New normals

When I was a child, if I woke up before the rest of the household (at least during the cooler months of the year) I would wait until our forced air heat came on before making the noisy climb down from my bunk bed to the floor so as not to wake anyone else. If I moved around thereafter, reading or playing quietly, I would similarly wait for one of the heating cycles. Often as not, I would park myself over one of the heat vents, sometimes using a blanket to form a sort of one-man teepee to trap and funnel the warm air.

I find myself reverting to those patterns these days, waiting to get up in the morning until our space heater kicks in so as not to disturb Mandy. Then I turn it up all the way, increasing both heat and white noise in our small cabin area, and turn in toward my nook back at the nav desk to stay toasty while I putter around at my computer.

I've been waking up early remembering odd dreams lately. Last week, I was a character, the narrator, in a Nick Hornby novel. I woke up with vague memories of articulating my strategy for keeping a map of the homes of my favorite rock stars, but using false names for each of them so that if the map should fall into the wrong hands, it couldn't be used as a guide for stalkers or other nefarious agents. It's just exhausting to dream that sort of thing... you wonder if that's where he gets it.

Before that, I had woken early another morning having dreamt of reading a terrific Terry Pratchett novel, remembering the clever plot and several inventively written scenes revolving around a civilization with only one book which was added to piecemeal over the generations, only to realize that he had never written such a novel at all. If he does come out with it I will be torn between suing for infringement or hanging out my shingle as a telephone psychic.

I'm hoping that sleep patterns and other basics will get back to normal now that we have gotten the house ready to rent out, but I am slowly realizing that I am going to need new normals now. The summer has been a whirlwind and maybe that is what was needed to break us out of our old life before settling in to the new one; the boat seems a haven now, rather than a limitation. Although we are still finding places to stow all the last-minute stuff that we discovered we "must" have with us (I expect much of this stuff will disappear soon enough; having grabbed it up in haste and panic like a drowning man clutches at a life ring, we will likely cast it aside just as he might when he finds himself in much shallower water than he imagined) it seems much more manageable than a household full of such stuff. Things have their place here, and everything has to be in its place, or the disarray is obvious. It's a bit like those big tool boards they use in kanban manufacturing systems, where outlines are drawn or cut in precisely the shape of each tool, so that anything out of place is immediately missed and can be located and restored. If you see anything sitting on a settee or table in here, it's not where it is supposed to be, and needs to be put away.

There is tremendous comfort in that, even though the "away" places are not yet all as well organized as they might be. The knowledge that everything we have is there for a reason and goes someplace in particular, and that we can push it all back away from the dock at any time and go wherever we want with it is reassuring... something that can be controlled in otherwise uncontrollable times.

In some ways I know that this is misleading; there will still be externalities to deal with even living aboard. Making a living, managing assets, and so forth will not simply go away. But it's been remarkably easy for Mandy to produce much of her material while we are out and about, and as I move more toward supporting her business and focusing on time-limited, narrowly focused engagements in my own, I have to think it will all work out okay for me, too.

There are lifestyle issues; it can be very damp and every item aboard must be guarded in some way against being wrecked by water inadvertently. It's cramped and confined, especially for me. I have found a suitable work space, wedging myself into the nav desk area, and I don't hit my head on the overhead or companionway hatch much anymore, but I'm simply never going to fit well in the tiny shower/head. We went to the Boats Afloat show last week and I was incredibly envious of all the new, large interiors on display there.

But it's still new enough, or different enough, to be a little bit magical, and it's compensation enough for now to feel the boat rocking gently beneath you as you wake up in the morning, to see the sun reflecting off the water on the late summer afternoons, to hear laughter and see lights in the portholes around the marina as evening falls and to feel very tucked in and secure in your own boat.