Camp Granada – Boston, Mas – [05/20/2017]

Posted on May 20, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

And so I have returned from what really feels like an excursion to summer camp. A little bittersweet to be sure, it’s been a long time since I had that much fun or worked with so many like-minded people…but at least now my head is all full of new ideas and such. It has gone a long way to refreshing my enthusiasm for classes, and that’s always a good thing!

The transfer this time was not as horrid as it normally is to go from vacation to ship. Another of our merry little group was travelling with me on the same flight, and while we weren’t seated together it was nice to be able to have company on that strange journey in between worlds.

The new computers are nearly hooked up – still waiting for IT to clear me for access to the internet connection I’ll need to teach specific things. For now I’ve got my demo videos, and that’s enough to cover the gap. The next few days will be spent updating all the old computers so that things finally work as they should.

I arrived to a nice relaxed day, my manager having removed my traditional Open House for the day so I’d have time to settle in and figure out my schedule for the rest of the day. So I didn’t have anything that needed doing until drill, and nothing after that until my evening class. It’s lovely to have management that’s considerate of the fact that you’ve just flown from coast to coast.

So yes, I’m back from summer camp, with my head all full of new thoughts and such. I miss the rest of the team, but at least I got to meet them at all, which is something that cannot be said all the time out here.

But I still miss my awesome nerds…

 

Posted in Below the waterline, Reflections, South Of the Border 2017, Transitions, Vacations/Shore-Side | 1 Comment

Recaptured – Seattle, Washington – [05/18/2017]

Posted on May 18, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Well you know they say all good things must come to some kind of ending

~ Christian Kane

How can it be the end of the week already?  It seems like we all just arrived here, and yet here we are all backing up our carry-ons and suitcases and heading our separate ways, letting the ocean carry us off in different directions.

I never expected this to be as incredibly enjoyable as it has been. You picture business conferences as structured, perhaps slightly stuck up affairs, with proper language and suits and ties. This couldn’t have been more opposite to that. From beginning to end it was one big joyful babble of new ideas and new toys (some of which I am not permitted to discuss) and collaboration that you couldn’t help but get swept up in. I am pretty sure that by the end of today we had long forgotten who was “the boss” and who wasn’t.

The take away is that there are a lot of amazing things coming. Some of which I cannot wait to get my hands on. This conference alone has sold me on the idea of the early access insider program. I am not waiting to start playing with some of this. And some of that stuff we’re going to get to teach to others, and some of it is going to make a huge difference to those people and that is beyond awesome. I have hardware in my pocket that’s potentially going to fix some of the ongoing issues with the ship that I’m currently on classroom wise, and I have new classes to plan and look forward to.

But mostly…for a week I wasn’t just the weird girl who carried the files. This week taught me something else: I can fit in. I didn’t know that, I seriously didn’t. I somewhat thought I’d forgotten how, but this week recaptured something I thought I’d left behind when I walked off my university campus for the last time. And that alone – setting aside all the other brilliant parts of the last few days – would have been worth the plane ride

Posted in Vacations/Shore-Side | 1 Comment

Awesome Nerds – Seattle, Washington – [05/14-15/2017]

Posted on May 15, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

You know I always thought that I was a weird girl or a strange girl or not even a girl…just because I could play y’know? And now I look around and look at us , there’s a whole lot of us! And I think we’re all alright…

~ A league of their own

I was more than a little nervous about this conference. I feel better admitting that now than I did a few days ago. Whenever I get into a large group of people I’m …almost always the odd one out. I don’t do well with people as a rule. They don’t seem to understand me and I don’t always understand them. That was kind of what I was prepared for. Especially since I’m one of the newest kids on this particular block…

So yeah, there were knots in my tummy when I disembarked the plane in Seattle, and even more so on the ride to the main conference hotel, where I sat in the car with three other workshop teachers and tried not to say much. Those butterflies continued for the first several hours of the afternoon…and then suddenly I realized that they had…flown away…

These people…they get me. We are all speaking the same language. Heck we’re all speaking. At the mixer in the lobby yesterday I was able to reconnect with the fellow who trained me, who gave me a big hug and announced that he was so proud of me, that I was doing so well and that he always knew I would. Which surprised the heck out of me, because honestly I thought that I would mess up, that someone would catch me out and tell me that no, I had to go home. I grinned at him and squared my shoulders and told him something I had just found out the day before yesterday

I…got a 9.14 rating on my last cruise

You…whoa

Yeah…no idea how I did that.

