One

Happy New Year to all. I, personally, hope for what we all hope, but I'll settle for World Peace. 

Okay, down to business. "This here" is intended to be a blog of what Bob and I are doing these days, with an occasional bit about Kai. Who is fine, riding his bike, at the moment, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with a bunch of kids from NC State Bike Racing Club. Bike racing is the new passion, replacing Ultimate Frisbee first as a way to strengthen his knees against lots of injuries, then as an end in itself. Okay, I'll stop (mis)speaking for Kai. Except to say that we had a great Christmas vacation with him, at the condo in Charlotte, and he'll be back at "State" in a few days, where he's doing well and having fun.

Okay, (yeah, I know I've said that twice already). I can see the problem here. I just want to jot down some thoughts, but they need to be the kind of thoughts that everyone will want to read, and they need to be clear and informative, and not insulting in any way to anyone, and then when I read back over them my writer's instincts make me start editing, and by that time half the day is gone and I wanted to just spend maybe fifteen minutes catching everyone up. I've never written a blog before so I've never actually experienced any of this but I can see the handwriting on the wall. So to speak. But I see no way around it. I shall write this first, catch-up entry rather carefully, and from then on, I will attempt to simply post, and not labor over the wording, tone, etc. So do your part and try to read future posts in a glowy, pinkish light if you can, and feel free to post comments, positive, negative, or indifferent. I think that would be fun for all of us. Well, maybe not indifferent. "I just read your latest blog entry and am writing to tell you that it made no impression on me at all." Yeah, leave those out.

Okay, onward and upward. Oh, God, there's too much to tell. And I'm starving. I will go eat, and when I come back I'll knock this thing out.

I never left. I stayed (still starving) and skimmed my journal entries for the last year (thank God for them; they (and Rudy, a.k.a. Bob) are my memory). Without further ado, our year in review:

In November, 2007, Bob said "Sayonara" to the folks at US Tire, where he'd worked for 14 years. It being an uncomfortable time of year to work and live on an unheated boat, even in the South, and Bob feeling a little paralyzed by the huge change in his life, we all stayed at the condo in Charlotte for the winter of 2008. Kai worked that semester doing a co-op for school, at Duke Energy in Charlotte. Bob read a lot. I went to the library every day and got him books and while I was there, wrote a novel. In about three months. I know that sounds weird and maybe impossible, and it actually was weird. The thing kind of flowed out of me, like I was channeling someone else. I've shopped the book around to a few publishers, with only polite refusals so far, so I guess if I was channeling, it wasn't Jane Austen. But I haven't lost heart. I've started another (even more channeled) novel since, and written a bunch of short stories.

In early April we went back to Holden Beach, to the boat, and re-commenced working on it. Spring and summer was a happy, innocent time, it seems now, made up of hard work on Trio (teak refinishing for me, endless priming of the hull for Rudy, replacement of hatches for both) time at the beach swimming and basking in the sun for me, endless sweating, much boatyard camaraderie, helping of others, others helping us, occasional evenings out where the contrast of actually being clean for once, in clean clothes, wearing jewelry! (me) eating a cooked meal, seeing new people was so refreshing that the effects would last for days.

The next phase began in late August. We explained it to each other like this: I had to go North for family reasons, and had spent several days away, living in a nice hotel, taking showers, sleeping in a big bed, turning on the gas fire in the corner of the room when I was chilly, eating delicious food prepared by anyone but me. Oh yeah, using a toilet that you just sat down on and then flushed when you were finished. The easy life. And I came back to the boat, and its constant layer of boatyard sand/old paint/fiberglass residue/sandblast residue over everything, and still the endless sweating, and suddenly, with the feeling of fall looming and the ocean growing cold, nothing was charming any more. I was tired of living in a construction zone. And I flipped out, for a few days. Poor Rudy, so confused at this change of everything in me. This sea-change. This unpredictable woman. But I began to settle down again one morning when it occurred to me that the mistake I was making was actually quite simple—I was thinking too much, about the future especially. I needed to think only of the day in front of me, and that way I could not only cope, but return once again to a semblance of contentment.
Early September, 2008
We buy another sailboat. I know, I know. We've heard it all. I'm just going to make this short and sweet: the price was right. AND she was all set, ready to sail. NOT a project boat. So the idea was for us to move onto this boat, where Sanity and Order and Cleanliness could reign. And we could sail her, any time we wanted. Meanwhile we would keep working on Trio, and when Trio was finished, we would sell one boat or the other.

