all on the ground now
Scrub bathroom                                   .25                                           1.25
Declutter-put things away                      1                                 all available time
Mow yard                                               0                                              1
Weeding/grooming garden                    0                                 all available time
Paint hull bottom/exterior                       2 days                         at least a week
Paint bathroom, special finish                2                                               8
Deep Clean galley/kitchen                     1                                               4
Organize garage                          what garage?                   all day long, many times
Totals                                      2 days plus a few hours                   22.25 + infinity

I could go on but by the time I had collected all this data the results were clear: If you are a home owner,  you are working too hard.

So much work to keep it looking like this.

So much work to keep it looking like this.

Seriously, though, the word ‘work’ has an interesting meaning in our American culture. It seems to have a negative connotation.  So many people have said to us ‘you have worked so hard on this boat!’. They wonder where we find the energy. I guess that’s true in some way, but the statement creates a bit of cognitive dissonance for me. It feels both true and not true. Actually, most of the time I don’t really feel that the statement is accurate. Then when I look back over the blog, I can see why they make the comment. We certainly have spent a lot of time and completed many tasks. But much of it didn’t feel like “work”. Interesting. What gives?

It seems like in this country one is either ‘working’ or ‘not working’; either ‘working’ or ‘playing’. Why do we tend to be all or nothing about this thing? Is it a problem with the English language or something?  And why is the word ‘work’ such a negative word in general? In popular vernacular, it is equated with ‘labor’ or ‘toil’, two words which certainly don’t bring up much to get excited about. In this country we tend to associate it with making money, which we certainly aren’t with S/V Galapagos.

A scary looking equation if there ever was one.

I prefer the definition of ‘work’ found in the world of Physics: an expenditure of energy toward movement; the transfer of energy from one thing to another. This is a much more neutral term that describes the fact that effort has been put forth and a result has been accomplished. (Yes, I’m being liberal with the definition. Don’t get your science knickers in a twist.)  That is a more appropriate way of describing what has been happening around here. We have expended a crap ton of energy on this boat and that transfer of energy has seen results. That feels true in a way that ‘you’ve really worked hard’ doesn’t always. One might wonder where we find all that energy.

The answer to this question is intangible. While the definition of ‘work’ is to be found in the world of Physics, the energy for that work is to be found in the world of Meta-physics. It has something to do with happiness, joy even. When something is a labor of love or passion, it rarely feels like ‘work’ in the popular sense of the word. The love of the task supplies the energy to put forth into effort on behalf of the goal. When you are putting forth energy into something that gives your life richness and meaning, the energy is put forth in joy, even if some parts of it become frustrating. When your entire being is engaged in a creative process, that’s where happiness lies. The bumps in the road are only part of the grander picture. Life is all shadows and light. How can you have light without shadow? At least in this dimension.

This project started to feel a little like work after awhile.

This project started to feel a little like work after awhile.

The focus of this energy changes over the course of a lifetime. What gives joy in one part of your life changes as life develops through time. For example, the amount of energy we currently put toward this boat is roughly equivalent to the amount of energy we put into our house and garden for many years. People would look at the garden or the interior of the house and say ‘my you certainly work hard on this’ and shake their heads. It never felt like ‘work’ to me. Now, because my energy is focused elsewhere, I try to make my garden simpler to maintain so that I don’t have to ‘work’ so hard on it, and I can’t seem to find the energy to do the minor remodeling projects our home needs.  Literally my ‘heart’ isn’t in it.  I’ll bet you can think of examples like this in your own life.

Moon rising over Useless Bay.

This blog is another example. Most people have no idea the amount of time we put into this blog. It is a significant amount, usually every day.  Some posts take days to finish, some longer, some seem to write themselves. There is the tweaking of the WordPress interface, the up and downloading of photos, the attention to internet security.  All of it could be considered ‘work’, and yet it is so rewarding that most of the time it feels like something akin to play, although that’s not really the most accurate word.  Perhaps in the future we will be finished with blogging and it will begin to feel like ‘work’ to us. That’s when we will stop and turn our attention to whatever else is calling to us through the portal of our hearts. For now, it is a source of great satisfaction and the hours spent writing and publishing posts are hours spent with the joy of purpose.

When you follow your happiness, the work is almost effortless. Frustrating sometimes, yes. Tiring? Many times. Challenging? You bet.  It is only when the heart goes out of the process and the force of will must stand alone that projects begin to feel laborious. So when people say ‘where do you find the energy for all that’, I will just reply: I hold it in my heart. While my house shows the sure signs of neglect all around me.

