It’s Silly But…. – At Sea – [12/24/2018]

Posted on December 24, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

If you cannot accept anything on faith, then you are doomed to a life dominated by doubt.
~ Miracle on 34th Street

You have to believe in things that aren’t real. Otherwise how else can they become?
~ The Hogfather

What is this illusion called? the innocence of youth? Maybe only in that blind belief can we ever find the truth ~ Grown up Christmas List
But also:

But I say that it does do harm. I tell her that her is no Santa Claus, and then she comes here and sees a very convincing man with a real beard and a beautiful Santa suit right in the middle of a child’s fantasy world. So who is she to believe? The myth? Or the Mom? ~ Miracle on 34th Street

I have been doing a lot of musing these last few days on the idea of belief. What it means, what it is, and where the line is.

One of my high school friends many years ago pointed out that you can’t spell “believe” without “lie” – and at the time that made me very angry and sad but I couldn’t understand why. I still don’t completely know why the idea of believing in something is so very important to me.

Like so many children, I believed in Santa Clause as a child, but the odd thing is I don’t remember believing in the actual person – I’m sure I must have, when I was very small, but my earliest memory is knowing how important the spirit of the thing was. How important it was to be able to put my faith into something that I couldn’t see; I logically understood that the jolly fat man in the red suit was not ‘real’ in the same sense that my parents and I were, but on some other level I was okay with that. I suppose I could have looked at it as putting my trust in what could ultimately be viewed as a lie (although a lie given with love), but I think looking back it was more a way that I learned how to put my trust in the unknown.

When I was little, Christmas Eve was the most magical night of the year. Looking back, I don’t think Christmas was really about Christmas Morning for me – Christmas morning was busy, and it was when people visited and you had to be all dressed up and pretty (yes, my house was strange, we were never a PJ’s on Christmas family) – Christmas Eve though was about me and my parents; the “best tree we ever had” and decisions for the coming year. And – whether real or not, hanging the stockings remains a part of that tradition – not just for me, but for my parents as well (I was never under the impression that Santa filled my parents’ Christmas stockings, but I don’t remember that being an issue either), along with so many other things that remain dear traditions sheltered in my heart. Things that I will probably never give up or give away.

And I think that is all wrapped up in it too…

The world is a harsh place. These days, people often learn that young. So many people I love learned it too young. Perhaps the reason that – while I detest being lied to – I have no problem with believing in ‘mythology’ is because I understand the need to hold onto something that makes the world seem a little less harsh. We all need a light in the window, and I think I was lucky enough to have a family who was somehow able to transition me from believing in the elves in the North Pole to the general goodness of humanity.

As it is, I do remember very clearly the year that it was tacitly decided it was okay for me to stop playing – but that’s a subject for another post perhaps. If ever. Though it’s not a sad story by any means.

And I think that’s the key: no one forced me to believe. My parents never actually sat me down and told me there was or wasn’t a jolly fat man in a red suit, and I’m fairly certain that if I had ever made it clear that I didn’t want to “play” that even my Mum would have let my belief (or disbelief) develop (or fade) on it’s own; however much it may have pained her. I think that’s the trick to believing in anything really – no one can make you do it. You have to come to it on your own. Or not. And if someone actively tells you something is true, assures you that it’s true when in fact it actually isn’t, rather than letting you decide for yourself what you want to do with the information – then perhaps that’s the difference between a belief and a lie; however warm-hearted or kindly meant.

I think over the years my ability to continue to believe in the idea behind the myth of someone who flies all around the world in one night has come to encompass my deep-seated need to believe that there is something worth believing in in this crazy world. Something that can still put a smile on a child’s face – however brief – something that for just one or two moments each year, can maybe make the world a little less cynical, a little less skeptical. It is so difficult to find that these days. Or at least it feels difficult.

Some small thing that for just a moment delays finding out just how harsh the world is…gives a much needed excuse to just straight up be kind to each other…

Sad though, that we need an excuse at all…

But everyone needs the ability to believe in something, I really do hold to that, and belief? I think the ability to believe – not in the religious sense – has to be taught, I don’t think – sadly – that belief is something that really comes to us naturally, though it’s something we need desperate, especially now.