Because you’re good Shaughnessy, you’ve never had anything to worry about. Never.

I think that was when the butterflies flew away.

A few hours after that, I was sitting chatting with the others as if I had always been around them. I was actually around people, and I wasn’t afraid of them. No one was excluding me, no one was patronizing me, for the first time in…I actually don’t know how long, I didn’t feel like the odd one out of the crowd, like I was just there because no one had the heart to tell me I didn’t belong…

These people, they play the same games as me, geek out about the same things as me. I was finally able to tell my random gaming stories to someone who actually knew what I was talking about.

So my boyfriend starting playing Fallout, and I didn’t want to touch it because I don’t really do gore, but it has that really cool story-line so he managed to talk me into it…and the we kind of started..accidentally sort of competing with each other. Then we got the expansion pack, and so there’s me just a level 8 do-gooder wandering through the wasteland and I sort of fall into one of the expansion pack quests

Oh god…those are all..

Yeah…they’re all meant for players who are above level 30, and there I am a level 8. And Amras keeps telling me that I can just change my mind and come back to it later and I’m like…no..I am so doing this. Went into that thing a level 8 came out a level 10, with the *best* gun in the game, and the indestructible  armor *and* I was invisible. And he’s sitting there looking at me going “I’m a level 27 and YOU HAVE A STRONGER CHARACTER THAN ME…how did you do that”

And one of the guys I was talking to leans back in his chair and says

There’s only one answer to that you know…Mad skillz baby, mad skillz

Or just…I’m me…same thing.

And that was just at the mixer. Which, because of a long trip from east to west coast and a lot of load screaming children on said flight, I crawled away from early because if I didn’t’ I was going to fall asleep in my wine glass.

And then this morning we actually walked into the Microsoft building; and I had to do my best not to squeal and also pick my jaw up off the ground at the same time. Even their cafeteria is high-tech! It looks like a massive food court, and you don’t pay for the food with normal money, they give us these pre-loaded meal coupons (they look like mini-debit cards) and they charge the food by weight, you touch the card to the terminal and bang, you’ve paid for it. Most high-tech way I’ve ever paid for a piece of pizza.

Walking into the conference room for the first time I felt like Lt. Eve Dallas walking into the E.D.D department in the In Death series. Minus the super bright colours and the rock music, but the vibe is the same.

And while we’re not getting all new material just yet (mostly just much-needed revisions to pre-existing classes), some of the stuff that they are showing us that’s *coming* has us chomping at the bit. Even though the NDA that’s in all of our contracts for occasions like this will prevent me from talking about the coolest bits of it, I can talk about some of it; I can say this: the future isn’t coming, the future is here and it is so incredibly cool…and…I can’t wait for the chance to teach it.

In fact none of us can, we were all talking over each other trying to weigh in on new features.

And also doing the high-tech version of doodling on each other’s notebooks….

Some things never change

Anyway….

One thing I can talk about – since the promo video for it is already on the public YouTube channel – is the fact that the movie editing program that got pulled this past Christmas is coming back with some seriously awesome force behind it. It won’t be live for a long while yet, but it’s coming, and it’s so going to be worth waiting for. And our students are going to go crazy for it.

Dad says I’m getting spoiled, that no conference he ever went to was ever like this …but I have a feeling that this week is going to be so…so good for me.

 

 

Posted in South Of the Border 2017 | 1 Comment

Peace and Panic – Somewhere over the Caribbean – [05/13/2017]

Posted on May 13, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

I had thought that I’d seen some of the most odd contract experiences; but this is the first time I’ve left a ship half way through a contract to go somewhere else and come back. Welcome to the semi-annual workshop conference, which is held in Seattle and calls all of us in from the fleet and from land for a week; so that we can hang out with each other and learn a whole bunch of new classes and basically return to our ongoing contracts with all new information.