Time to summon up the force of will and do something about it.

For better or for worse, in work and in play, on the water or on land.

 

Uncharacteristic Weather: A Long Dry Spell

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My friend Cidnie over at Our Life with Ceol Mor recently did a really smart thing: she announced to her readers that she was taking a break from posting for a certain period of time. When she announced it, my first thought was ‘what a smart idea’. Unfortunately my thoughts stopped at that moment. Had I followed those thoughts to their logical conclusion I would have realized that by announcing her planned hiatus, she would avoid the guilt over what  I call “failure to post”. When you have a blog that you love, posting things becomes a natural part of your life, so I have discovered. And in spite of the fact that most people do not comment, our stats tell us people do actually at least look at our pages, so I feel a certain illogical responsibility to that audience. What to do when there is really very little to say?

I notice that some bloggers post something every day. Frankly, I can never be that blogger. I cannot imagine a time when I would have something interesting to share every day.  I don’t need to be in people’s consciousness that much.  Most days are lived in ‘the beige’ of life: they are neither high nor low, but form the background and tie all the other days together. Time drifts by. What’s so great about that? No, I fear that posting every day at this point is just not going to be my style. So if there are long periods of time between posts, know that we are living in the beige just then and have nothing of interest to report in terms of progress. No one wants to read about how many hours I spent laying on the couch doing nothing or working out to my cardio boxing game. Here’s a brief wrap up of what we’ve accomplished toward the plan so far this year:20130212_1

We’ve bought a truck. True, we’ve added a vehicle, and, against common wisdom,  this has given us a profound sense of relief because we deperately need a truck with the property we live on. Now we can do dump runs, take furniture to Goodwill, get mulch and bark for the yard, and all the good things only trucks do. Then there is the issue of transporting things like kayaks and Puddler, our dinghy. We got this truck for only 1500$ so it didn’t set us back much.

Mike has made it his goal in life to clear the yard of unused items that, while hidden from sight, still must be dealt with should we ever dig ourselves out of here. Old wheelbarrow? Gone. Useless garden hose reel? Vamoose. Lawn vac? (yeah, I know.) Finished. Next to go are my old cement mixer (yes, I owned my own), a big pile of treated wood from Andrew’s old tree house, a lot of firewood, and a big stack of cement roofing tiles leftover from a garden edging project. You begin to see why a truck is a necessity.

I have cleaned up the work area behind the greenhouse to enable a leaner operation, offer a good place for storing garden tools all in one place (yeah, like that’s going to happen once gardening season begins), and allow Mike to build a structure for things that need cover, like the lawn mower. I am willing to share that area  because the days of my starting a hundred kinds of seeds in one season and acting like I own a nursery are over for now.

Just as people have to get boats ready to go, homeowners have to get their home ready to either sell or rent, and we’ve been doing that. Mike has created a great workshop area in the garage. There is room for it now that we’ve dumped so much stuff at Goodwill. Plus room for the car. Who knew? He’s replaced a toilet and I notice that he has bought a supply of molding to finish off a couple of areas. We have a door standing by to replace another door that is hideous. Anyone who complains that boats are a lot of work has never owned a home. Their cries fall on deaf ears around here.

Anyone notice how often I’ve typed the word ‘Mike’? That’s right. He is basically driving this train right now. I am the caboose, being pulled along in the same direction, and thankful for it. My focus is on my work and my health. It’s enough for me presently. I am back to working out, which feels great, (and many thanks to Nintendo for creating the Wii because I hate going to a gym). I am back on my diet to take off the pounds of holiday excess and fight my British genetic love of all things carbohydrate. I am infusing energy into my work by planning to teach some classes. All to the good. In my line of business, sitting back and coasting isn’t really an option if you give a crap about work quality. And I do.

Moonrise remains on the market and we have continued to do little projects that don’t warrant their own post, such as bringing home the canvas cover for the wheel and giving it a good wash, and cleaning the outside of her. Boats in the Puget Sound area look just awful in the winter. They have a tendency to grow a green algae everywhere. We can’t let that stand. Mike is refinishing the teak cockpit table, as the canvas doesn’t quite cover the end of it and it was badly weathered. We’ve had some interest in Moonrise but it is now a waiting game. I am of the mind that we need to set a date by which, if she is still ours, we decide to keep her and move on. I grow weary and discouraged over having my heart broken about other boats. Who knows? Maybe it wouldn’t be that uncomfortable sailing the Pacific on Moonrise. Who am I kidding? It would be terrible. But I would probably go anyhow.