So here I am, on this Christmas Eve, far from home, wishing for my oranges in the glitz and glamour all around me, and silently holding tight to the belief that yes, all this means something, all this is for a reason…

That believing is not about believing in a person, or a thing, or even a time, it’s about believing in humanity’s ability to be kind…

So maybe it is silly…

But I believe…

And as it is Christmas Eve, I will be going to bed uncharacteristically early…

Merry Christmas everyone…

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Holiday Cruises, Holiday Cruises 2018, Reflections, Transitions | Leave a comment

Semi-Pro – At Sea – [12/23/2018]

Posted on December 23, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

If you want a true measure of a man’s character take a long long look at how he treats his servants not his superiors

– Sirius Black

I’ve said it many many times in the past, but it remains completely and totally true: being a professional has nothing to do with how much you are getting paid, or even if you are getting paid at all.

Professionalism…is an attitude. And it has to do with how you treat the people around you, how much you respect your actors, your musicians, your raw material. How much you care about the structure of your people; your ability to see when you’ve pushed them too far. When you’ve crossed the line. And to respect them when they try to tell you that.

I was raised a professional, so were most of the people around me. The training I received just gave me more of that, but it was born and bred into me long before I took my first class or did my first show. And I know it when I see it. And I know when I am not seeing it.

If you are in a position of authority and someone comes to you with a problem, or a concern or a legitimate complaint, don’t laugh it off, don’t roll your eyes. Take it in stride, acknowledge it, and roll with it, and fix it. An amateur will demand help, or order it, a professional requests it kindly.

Be honest with your team, be careful with your resources. And if you are offered the chance to give someone a boost, take it, even if you don’t feel like it.

Professionalism is showing up to a gig you didn’t expect to have to perform, when you would really rather be anywhere else, and doing it anyway – because that’s what you do, and the audience shouldn’t suffer as a result of backstage politics. Professionalism, is taking charge of a line of people threatening to spin totally out of control and knowing exactly the right words to say to each group of them without turning into an exercise is painful dictatorship.

It’s really not that difficult, a small matter of respect. A chance to not be petty.

And yet..

And yet sometimes it seems that people simply do not get it.

I’ll just go be exhausted now…

 

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Transitions | Leave a comment

Still Drunk on Apple Wine – Cozumel, Mexico – [12/19/2018]

Posted on December 19, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

Hey maybe I’ll dye my hair, maybe I’ll move somewhere
Maybe I’ll get a car, maybe I’ll drive so far they’ll all lose track
Me? I’ll bounce right back

Maybe I’ll sleep real late, maybe I’ll lose some weight
Maybe I’ll clear my junk
Maybe I’ll just get drunk on apple wine
Me? I’ll be just fine….

…and dandy
Lord it’s like a hard candy Christmas….

I’ll be fine…
I’ll be fine…

There is a level of tired that you reach where you almost feel drunk even if you haven’t been drinking..

I think I have reached that point.

Or it’s possible that I may have passed it…

I was reminded last night that nearly four years ago I planned to leave ships. I was really quite determined about it. And I had my reasons, and the reasons were all totally valid (some of them, in all honesty, are still totally valid, they’ve just been balanced out by other things) – I suspect the only reason that I didn’t follow through (and actually the resignation letter was composed and ready to send at the time) was because I changed jobs, and my current position is in general far more enjoyable, far more bearable and far less stressful. I’ve reached a point where I – for the most part – once again genuinely enjoy my job.

Except this season. This season is hard. Everyone is finding this season hard. Thankfully, I’ve made friends, I’ve made connections, although that took me a while – just like other ships I will walk away from this contract with people I will likely keep for the rest of my natural. And I’m grateful beyond measure for that, because without those connections? I think I’d go mad. At the very least, there is a core group of us that has each other’s backs.

There is so much drama on this ship. It’s exhausting. Navigating it feels like navigating a strong current uphill. We all end up so tired that we feel as if we’d been drinking straight tequila even though we might had one cocktail three hours ago (if that). There is inter-departmental tension that has ramped up to the point where walking into the office almost makes me feel ill. And even though none of it is remotely our fault, the trickle down effects are enormous.

The holidays onboard are difficult emotionally and stressful overall. We fit our Christmas into the slices of time between when we are ‘making’ Christmas for everyone else; and for the most part we are pretty much all willing (with only a small amount of grumbling) to throw ourselves into doing that – it is, of course, part of the job. But every so often things get out of hand. Way out of hand. What should be fun turns into pressure, turns into expectations, turns into reprimands…feelings get trampled on, feather’s get ruffled…true colours shine out.

And that’s when things get messy.

I have long been the type of woman who can handle a lot – throw what you want at me, I’ll whine and moan but I can handle it, but mess with the people I love? Threaten my Pack? Treat them unfairly? Even the peripheral members? That is not something you want to do, especially not when I’m this tired…being empathic on a ship like this one is tough enough, being over-exhausted and empathic and terribly homesick? Recipe for a very on edge Shaughnessy.