Yes, I’m actually going on a real business trip

Whoa…I must be a grown up.

I’m not the only crew member disembarking here, there’s a girl from the Front Office staff who is going home today as well, and we actually share the same flights, so for the first leg of the journey I have a traveling companion. We did get separated however, more on that later…

But before I can get there, I have to tackle the fear I can’t always seem to beat. I’ll have to fly. Three flights to be exact; the main two being four hours each as I hop diligently from the east coast to the west coast. Before I can even set foot on a jumbo jet however, it is a little twin otter plane that takes me from Grand Turk to the main island so I can board the jumbo jet in question.

The little prop plane vibrates as if it’s trying to shake itself apart from the moment we take off, but oddly I feel much more at ease on this plane than I do on any of its much larger siblings. Perhaps it’s because the view outside is so breathtaking (the Caribbean from above is like nothing you’ve ever seen), or perhaps it’s because with a plane this small I am sitting directly behind the cockpit.

I can watch them fly the plane!

Not that I can make any sense of it f course, it’s all just da dizzying away of dials and numbers, but there is something extremely reassuring about being able to see the people who are keeping us in the air. For the first time I understand a bit about why my parents do not fear flying. They used to be pilots, they used to be pilots, they know how the plane works. I suppose that really does make all the difference.

The water underneath us is a milky blue-green; it looks like some kind of snow, or melted ice cream. The outline of a coral reef lies just under the surface, looking like a dragon or a sea serpent that might wake at any moment and shake the dust of the sea bed off its giant scales, or perhaps not wake at all until the end of time– whichever comes first.

I have to say this is the first plane trip I have genuinely enjoyed in a long time. I wish they could all be this way.

Alas, if a twin-engine otter plane was destined to bring me peace of mind, the next leg was about to shatter it for me.

After the debacle of getting to my Middle Eastern contract last year, I honestly thought I had seen the worst airport I would ever encounter. I mean what could possibly be worse than Qatar?

Let that be a lesson to me: never challenge the universe.

The airport in the main island is a single room for international departures. Thousands of people in a seething confused mass, nowhere to stand let alone somewhere to sit. No proper signage, a barely understandable PA system, and no one willing to openly give directions. Those who know me well – or even not so well – know that I panic terribly easily in crowds. This? This was my idea of a nightmare.

When we finally boarded, I found myself bracketed, screaming children behind me and an overly curious toddler in front of me. Thankfully there’s an empty seat next to me. It was supposed to be two – as I very carefully booked an empty row – but a fellow decided to “take advantage of the empty aisle seat” which is a little irritating, but which I can’t blame him for as I would probably do the same thing. The important thing is that I have the middle seat next to me empty, so I have some breathing room, if I didn’t have that, I would go mad…

I finally locate the in-seat power (buried beneath the seat and almost impossible to get to), plug in my laptop, and jam my headphones in deep. Grateful that I have a good music library loaded, and a few movies…

I…loathe flying.

If the Goddess had meant for us to fly, she would have given us wings. Being as how S/he didn’t, I am compelled to believe that we are supposed to remain on the ground. Or perhaps that’s just me…because flying fills me with a claustrophobic type of terror that is very difficult to get around and seems to be getting worse. Few people understand that it’s not fear of crashing, it’s pure panic of too many people, too much noise and too little space, and not being able to get out…

I’m a gypsy…not a bird…give me a wagon caravan across the country any day! Or a train, can’t I please just take the train???

Posted in South Of the Border 2017, Travel | 1 Comment

Bright Light – Willemstad, Curacao – [05/11/2017]

Posted on May 11, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

I had no intention of going out today. We’re still in a very warm part of the world (goddess I’m looking forward to Boston) and I’ve been having difficulty dealing with the heat…that said, sometimes it feels like I’m having difficulty dealing with most things these days…

But I promised Mum I would go out, because she knew that the fresh air would help me to feel better (and she’s right really, barricading myself in a windowless cabin is not really a great remedy for anything). So I scooped A.J into my bag and headed out.