So we exist in a slow moving wave just now, a time of introspection and waiting as we have just passed the mid-winter mark. The snowdrops are blooming, I’ve cut back the old leaves of the hellebores to unveil their blossoms. The chickens are busy keeping weeds at bay and generally running amok. Some shrubs appear to believe we’ll have an early spring around here. We’ve had a blessedly easy winter this year but we aren’t out of the woods yet. I’ll do a garden post soon, as it begins to look interesting out there. Meanwhile, we surf the wave slowly but surely.

Skippy standing guard over the winter garden.

Skippy standing guard over the winter garden.

 

Another Year Ends…In Failure

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The decision was made early in the day, as soon as I looked at my smart phone and saw that the temperature was going to drop below freezing last night. I wanted to go home. We had not spent much time on Moonrise lately, as is usual for the winter months, and I was feeling guilty. We have this great boat, we pay for the slip each month. We needed to use that boat! Plus, she was just sad sitting at the docks all by herself. Guilt can be a good thing when it moves people to action, but when it leads to actions that are not based in reality, it kind of sucks. What reality had been denied? The reality of winter: that the cold sucks all the fun out of sailing.

The unretouched actual color of the sky.

The unretouched actual color of the sky.

There was going to be a raft up of folks from the Puget Sound Cruising Club, meeting in Blakely Harbor to watch the fireworks over Elliot Bay in Seattle for New Year’s Eve and it sounded like fun. Never mind that most of the people in that club either live in Seattle, a short ride across the water to the harbor, or very close by and we live 5 hours away by motor if the tide is with us.  We decided to go a day early and spend two nights on the boat. This was our second mistake.

We made arrangements for Andrew to watch the animals, packed some food, and headed out on Sunday. There was no rain, and also no wind. Zero. After a 5 hour motor boat ride up to the harbor yesterday (and that is a record time for us) we anchored in peaceful little Blakely Harbor yesterday. I would like to say that we were excited to be there, and excited to be back on Moonrise, surrounded by cozy looking homes with their Christmas lights up. It was quite festive.

The reality on Moonrise, however, was quite different. Guilt had pushed me to want to do this trip and while excited to be back on the boat, by the time we got to Bainbridge Island, I had reached a state of chill that was pretty uncomfortable and was remembering why we didn’t do much boating in the winter. You see, I have all these memories of being out on Moonrise, enjoying the big outdoors. This time I was actually quite grateful for the lack of wind as it would have dropped the temperature even further. I have mentioned before that I do not do very well with cold. It occurs to me that I may have to give up dreams of sailing in colder locations if I can’t figure out how to stay warm. This leads to a deep depression, so I won’t talk about it.

We hunkered down in the cozy cabin with our propane heater going, had dinner, watched some videos and turned in early. Even though we were warm all night, and the v berth really cannot be beat for sleeping soundly, I awoke with a swollen throat, feeling worried about the weather, my ears hurting down deep and with that inner knowing that if I spend another day on the boat in that kind of cold, I would be well and truly sick. As long as we stayed in the cabin, we’d be warm, but going outside to sit around and visit with people was not going to happen. Not to mention the difficulty using the head with two pair of woolen leggings, polar fleece pants, my sailing bibs, and multiple shirts, plus a jacket, gloves, a muffler, and two hats. I’m not kidding. That kid in “A Christmas Story” has nothing on me when it’s winter on the boat.  In the end, it was the prediction that the temperature would fall below freezing last night, and there was a slight possibility of snow, that made me verbalize my longing for home. And Mike agreed.

This kid has nothing on me. At least he has a mom to zip him up.

So there you go. Our big ‘winter trip’. Five minutes with the jib up. I freely admit that I breathed a sigh of relief when we tied the dock lines in our slip, and the first thing I did when we got home was take a nice long extra hot bath.

The saving grace was the Dahl’s Porpoises playing by the boat in Colvos Passage at the beginning of the trip. Here is a short video, with about 1 split second of playing porpoise, followed by footage where I search the water for them. Exciting, no? You can pretty much stop watching after the first 3 seconds. Happy New Year to all!

Oh, and it was a beautiful, sunny 28 degrees this morning. Thank the good LORD I am home!