And it’s terribly hard to find the Christmas spirit in all this…

But I know it’s there…somewhere…I just have to find it…

If I could just get some sleep, if things would just stop feeling so spirally, I just have to find it…

 

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Holiday Cruises | 1 Comment

Your Table’s Waiting – At Sea – [12/16/2018]

Posted on December 16, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

We can’t picture being anything but show people! Civilians find the whole thing quite bizarre! But that hum in our hearts when the overture starts, lets us know how lucky we are.
~ Curtains

See also:

Isn’t that silly? I’d been involved in a competition for a prize that I didn’t want, and yet when I lost I resented it!

~ Polgara the Sorceress

I’ve missed the perspective. Sometimes I’ve missed the perspective so much that I actually lose perspective.

Most ships these days don’t do a lot in the way of big shipboard crew events. We have the occasional bingo, and we have a fair amount of raffles and such – but not anything massive. But what we do have on this ship is a very active Crew Recreation committee, who has made it their business to make sure that there is always something going on. This month’s edition? Shipboard talent show.

On the real stage.

The proper, big, showroom stage.

I had signed up before I even knew there was a cash prize.

I’m sure there was a time when stage fright didn’t follow me around like a lost puppy, but I don’t remember it. I remember Dad joking when I was a teenager that if it was two hours before curtain you could almost set your clock by the stages of how ill I felt. But this performance was more of a challenge for me than most: it had been five years since I set proper foot on a real stage (the introductions in the first show of the cruise don’t really count) and …it fell very very close the anniversary of the my casting in the Rocky Horror Show, which was 9 years ago, which was the last professional (well semi-professional) show I ever did. That’s a lot of emotions piled up on one song. Add to that the fact that Amras was judging (that, contrary to belief, does the exact opposite of give me and advantage) and that I really haven’t gotten a whole lot of sleep lately? And you have the recipe for Shaughnessy a la nervous wreck.

Amras’ does insist that I did eat supper, but I don’t remember it at all. I think it involved kiwis…

Crew events are always held late, and I wasn’t up until the sixth slot in the line-up sooo I had plenty of time to think about how silly it was that I was nervous at all.

Because despite shaking knees and trembling muscles, when I stepped onto the stage and opened my mouth…it all got fixed. Because that’s how it works. That’s how it has always worked. I hope deeply that that’s how it always will. It has been years since I was actually on a full stage, with full stage lights, where you can’t actually see the audience, but simply know they’re there. And with me? There is an element that’s all about the shock value, because my voice doesn’t match my body, and there’s always a moment where people don’t really know what to do with that sudden realization.

For as many times as I’ve ‘performed’ Cabaret I have never actually staged it on a full stage. There’s a big difference between what you do when you’re working a room during a guest karaoke event, and when you’re actually officially up there behind the footlights. For one thing…the stage itself is a prop – and as soon as I realized that we were going to be on the mainstage…I knew at least one bit of staging that was going to have to happen. The central section of Cabaret (“Elsie from Chelsea” I’m sure many of you know it) I usually pick a person in the audience to play to – but when you can’t see the audience, things get a little more difficult – unless you do what Judy Garland did once, and drop yourself down to sit at on the edge of the stage, and put yourself at near eye-level with the front row, or in this case with the judges (and no, I didn’t play to Amras – for one thing that would have felt like cheating, for one thing, I would have broken my own fourth wall and gone back to being nervous). And I have always wanted to do that.

And after that happened? There was that magic moment…where I had the crowd.

You can feel it when that happens, and you can plug into it as surely as plugging into an electrical circuit. And beaming over from the corner of the judges table, despite the fact that I was stoically refusing to look in that direction, I could feel how proud of me Amras was. Which added a whole other level to things.

I wish you could bottle that feeling. I always have and I still do.

When I finished, the two judges who were due to comment on me conferred for a moment, and then the one who wasn’t a musician (we had two musos and two not) came out with

Wow…who knew that voice could come out of such a little woman! Whoa. And, I’m not a singer, but…some of those notes? Yeah, I couldn’t do that. That was incredible.

And from the other one

I’m already a Kandor & Ebb fan so I’m bais here, but yeah, I was super impressed with your vocal ability, the only thing I would change – and it’s just tiny – is that you could pull back that middle section a bit more so that you have more of a powerhouse for the end. Other than that…wow…thank you

He was right too, I did power thorugh te middle chorus stronger than I normally do, that was purely to keep the nerves at bay, I was half sure that if I slowed down I would fall over.