For those of you who may not know who “AJ” is, she is the tiny stuffed pony that has taken up permanent residence in my suitcase since Amras’ and my road trip to DC last summer. Carrying her about with me has provided me with an amusing way to make myself take more pictures, and since she is in my carry-all at almost all times, she has nearly begun to take on a personality of her own.

Anyway, that’s what this contract has really been about…just AJ and me.

If AJ could speak I’m sure that she would delight in Curacao, because it absolutely explodes with colour and sound. But as much as she is a ham for the camera, AJ is perhaps not the best of conversationalists…so I’ll never really know what she thought. I, however, did enjoy a few minutes amble through the brightly coloured market stalls lining the harbour, although for once I didn’t buy anything. There’s lots of things here to tempt my compulsive home décor tendencies, but I try to keep those in check since as of this particular moment in time I have nowhere to put said décor.

Instead I kept wandering towards the end of the harbour where the historic and restored hulk of Fort Rif dominates the low-lying skyline. The lower level now houses high end shops and tourist traps, as well as an excellent ice cream parlour (duchle de leche ice cream….yum yum!) but tucked away in one side of the wall is the staircase to the upper level. Now safely floored with wood paneling, it’s hard to imagine that these were probably once ramparts. I entirely missed coming up here the last time I was here, and I find myself wishing that I hadn’t, as the ocean breeze sweeping through the now-empty ramparts where the cannon’s once stood watching the ever-changing sea did wonders to calm my over-anxious mind.

Not many people bother to come up to the top-level ,and most of the storefront real-estate up there is either empty or set aside for administrative offices of some kind, so there’s not much in the way of noise except for a bit of background music.

Peering down over the railings that barricade the old cannon slots reveals a sea that is a seemingly impossible shade of green. Like you’d see inside of a faerie ring.

We – that is to say AJ and I, because she, after all, has no choice but to go where I go – made our way back down the harbour and across the city’s famous floating bridge that seems to be constantly shifting, swinging and adjusting with the motion of the tide; if you find yourself half way across the bridge when the closure bells go off (which they do every time a vessel of any kind needs to leave the harbour), you have no choice but to simply hang out in the middle and wait while the bridge swings open and then closes again. That hasn’t happened to me yet, though I’ve seen it happen to other people.

The other side of the harbour is where the city proper is located. All sparkly tourist shops and crazy bright colours. Willemstad is a photographer’s dream, as even their street art is beautiful.  I did remember rather quickly why I don’t tend to do much shopping in places like this…the clerks follow you around a little too closely for my liking. In one little shop, having had a perpetual shadow for the last five minutes, I finally turned around and demanded to know whether or not she was following me for any particular reason as I was only browsing and hadn’t even touched anything on the shelves. She laughed – clearly having had this kind of encounter quite often – and explained that no, it was just the way things are done around here, whether you like it or not you have your own personal sales assistant. Finding myself thoroughly unsettled by the procedure, I made sure only to go in busy stores after that where all the salespeople were already occupied. What can I say? No matter how friendly, people silently staring at me kind of freaks me out.

Eventually I found I couldn’t take the heat any longer, so I proceeded back to the welcome air conditioning of the ship, taking AJ with me…whether she was ready to leave or not.

Posted in Ports of Call, South Of the Border 2017 | 2 Comments

Touching Normal – Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala – [05/04/2017]

Posted on May 6, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Distance hurts. A lot. And sometimes, just sometimes, the brief glimpse of normal that you are gifted in between the distance stings as much as it heals.

Amras and I are on separate ships this contract. I haven’t seen him since the limo dropped me off at the airport in Fort Lauderdale just after Christmas. This…has not been easy. Being away from your other half is always difficult, is always a rollercoaster. We’ve made it work of course, because that’s what we do, but that doesn’t mean it’s been easy. The ship I’m on is one that prior to this I have only shared with him, and the ship he is on is well…the flagship. Which, ironically, I would be perfectly fine handling myself since I’ve worked it by myself on so many occasions.

