Roving Daydreams – Juneau – [06/10/2012]

I have been a rover
I have walked alone
Hiked a hundred highways
never found a home
Still in all I’m happy
The reason is you see…once in a while, along the way
Life’s been good to me…

Every so often I look back at the last few years and I realize just how good life has been. At barely thirty years old I’ve seen things and done things that most people don’t get to see in a lifetime. I’ve acquired quite an amazing scrapbook of memories really. And not just from my time on ships, remember too that I lived inland for two years, when I was in England. Hard to imagine isn’t it, me, who is so very attached to the sea, living away from it for two years.

Sometimes I look out my office window and am struck with a sense of wonder that I am actually here, that this is actually my life. I look out at the sunset stretching from horizon to horizon as we once again motor our way toward Alaska, and I wonder when this became normal for me. When this became my day to day existence – so much so that I actually have to remind myself to look at it once in a while, instead of just getting up and going to work like any other girl. I see the world, but dream of going places I haven’t seen, mostly inland these days, and sometimes as mundane as Florida (no I have never been to Florida, not really, passing through a place on debark day hardly counts), sometimes as exotic as Vienna…Vienna is a big one for me, so is New Orleans.

In some ways the Alaska run makes me more feel more adrift than my contracts on the flagship. I think a great portion of it is because it is so repetitive. On the long cruises you have the prospect of 100 extravagant ports to distract you – even if you’ve been to Hong Kong four times before it’s no less incredible, even if you’ve walked the Valley of the Kings twice it’s no less breath-taking (and I mean that literally, considering the heat level at that particular spot). With Alaska, you drift back and forth across the same three ports – four if you count turn around – week after week, day after day, and all that changes dramatically is the ever-shifting flow of passengers around you.

That said, Alaska has a charm to it that’s difficult to describe. Life on the flagship is an insane over-crush of energy, you feel guilty if you so much as catch a cold, I may love being part of the GWV team, and I wouldn’t change that for the world (at least not yet), but I just as often look forward to coming back to my summer ships, where I can sit and read a book in the evenings and listen to the solo guitarist ease his way through Hallelujah or lose myself in hours long conversation (about theatre college of all things, it’s actually been…a long time since I discussed my time at HTS with anyone) with my big brother over the best pizza (excluding, always, the homemade kind) in the world, without worrying about being misinterpreted or judged.

Perhaps it’s because my career as a ship-girl started in Alaska – what seems like a very long time ago these days – that I always feel slightly more centered when I come back here.

Still in all, I’m happy…the reason is you see…once in a while along the way…life is good to me.

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