And then it was over, and I was backstage again, still nearly falling over, and being held up by people I’m slowly starting to consider friends…

And after that? After that it was all about cheering the others on, people who were more nervous than I because at least I have the benefit of having trained long and hard for this. There was one poor girl who was basically there because her boss told her to be, and she was almost in tears from being so nervous, we nearly had to guide her onto the stage – but once she was out there, she was fine, although she herself still doesn’t believe that.

And in the end? Well, crew talent events are never really what most would consider “fair”, there is always a political element involved, and those of us from the entertainment department? We never win. I did however make the winner’s circle, only to be cut at the last minute and come in fourth – and that definitely did crack my heart just a little, because I have a lot of memories of a lot of festivals where we never quite made first, were never quite good enough. But as the organizer eventually reminded me – at least I got that far. And that’s something, that takes guts.

That helped a lot of getting out of my sulks

But I got to go back, for just a little tiny while, I was me again…and it helps beyond words to know that I can still get back to that. Just for one shiney shiney I can still get back to that…

When I was backstage, after my performance, one of our team members wrapped an arm around me and said

You miss it don’t you? You miss it?

And I blinked…

I miss it so much that I can’t think about it, if I think about it too often I’ll break…

Might be the most honest I’ve been with myself in a while…

Here’s to the Cabaret ol’ chum!

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Performances | 1 Comment

Jail Break – Georgetown, Grand Cayman – [12/14/2018]

Posted on December 14, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

There are a few things that I’ve never really thought would be in my wheelhouse –I have weird fears, I usually respect them.

Except when I decide that it’s time to look them in the eye and see if I can face up to them: such as when I challenged myself to go down in a submarine and cruise around a shipwreck in Hawaii a few seasons ago.

We were wandering through Grand Cayman last cruise (there’s not a whole lot to do there) and we happened by a relatively simple sign reading “Locked Inn: Live Escape Rooms”.

Those of you who know me well, know that I …don’t do escape rooms. I don’t do anything where I don’t know 100% know how I can get out, and the escape rooms back home? Most of them don’t readily offer that reassurance. But attitudes are much more laid back in the islands, so I figured it would be worth asking about. And so we came back today, and confirmed that yes, they have an emergency key in each room, and the first thing they point out when you enter your challenge is exactly where it is.

But if you use it, the game is over

Oh, that’s fine, I just need to know it’s there

And I looked at Amras

Ready?

Ready.

So we walked down an unassuming hallway and listened to our cheery guide suddenly get serious

The Cayman Island asylum closed down years ago, after rumours of terrible experiments, it was condemned shortly after the physicist accused of torture disappeared. Today we offer tours of the asylum, but be careful, some say that the grandson of the physicist is carrying on the tradition of torturing and experimenting on the patients…

And then she opened the door, escorted us in, showed us where the key was…and left us there. For a minute we just stood there, because the whole room is supposed to be a clue, literally anything could be a clue – and then we start poking at things. Actually talking about details is a bit difficult here as I don’t want to give away secrets in case someone amongst my readers actually finds themselves visiting the Cayman Islands (and given that a large portion of my readers are cruise ship people that’s not an unreasonable possibility) so I’ll try to be as vague as possible.

Amras found a clue right away that as it turned out usually the monitors have to give away at the end since no one gets it (which resulted in a ping pong ball nearly hitting me on the nose, but also opened up our first lock…).

As for me, I found myself continually distracted by the writing on the walls. Most of it was gibberish, put there to emphasize the story-line, but that was just it – it was all gibberish, except this one string of words that was repeating itself over and over again.

That means something, I thought, that is important. That doesn’t fit the story.

Turns out that that was the other clue that most people normally miss.

What amazed me about all this was not just how calm I stayed (if you tell me where the door is, I will gladly forget it’s there and just play the game) – but how engrossing it was to be in the center of a great big puzzle. Amras and I think very differently, but the way we think meshes together – in scenarios like this Amras is very much an analytical thinker, the one looking at the numbers and sequences, the little tiny details; which works great for when you’re trying to do things like figure out lock combinations. I on the other hand am a writer, which means that I’m plunked down in the middle of something like this – I apparently look at the big picture, I saw the whole thing as a story, and anything that didn’t fit the story…well that must be a clue. Which works great for figuring out where the lock combinations *might be*. In fact I didn’t even realise that that was what I was doing until we were finished.