We had thought that we wouldn’t see each other until much later in the summer, until I happened to run into our old manager, who told me that we in fact would have one cross port, just one. In Guatemala of all places. A brief blip on the itinerary where my ship is heading east and his is heading west and we just happened to run into each other in the middle…

Which is why 8:30 found me waiting on the gangway, in full dress uniform (which normally I would not consider wearing until after six at night) with butterflies in my stomach the sizes of small moths.

This is ridiculous, why am I nervous?

Couldn’t come up with an answer to that question, but I was. My cruise director looked at me and asked if I was waiting for my counterpart from the other ship – that is to say, the computer teacher from over there, as it’s not unusual for those of us in the same position to meet up and chat if we cross ports. I just looked at him.

Nope, waiting for my boyfriend

Amras is over on the flagship? I did not know that!

Yeah. Seriously, I’m in the six o’clock uniform at 8 in the morning, with make-up, and curled hair…do you think I’d do that for just anything?

I…probably should have picked up on that.

The shuttle from ship to ship to substantially longer than we had though, which led to me almost starting to pace in circles. Too much nervous energy. Finally though, he walked through security, and handed me a vase of roses, which came very close to making me cry…

That brief…ever so brief…little taste of normal.

It was a quiet day, there were problems with my IPM which led to us not being able to visit the flagship until much later in the afternoon, at which point most of the other friends (of which I have quite a few on the flagship, for perhaps obvious reasons)  so we mostly sat and sipped fruit drinks and ate ice cream and just…talked. Just existed. It’s amazing how much you can miss someone to just exist with. It doesn’t have to be bells and whistles and fantastic things, it can just be…normal. The feeling that you will wake up the next morning and that person will be there. Because that’s just the way the universe is supposed to be.

The thing is, the port call was only seven hours…if that. That’s not enough, not really. That’s enough to touch normal and have it slip through your fingers…when you get back from it, the cabin feels empty again…and while you’re refocused and you’re happy, you’re also a different kind of lonely. And when the day was over, and the ice cream dishes cleared and the glasses empty, he dropped me off at the shuttle, and my ship went one way and his went another…

Somewhere along the line I have lost the ability to be alone…or perhaps I have realized that I was only good at it because I thought I had no choice.

Which is perhaps why it’s important …to touch normal, once in a while.

Posted in Below the waterline, Ports of Call, Reflections, South Of the Border 2017 | 1 Comment

Come Hear the Music Play – At Sea – [05/03/2017]

Posted on May 3, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

There are only two piano bar entertainers in the fleet that I have enough of a rapport with that they will trust me to step up to their microphones. I knew that one of them was currently on board, and I had a vague idea when I was watching his name that tune competition this evening that I should ask him when – or if – he wanted me to join him later in the cruise. In the back of my mind was the niggling little hope, but you never know whether or not that’s going to be fulfilled, and it often isn’t.

So I’m standing there in the corner, leaning against the wall trying to stay out of the sightline of the guests who are actually participating in the contest, when, without breaking off what he was playing, J looks at me and asks me

You want to sing?

And I grin, and flash him the thumbs up sign to say sure. Even then, I was expecting it to be after the current event was over. But it wasn’t. He actually stopped the contest half way through the answer review

Ladies and Gentleman, I’m going to put Name that Tune on hold for a moment because I have a treat for you. This…is Shaughnessy, who teaches in our computer workshop. Not only can she teach you the mysteries of windows – though seriously, why bother, just get a mac…

Me: That’s it, I’m leaving Jay!

I know right! But, she is also a singularly talented singer. So, she’s going to do a number for you

He flips through the charts on his tablet

I’m guessing you want your standard.

Yeah, may as well. Key of C

Okay, here we go then.

A lot of people – including my folks – give me some flack that I always default to Cabaret if I’m asked to do an on-the-spot performance. I have done it so many times that I could most likely sing it in my sleep. But there’s a reason I always do it first. A couple of reasons actually: first, it makes a good impression to be able to belt out Liza Minnelli when you’re as tiny as I am, second: because I can almost sing it in my sleep, it means that I will not fall victim to the intense stage fright I am prone to at a first performance. If I’m going to make a first impression, I’m going to lead with my most secure track. Jay knows this, and he knows me well enough to know that I have loads of other songs in my repertoire if and when we get another chance but for now…yeah, the old faithful still definitely does the trick.

