Showers!

-
My cousin Theresa says that one of the first questions she gets when people find out that she was raised on a boat is, "Did you experience any big storms?" followed by "How did you shower?" A small sailing ship has no shower, and this is fine! We'd shampoo down our hair and then dive into the sea in our bathing suits to rinse off. I didn't miss the normal showers at all. However, when I was back in an Auckland hostel, my first shower in two months was a beautiful, beautiful thing :)

Comments

Anonymous said…
I love the question about the storms. People are fascinated by storms because we use metaphors about weather to think about our feelings.
July 19, 2015 at 3:25 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Operation "Spread the Wuuuuuv."

-
Image
Today, I decided to do something constructive. There is a certain reckless insanity that comes over a person after a very painful experience, so I decided to make the most of it and do something perhaps a little crazy. I made lots of Valentine's Day cards and gave them out to all the saddest looking people on Rideau street and in the mall downtown. It was fun! There was an old, depressed-looking hunchback (how much more pathetic does it get than that?) who shuffled by me, and I hid one in his bag when he wasn't looking. I gave another to a very fat lady who looked at me suspiciously, then realizing what it was, burst out laughing and yelled out her thanks. There was a skinny girl who looked like a bean-pole (correction: she looked more like an upright knitting needle—even a tape-worm would have abandoned her), who was crying her eyes out, and I gave her one too. I can't remember all of them, but I gave a couple out in a coffee shop, a number to people sitting alone in the m...
Read more

A Year in the Coast Guard

-
Image
The idea of joining the Coast Guard was first planted during a wild and beautiful sail on a one-hundred year old boat, Ziska , that I helped bring home from Alaska to Washington in 2019. During this voyage, many distress calls came over the radio - especially in the north - and we heard the Coast Guard talk people through very difficult situations. It was comforting to know that the Coast Guard was close(ish) by. When we were further offshore and hit by rough weather, it was harder being out of range of help. After this trip, I started volunteering for the nearby Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue station, and we sometimes did training operations with the local Coast Guard station. This sparked my interest even more. I had been working for the provincial government for three years - great work with wonderful people - but after some big personal losses, I really felt the need for a change. I submitted my application to the Coast Guard and forgot about it till I got a phone call inv...
Read more

Honda civics, grief and signs

-
Image
They say (whoever they  are), that once you own a certain type of car, you see it everywhere. For example, years ago I owned an zippy little honda civic, and sure enough, I notice them all over the place now. I'd never paid attention before, but they seem to be just everywhere. So when we see reminders of lost loved ones, I wonder, are we r eally seeing signs, or is it just our brains filtering for reminders, meaningful situations, or ways of feeling connected to them to ease the loss? It's been two years since Sammer passed away, and it seems his fingerprints remain in the world. As you probably know, Sammer was a captain and career sailor, and sailing was how we bonded. My first "honda civic" moment was in a training course with the Coast Guard, and my officer told me to do an exercise on the charts, which involved recording latitudes and longitudes. He pointed to one spot -- the same reef where Sammer and I had had a particularly memorable adventure when we were fi...
Read more