They issued us with a walkie talkie so we could radio in for clues if we needed them (which we only had to do once, and that’s because I utterly suck with seeing certain types of patterns) – but even finding the walkie talkie took more time than we expected. That one they gave us for free, about ten minutes into our time just trying to figure out where we were, we heard a little electronic voice from the corner

Let me out. Let me out.

So that lock we didn’t exactly solve on our own.

We cracked the final lock with just over two minutes to spare. Which involved me dashing across the room to get the key in the lock…which may have been the only time that I was actually a little bit stressed, because the last 5 minutes? Went incredibly quickly. Especially when we were very close to stuck on the last puzzle.

So it looks like we’ve found another cool thing to do in different ports….

And another fear is that much closer to biting the dust.

Posted in Cuban Dreams, Fall Contracts, Holiday Cruises, Ports of Call | 2 Comments

Do They Know It’s Christmas? – At Sea – [12/14/2018]

Posted on December 13, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

Where are you Christmas?
Why can’t I find you?
Why have you gone away?
Where is the laughter, you used to bring me
Why can’t I hear music play?
My world is changing, and rearranging
Does that mean Christmas changes too?
~ Faith Hill

We are ever so good at giving them the dolly-in-the-corner. We give them all the trimmings, all the glitz, all the beauty. The ship is glistening in golds and greens and silvers. It looks like a fairy-land, and it’s not even finished yet. Next cruise, tired fingers will dig to the back of closets and pull out long unused santa hats, we will paint on bright-red lipstick and gleaming white smiles and we will give them the Christmas they want, or at least the one they expect. But it won’t be real…we give them everything they want, but I don’t think we give them a single thing that they need.

And they treat it like another excuse to party; to throw away the need to think. To revel in the superficiality of it all.

No one seems to think that it’s important.

It is ever so very important. If you would just take the time to remember. If you would just take the time to care.

This evening we had the first rehearsal for the Christmas concert, if you can really call a handful of tired cast members and musicians gathered around a piano a rehearsal. But I went – of course I went – and I stood there with the rest of them, and I heard something in my voice. In the high sailing chorus of Silent Night – that I haven’t heard since I was little. I somehow heard home. I heard my mother’s voice under mine, from when I was just small, and my voice was so much higher well…littler…than hers; and I could hear the love there. That crystal clear perfect sound that may not always have perfect pitch but somehow always seems like it does, because it’s in tune with itself. In harmony with itself. Because it is harmony. Emotional stillness. And for some reason that I still can’t explain, when that song finished, I was standing there fighting back tears…

Because I wish we could give them what mattered. I wish we could make them see it.

We are so terribly caught up these days, we are so cutting edge and so high tech, we are so ahead of the game and ahead of ourselves that…we seem to completely miss what it’s really all supposed to be about. It’s not about religion, it’s not about presents, it’s about…love. About hope, and faith and actually giving something back to the world. It’s about looking after each other and out for each other…it’s about opening your eyes and actually seeing not just how beautiful the world is, but how distinctly un-beautiful it is at risk of becoming, and doing something about htat.

It’s the one time of the year when we give ourselves the permission to be kind that we really shouldn’t need, because we should be like that all year. Every day.

And perhaps that’s why my heart broke a little when I heard one guest this evening – having lifted the lid off of one of the display boxes under the Christmas trees in the atrium – say, only half-joking that “the boxes are empty, no presents this year”.

No presents…

No dolly in the corner.

But…but you are here. We are all here. Here, with the chance to actually see each other, and be with each other, and reach out in this terrible time the world is going through. Here, with three meals a day, and people who care about us, even if we don’t always know it. Is that not present enough? Is that not at least worth acknowledging? Do you not realize how few people comparatively have that?

And somehow, that was all tied up in the high crystal note of my suddenly-young feeling voice hitting the top notes of silent night, listening to it echo in the tired stillness of the show-room…suddenly wanting nothing more in the world than to be home. Home with records and fireplaces and over-priced eggnog. Home…where somehow it feels that the concept of what it’s all supposed to be about doesn’t feel quite so lost…

I know I will find it. I know it will come. It always does. Without tags. Without packages. Boxes. Or bags.

But right now…just at this moment…this sugarplum fairy feels a little bit lost at sea…

And is still, silently, very much missing her oranges…

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Holiday Cruises, Reflections | 1 Comment

More Sur-Reality – Ochos Rios, Jamaica – [12/06/2018]

Posted on December 6, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

This, is the story of how I died. Oh don’t worry! This is actually a very fun story and truth be told it isn’t even mine…
~ Tangled…

So, I died this morning.