It has been…a longer time than usual since I had a microphone in my hands. And to be honest, for the first time in ages, I was worried when I stepped up there, worried that this time maybe I had left it to long, maybe it wouldn’t work anymore, maybe my range was actually gone. But…it wasn’t. And because I was finally playing with a real musician again instead of a backing track, I could actually play and know that Jay would follow me (and I’m not an easy singer to follow, or at least so I have been told).

Part way through the number, he flashes me this huge grin

I have missed you

I know! I’ve missed you too!

And when I finished the last note, the room erupted. And these guests, they are total strangers, they have only been on the ship a few days, none of them are familiar to me from previous voyages. Even the staff on board are not people I know particularly well, except for Jay himself. So those applause? They felt earned…

So when is your next workshop class then?

You know, my nice quiet reputation always lasts until you show up Jay.

And once again I am reminded, that wherever I go…

Music is my safe space, that is my home.

Posted in Performances, South Of the Border 2017 | 2 Comments

Disconnect – At Sea – [05/02/2017]

Posted on May 3, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

If you ever want to have a truly humbling experience – take on purging your digital life. Not “unplugging” in the big dramatic sense, but more in the sense of actively cleansing your digital profile. Not with the intention of “never going online again” (obviously not, as I still keep this blog) but with the intention of actively taking control over what you do and interact with online and in social media.

I guarantee you, you will be shocked.

It has taken me three months…THREE…just to even make a dent in clearing out my Facebook profile. It’s terrifying, that every little thing we do on this vast thing called the internet is recorded somewhere .Just because something drops off your visible profile, does not mean it’s gone. I’m still deleting old Farmville posts from my university days. And you have to double delete everything on top of that. Once that was even close to done, I tracked down my old original blog and wiped that out too.

I’m still nowhere near finished. But it’s getting there, slowly.

But it’s opened my eyes to just how much the concept of privacy is an illusion. We rant and rave about it ,and yet we willingly give over our information to sources we don’t control every single day. Whether or not it’s good for us aside (and there are so many studies I’ve read stating just how horrible for our brains it can be, particularly for kids) – how safe is it? How are we just able to blindly trust the figures behind the curtain? And when did we start doing so? It feels like just yesterday that I was thinking extremely hard – even at university age – about posting a single picture online.

In the meantime, this – disconnection – has had active influence on my day to day life. I’m reading more, I’m starting to look at my writing again, I’m sleeping better and completing my craft projects faster. My attention span has stretched – or started to stretch- back out to where it was in theatre school.

It’s interesting…what you start to see when you allow yourself to look up from your screen….

Posted in Below the waterline, Reflections | 1 Comment

Through the Fire – At Sea – [04-25-2017]

Posted on April 26, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

I just got out of bed and sneaked downstairs at 1:10 in the morning…to rescue paperbacks from the recycle bin….

How typical of me…

You can take the girl out of the library, but you can’t take the librarian out of the girl…

Why, you might ask was I seized by this strange urge at this foolishly late/early hour?

You see,  earlier this evening I found myself once again working in the library; when my – not too popular because she’s been on edge lately – manager and myself and a few other team members were tidying the area in preparation for a corporate visit tomorrow morning. , said manager made the mistake of confessing to me that she had resorted to throwing the paperbacks in the recycling rather than putting them in the exchange where they belong. I winced, and looked at the book she was holding, not near mint by any case, but still in good enough condition that it would be able to be sold at a second hand shop.