Then came our “twenty minutes of happiness”, as Rudy called it. The honeymoon phase, where we looked at each other a lot, and at this beautiful, ready-to-sail boat, and thought how the heck did we luck into THIS??? Why did they sell her so cheap, what’s wrong with her, isn’t she beautiful, this boat is OURS!!! And everyone coming on board to see her, and proclaiming that we “backed into a great deal, there”, and slowly Rudy gets proud, and I get relaxed, and we start to realize that we have a new boat! And I start cleaning every corner, and going through cubbies FILLED with sailing equipment of all kinds, all clean and in good order and well-labeled, and I am in heaven. For 20 days. Exactly.

Next Phase: After a night or two, we had to admit: the berth on the new boat, now called Kalliope, was very very small. And the berth is the bed, so this is important. I couldn't turn over in the night without hitting my knees on the ceiling. It's not called a ceiling on a sailboat, but it's hard all the same. So Bob decided to remodel the berth, which was a good idea, and needed to be done, and in retrospect I can say that he did a beautiful job, but the fact that Kalliope, which had for twenty days been a blessed little oasis of serenity, now was crawling with the dust and noise and mess and did I say dust? sawdust in absolutely every crack and crevice, covering every inch of this boat that I had so joyfully cleaned and begun to make ours.... it did me in. We were having a miserable dinner in the cockpit one night when Bob suggested that I might want to consider returning to the condo until he could get the work done (he wanted to do engine work as well, and replace lifeline stanchion bases, and on, and on), so that's what I did. That night, as a matter of fact. I came back to the condo, where I take showers, sleep in a big bed, and write. It's lovely. I miss Bob, but I have the chance to do things with my family, and with my friends here. And Bob has the freedom to work and make a mess and stay up late and sleep late and make more messes...with nobody bugging him about it.
I've been back to the boat to help with the work. Kalliope is out of the water now; Bob has stripped off all the old bottom paint, and together we put on two new coats of rather frighteningly bright turquoise. Don't worry, that part will be under water, eventually. On purpose.

Kai came down for a few days and he and I organized all the stuff in the yellow storage truck, with Bob's permission, even though he is now forced to call me every few days to help with reconnaissance of some tool or other. Bob came back to the condo for Christmas, and is back at the boat now. Kalliope is almost sorted out, according to him. Well, okay, he still wants to clean out the bilge, change the engine oil, adjust the valves, service the Gen set. I don't even know what a genset is. (You can see I even wrote it differently the second time, just in case.) Gennsett. Jensette. Gin set. I think it has something to do with the generator though, and not what kind of cocktail we'll be having when we move into the NEXT PHASE, which is actually the reason I started this blog.

And if you're still with me, well, you're quite a trooper, aren't you? Have you gone to get something to eat yet? I haven't.

Phase Soon: the one in which we put the boat in the water, where (folks say) it was meant to be all along, and start down the ICW towards Florida, and blue skies, and swimming.This will be our first trip, our first vacation, our first time to try out this new life that we've been working (and working, and working) towards for so long. Just Rudy and I, and the relative peace and quiet of this intracoastal body of water (the ICW, also known as "the ditch", on which one can navigate from New Jersey to Texas, without ever having to go out into the big scary Atlantic Ocean.) Our first destination is Jupiter, Florida, where a friend of mine from college is arranging a slip, temporary work for both of us, and a modest welcoming parade. Just kidding, Steven. We're hoping you can find us a spot where we can anchor out. We'll arrange our own parade. We also have a friend whose Mother lives in Key West and has a nice long boat dock behind her house, so we've been busy learning her favorite flowers, likes and dislikes, etc.

That's about it, so far. When I started this Blog, I was supposed to fill in a title for it, and since I hadn't thought up anything clever enough to be an actual title, I just put in a filler, "not sure yet". I mean, I can't even call it by the name of the boat we'll be sailing, because we don't know what boat that is. And as far as I know right now, when the weather gets warmer we'll come back to NC and try to finish up work on Trio, but then come fall who knows? So for now I think I'll leave it. People are always asking us when we're taking off "to sail the seven seas" and we almost always say some version of "We're not sure yet." So be it. Stay tuned, and I'll try to keep you posted.

We wish you

Love and Peace and Joy and Happiness and Enough Money that You Can Give Lots of it Away to Deserving Charities ~~~

Suzy, Bob and Kai