Don’t worry, I came back good as new within the hour J It was all part of a safety exercise. Once in a while the ship has us run a massive emergency drill that simulates what would happen if there was an explosion or a very large fire with a lot of people hurt all at once. So a handful of us volunteered to be victims. We filed into the show room this morning and were all given labels as to what was wrong with us, some of us had broken limbs (one of us was missing a limb altogether) and some of us were just unconscious, I was one of those.

As I was lying there on the showroom floor, trying to remember not to move, waiting for the medical team to reach me (unfortunately they didn’t reach me in time, hence why I “died” this morning) – I found myself in a unique position to observe – or at least listen – to how people react to trauma, even imaginary trauma.

When we first started the exercise, people were not really taking the whole thing all that seriously; there were two “conscious” victims up on the stage, at first their calls for help were rather light-hearted, almost non-sensical. Nothing that serious. But as time went on and no one came to help us, those calls for help? They got panicked, they started to feel almost real. Even though logically we all knew that this was just a drill, that there was nothing wrong with us. Our dancers didn’t have missing limbs and broken legs, and I wasn’t actually slowly stopping breathing…

Nothing quite like hearing someone from the stage say…

I think Shaughnessy’s gone already…

Your mind paints odd and amazing pictures in a circumstance like that. I was very aware of everything around me, even though I was not moving, lying there with my eyes closed. I was aware when each of my fingers started getting cold, when my neck was stiff, when they moved my head a little too hard.

There were many things going through my head while I was lying there; but one thing that bounced around a lot was that if this was a real situation. If this had really happened in the show room and I had really been there. Then I wouldn’t have been alone, because unless he was completely unable to move himself – there is no way that Amras wouldn’t have found his way to me; and done everything possible to figure out how to make me all right.

That helped, as I lay there idly contemplating my own mortality.

And I remembered a lot of what my Dad taught me about first aid. I actually knew big chunks about how to fix what was wrong with me! Which really surprised me, because I thought I’d long since forgotten all of that. But I couldn’t exactly jump up and down and say “hey! Someone should really be giving me mouth to mouth, there’s a mask right over there!” – because I was supposed to be unconscious, so instead I was more lying there thinking “well, I could have a blocked airway, and I know how to fix that, or I’m pretty sure I know how to fix that….but I’m supposed to be unconscious, so I will just lie here and be dead.”

It was a very strange morning…

 

Posted in Below the waterline | 1 Comment

Running without a Map – Havana, Cuba – [12/04/2018]

Posted on December 4, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

It’s so easy in this day and age to plan every single moment of your day. We have maps in our phones, and plans in our heads all the time. Every hour laid out with precision levels. Even Amras and I are guilty of that, and honestly, sometimes we have to be; often times we only have a few hours out in port before we have to rush back to the ship and planning becomes essential to get the most out of those few hours. But we didn’t always used to be that way. My phone is international (and therefore expensive) and Amras? Amras didn’t used to have a phone. So, back when we first met our theme usually went something like this:

Where are you guys going today?

I don’t know, we haven’t gotten there yet.

We lost that somewhere, well, didn’t lose it exactly, but life just stalled on being able to accomidate it.

Until we got a long port.

When we walked out in Havana I had a vague idea of the few things I wanted to show him; as I’ve had a couple of calls here already this season. But we were struck by disappointment on front after front when we discovered that the day everything is closed in Havana? Is not Sunday, it’s Monday – and of course, we were here on a Monday. So, no museums or historical fortresses for us. Which led to me being a little more sulky than I should have been, because hey, I had a plan, and it didn’t work, and that’s not particularly my favourite spot to be in.

So instead we just…started wandering.

I had never been further in Havana than about a five block radius from the terminal, because the streets are those beautifully twisty turny kind and it’s relatively easy to get yourself going in the wrong direction. I didn’t ever feel unsafe, but I do have a tendency to get lost. So when I was on my own it was safer to stay close to home so to speak. Anyway, it didn’t take long before we were in uncharted territory for me.

Amras was looking for a central square, I was honestly convinced he wasn’t going to find one – because Old Havana didn’t seem to be laid out that way. I should have known better. After about an hour’s more of walking (and poking through market stalls, and drinking fresh squeezed sugar cane juice – which was beyond yummy – the twisting small streets opened up onto the capitol square. Yeah, I should have known better. Suddenly we were strolling across a vast open cobble-stoned space, lined on one side with horse-drawn carriages, and on the other? On the other with brightly coloured classic cars.