I had already dealt with at least one guest insisting that one of my team members had told him that he could help himself to the collection to keep. Which I confirmed was not a stated policy anywhere as the collection needs to remain active until the library is officially dismantled – which has not happened yet. I had already had to deal with the shelves being a mess because there’s no one to properly look after them anymore, and with the fact that the gates no longer lowered so there was no way to protect the collection overnight so tidying it was like painting the Brooklyn bridge, and with the fact that I was twitching from looking at the cupboards I had once so carefully organized and labelled and sorted being shoved full in such a way that said louder than words that the person dealing with them didn’t care about the contents and had no way of knowing how to best use the all-too-scarce-storage space. In short, I was dealing with the fact that I miss my books. That there is a reason I stay away from that room, because although by the end the job was hard, and I was miserable, the books were good to me, and I care about them.

So…when faced with the statement: “I’ve resorted to just tossing them if they don’t fit”…I just looked at her.

That look. Those who know me, know that look.

I know, I knew you wouldn’t approve. But… they’ll get recycled, and that will make lots of trees happy

I just looked at her again, or perhaps still.

No they won’t, they’ll get burned, that’s what they do onboard when they get trashed books, they tear them up and burn them

And she just shrugged and looked guilty, but didn’t change her mind. The books stayed where they were.

Unable to do much about it,  I let it slide, because the whole team has been stressed lately, and she’s in a horrid mood and – for various reasons – so was I (mostly because I found out this evening that I stand to be stuck on the ship for another week due to a scheduling mix up) – and I went out about the rest of my night, which mostly consisted of helping the team fold brochures until 11:30 at night (I volunteered for that).

And then I couldn’t sleep…at all

I should have done something….I should have done something…I should have saved them…

I had to, I had to get up. The housekeepers who were setting up in the library for immigration looked at me sideways, but the chances that they’ll have any recollection of who I am – let alone enough to report that I was out after curfew (crew is supposed to be out of public areas by 1am unless we’re on duty)  – is pretty much zilch. It took me about five minutes. There were at least twenty books in that bin, and only one of them was in bad condition.

As I zipped back up to my room I realized why it was so important to me, and not just because it’s books. First off, this is not a time in the world where books should be something we destroy, not even fictional ones, perhaps especially not fictional ones, and secondly: after that time on the flagship when I was forced to burn my entire paperback exchange, I think I must have made some kind of subconscious promise to myself that I would never let another book burn. Not on my watch.

This was my watch.

 

 

Posted in Below the waterline, Fall Contracts, Reflections, South Of the Border 2017, Summer Contracts | 2 Comments

Dance with the Water – Bora Bora, French Polynesia – [04/13/2017]

Posted on April 15, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Every turn I make, every trail I track, every path I take…every road leads back [to] the line where the sky meets the sea…

The unbalance has been throwing me lately. I’ve not been sleeping, I’ve been edgy and twitchy and generally not feeling well.

There are many things that I could put it down to; including just day to day stress…but you would think by now that I would be able to listen to my body when it’s whispering (or in some cases yelling) to me that it needs something.

I had not planned to go ashore today, I’ve been to Bora Bora before not that long ago, and I couldn’t precisely afford another lunch at Bloody Mary’s…but my boss convinced me otherwise.

You can’t use the heat as an excuse not to go out! People would kill for this opportunity!

But I was just here…

Still..

I emptied my piggybank, and found – unexpectedly – enough for the shuttle to the beach…

The sand in Bora Bora is unexpectedly rough, because it’s mostly coral, so I left my shoes on as I made my way along the shore, eventually finding a few fellow crew mates in the shade of one of the huge palm trees that leans over the beach.  Since they were mostly bar staff, they did have plenty of refreshment offerings on hand, but I wasn’t interested in drinking, or snacks, or even talking particularly (although it’s nice to have people to hang out with, everyone needs a little laughter now and then). Instead, I just shed my shoes and my cover-all and got myself into the water.

The effect was almost instant, I could feel it, all the negativity, the stress, the nightmares, washing out of me in great dark tendrils, dissipating with the salt. It came to me just how long it had been since I felt truly clean. Knots loosen, headaches stop. The ocean washes away, the ocean heals.

And I remembered that for me this route, this area of the world, it’s not about being able to name drop that I’ve been to Bora Bora three times, it’s about the memories I have from this area. Life, love, tropical rain…but it always comes back to the ocean…

 

Posted in South Of the Border 2017 | Leave a comment