Welcome to Cuba.

I, being ever over eager, wanted to grab the first tour car we saw (which as I recall was red and white), but we ended up waiting, and that turned out to be a really really good decision (more on that later). Instead we sat at a nearby resteraunt and sipped a real Cuban Mojito, and watched all the people go by in the shadow of the Capitol building. It is wonderfully refreshing to sit alongside a main street and not see a single chain store. No plastic souvenir shops, no Del Sol, no diamonds international. This place isn’t catering to us, we just happen to be here.

I’ve wanted to do a classic car tour since I found out we were coming to Havana; and there were a lot of cars to choose from. Most of which were shiney shiney pink and bright blues and such. None of those really caught our eye. We were just about to go and scope out our options, when we found the exact one we were supposed to end up with. A slightly well-worn 1948 Dodge, painted pink and white, driven by a man who had the kindest eyes we’d seen in a long while. Unlike his colleagues he didn’t simply holler out to us, he came up to us, almost immediately, and while his price was a little bit higher than the others…I knew this was the one we wanted.

And did it ever prove to be worth it.

The driver was amazingly friendly, and took us to parts of the city we never could have made it to on our own. And as we cruised down into the residential neighbourhood, he looked over his shoulder and asked if we wanted to stop somewhere for a drink.

And that, is how you end up being the only ones in a French-cuban café, sipping a (very weak) pina colada, listening to the house trio play just for you; singing along with cuban renditions of beetles songs (of all things). As if you were the most important people they’d seen in their whole day.

To us, and all those marvelous adventures we promised we’d have…

And just as suddenly, the trio starts into something we never could have expected; they started playing Stand By Me. If they could have picked any song….any song from anywhere…

If Amras and I have a song, that’s it. Has been for years. It was ‘our’ song before there was an ‘us’ to have a song.

I sat there for a moment in rather stunned silence, and then Amras nudged me and stretched out his hand…

And asked me to dance…

I don’t know how many of my readers have dated musicians, but…band girlfriends (and wives, and fiancés) don’t get danced with. Groupies get danced with, fans get danced with, lonely looking little old ladies in the front row get danced with…but girlfriends? We don’t get danced with. We get everything else, but not dances…

I didn’t need the pina colada to feel light-headed.

By the time our driver dropped us back at central park, it was starting to get dark. And Cuba at night is beautiful, I expected Havana to be a party town, and I’m sure that it is after a certain time of night. But in the early evening? The streets are almost empty, and it almost feels like Europe. All small sidewalk cafes and quiet whispers.

We had dinner in the same café that apparently was once frequented by Ernest Hemingway (and the food there was delicious) and then spent the rest of the night wandering through twisting alleyways, eating hand made ice cream in the shadow of huge cathedrals.

Some days aren’t about the planning, or the souvenirs, or the perfect photographs…some days don’t come with a map…

And so many times…those days? End up being the very very best days of all.

Posted in Cuban Dreams, Fall Contracts, Historical Sites | 1 Comment

Slow and Steady – Havana, Cuba – [12/02/2018]

Posted on December 3, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

Sometimes it just takes a while that’s all.

Takes a while to find your feet. To figure out the feel of a new ship, of a new crowd, of a new set of people. Takes a while to stop being the new kid on the block.

And when it does finally break through and start feeling normal, it happens suddenly. Suddenly you’re feeling welcome at the family table at dinner, suddenly you’re swapping Christmas movies with people. Suddenly you’ve made friends with the people who handle your schedule and are horsing around in the office and the new new kid on the block is looking at you all like you’re crazy.

Suddenly you’re sitting in the audience at the late night show and going “hey, I know those people…”. And you’re getting invited to play card games in the officer’s bar at night (though you find you’re still too tired to actually do so).

Yeah, sometimes it just …takes a while.

It helps also that Amras arrived day before yesterday (yaaaaay! Happy dance!), and I’m always a little bit more social when I have someone to be social with. Which may or may not make any sense, but it works in my head.

Life is still extremely busy, I’m still juggling work with wedding planning with budgeting with a million other things but hey…nothing I can’t handle.

It just…takes me a little while.

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Fall Contracts | 1 Comment

Children of the Stars – Cozumel, Mexico – [11/17/2018]

Posted on November 17, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

Anyone who knows me knows that it takes a lot to get me up and running before 7am; but there are two things that will always manage it. One, is a Disney park – of which there isn’t one in Mexico – and one is a chance at seeing an archeological site.

And there are plenty of those in Mexico.

So it was that I was up at 6:45 to grab breakfast and hit the road on a rather long trip. Including a very rough ferry ride over to the island where the site is. Honestly, the ferry ride was the only difficult part of the trip – apparently no one mentioned to the designers of said ferry that it’s best to use a catamaran style when you’re plowing through waves like that – let’s just say a lot of people got sea-sick!

But…once we got to where we were going. It was beyond worth it.

Originally I had tried to get the slot that would take me to Chitzen Itza – but that tour had completely filled up, so there was no slot free for a crew escort. But I did get my second choice – and it turns out, my second choice, should have been my first.

The ruins at Coba are some of the oldest Mayan ruins in existence. They are actually older than Chitzen Itza. The site is so vast that only a tiny percentage of it has even been uncovered, and seeing it all would take days. I was grateful for the fact that the tour did not require us to walk the miles of trails between the buildings that are open to the public – instead we were whisked along in tuk-tuk like trike-cabs, which definitely made things a lot easier. Had we more time, I would have loved to have just wandered…though I probably would have gotten myself terribly lost. This place, it’s not…it’s not ours. Places like this belong to the ages, and to the jungle, we just seem to be lucky enough once in a while to catch a glimpse of what was once here.

There are so many theories as to why the ancient Mayans vanished, though the one I think most likely is that they ran out of water. A precious and precarious balance with nature’s resources got tipped too far and they were forced to just abandon everything; it’s something we could learn from, because we are now teetering on the very edge of that same balance. But we really know so little about them. As I sat listening to the guide speak on the history of the place, I found myself listening more to the trees; their whispers have long replaced the long ago whispers of the shamans who once walked the plaza where we were sitting. Shamans that were male and female, and had to master 6 different sciences to even get close to that position. I could have just sat there, and listened to those trees, for hours, just to see what they might have to say…

There are two ballcourts open to the public on the site; for years I’ve always been taught that the Mesoamerican ballgame was a ceremony that preceded human sacrifice. But according to our guide, that was a particularly gruesome myth set in place by the Spanish to justify their own slaughter of the Mayan civilization. I’m very curious as to which side of this history is true, and find that I’ll probably be doing more digging on it. This is the second time I’ve walked through a ballcourt, and I got the same feeling I did the last time – an odd combination of peace and resignation. Whatever happened here, it was serious, and it was important.

But the highlight of the whole site is the pyramid. Huge and towering, and one of the only ones remaining that you can still climb. A feat that probably won’t be possible for many more seasons, as it is likely going to follow in the path of the other sites and be closed down for climbing in order to preserve the building itself. Thousands of years of people climbing these steep uneven stairs, eventually lead to degradation. The price of keeping the site safe, is that we will soon only be able to admire it from behind a rope. At the moment though, I was able to clamber up those thousands-year old stones all the way to the top. And the few from the top, is …breath-taking. There are no mountains in the Yucatan, and so when you’re standing at the top of the pyramid looking out, and you see anything that looks like a mountain – it isn’t , it’s another temple, another pyramid, or another whole Mayan city that is still buried beneath acres and acres of jungle. In some cases not even reachable.

If there’s anything that can make you feel very very small.

Going up was easy.

Going back down?

Going back down was very very scary. You see, climbing up you aren’t really aware of high up you’re going. But climbing back down, you can see nothing but how high up you are. And because the steps are uneven, you can’t really be certain where your footing is going. Thousands of years of footfalls have worn the stones shiney and slippery. So unless you want to take a huge risk, you clear your pride and do the smart thing – sit down, and slide carefully down step by step just like you were a toddler sliding down carpeted stairs at home.

Having made it safely to the bottom I took one step onto the flat ground and nearly felt my knees go out from under me. That much climbing, and your limbs kind of do turn to jelly. I remember feeling the same way when I climbed up and down Jacob’s Ladder on St Helena years ago.

But it was so utterly worth it.

I find myself completely fascinated by how much the ancient Mayans could have told us. They were so massively advanced. I mean here was a civilization that had mastered advanced astronomy, could carve granite and basalt supposedly without advanced tools. They knew so much that we didn’t, or perhaps they were just far more open to what they could know than we are. They called themselves the children of the stars…and I think perhaps we may be the fools to not accept what they meant by that. Could all of this really honestly have been possible without outside help?

If we just open our ears, and our eyes…there is so so much we have yet to learn.

 

 

Posted in Below the waterline, Cuban Dreams, Fall Contracts, Historical Sites, Ports of Call | 1 Comment