Chilly Surprises – Saguenay, Quebec – [10/20/2014]

Posted on October 25, 2014 by GypsyShaughnessy

The_Doll__s_Theatre_by_Juli_SnowWhiteIt’s been a long time since I encountered what I think of as “Christmas card” cold, the kind of cold where you take a deep breath and it feels like your lungs freeze just a little bit. The way I imagine that it would feel like if you could walk into the pages of a holiday poem.

The weather in Saguenay was like that. KitKat and I ventured out on the gangway wrapped in hats, scarves and faux-fur collared coats and we were still shivering by the time we reached the warmth of the small terminal to wait for our crew tour. When it’s that cold out, even the warmth of a tiny terminal-side market is welcome.

As for the tour itself…or rather, as for the show we went to.

Well, we were left unsure whether or not we’d all seen a show, or if we’d all just experienced some very very strange shared dream.

This was truly the most bizarre spectacle I’ve ever seen put on stage. That’s not to say it was bad at all, just…utterly bizarre. If you were to take a relatively high end community theatre production (and nearly the entire town takes part in this presentation), and somehow give it a massive effects budget, as in the level of budget you would give to a small professional touring broadway show; you might have something like this. That’s really the only way I can describe it.

Nominally, it was a theatrical production telling the story of the history of the area in about an hour and a half. There was a show back home that played for years every summer in the harbor that did a similar thing (though they were considered a professional production and their show was only 45 minutes long), so at first I somewhat thought that this would be like Spirit of a Nation only longer…

Er…not exactly.

Taking away from the fact that the story jumped around so much none of us were ever quite sure what was happening, this…really the only word I can think of is spectacle had – within the space of an hour (in no particular order) – 6 live horses on stage, 5 geese, a pig (which really did not want to be on stage!), a cow, I’m pretty sure there might have been a chicken in there somewhere, people rappelling from the ceiling, a tank (I’m pretty certain it wasn’t a real tank, but honestly for a moment there none of us were certain), a random appearance by Elvis (because Elvis is so Canadian….?), balloons falling from the ceiling, a water show, fireworks, fire eating, full inferno flame effects, real axes being used to chop wood on stage, cannon fire, two different cars driven on and off stage at not-very-slow-speeds, a lazer light show, a couple of ballerinas dressed as Pocahontas, and a flood…

All surround a production that was, at its heart, no more than a highly enthusiastic community theatre show. House in a huge stadium theatre with a stage that had clearly been specially constructed to hold all of the above.

As I said…utterly bizarre.

And I would have loved to see their back stage!

Posted in East Coast Adventures 2014, Ports of Call, Summer Contracts | 1 Comment

Onward Ho – Sydney, Nova Scotia – [10/14/2014]

Posted on October 25, 2014 by GypsyShaughnessy

pin_up_girls___sailor_by_anhen-d5ld8s0Some contracts go slowly, some go quickly and some…oddly enough…do both. This has been one of those, the individual days go by like we’re wading through a quagmire, but the weeks zip by in a blink.

Soon, it will be onward to new horizons for us, well, not exactly new, but at least different. As of the end of this cruise we’ll start heading south, leaving the East Coast steadily in our wake and heading over to Europe and the Med for the rest of the season. Europe will be the end of the line for me as I’ll head home for Christmas once the ship makes port in Florida in December, but the rest of the team will be heading to the fun, sun and sand of the Caribbean season.

As usual this time of year I’m working two ships at once. This one, the ship I’m actually on, I’ve done pretty much everything I can do to prep for the Crossing: book club is organized, quiz schedules are printed and sent in, even my hours are set up ready to be winged down to the front office (I swear, if the FO had its way they’d just put a tracking bracelet on my ankle 😉 ). In addition to that though, the Grand is wrapping up on the flagship, which means that Spartan and I – even though head office doesn’t have us working together this season (possibly more on that later) – are working together long distance to get the dear old girl ready for the upcoming GWV in January. The more we get done now? the less I have to do on my hols.

But we still have a lot ahead of us before that, including that one final southbound East Coast run before the 7 long looming days of the Crossing. And of course, a few little cities along the way, including one that you may or may not have heard of called New York…

Posted in Below the waterline, East Coast Adventures 2014 | Leave a comment

Adventures of Mink – Boston, Mass – [10/11/2014]

Posted on October 12, 2014 by GypsyShaughnessy

MinkBefore Amras debarked he made me promise I would continue going to C.O.D play – this despite the fact that I’m really not the world’s best player and I felt about as much like dragging myself as well…whatever, that was a while ago. But anyway, true to my word, I kept going. In fact, the first night I came back, there was a stack of tissues next to my computer station, and a box of chocolates, and a server name that ran “Shaughnessy’s Family Lair”..

I have cool friends..

So we have continued to play ever embark day…and I have usually had lousy luck, I’m just not a very good shot…unless I can get someone across the map – I’m a seriously good sniper, the thing is usually someone takes me out when I’m still aiming, which is…aggravating.

And then my luck changed…mwahahaha

*click* *BANG*

Why you sneaky little….!!!

This would be Predator’s reaction the…fifth…time I took him out with a mine, within the same round. This does not normally happen …so I learned very quickly to spend most of the game planting said mines around me and then just hiding in a corner somewhere. There is one map I am so terrible at (Amras’ knows the one I mean), that I just find a patch of grass and lie down and do nothing for the entire length of the round, this has been my standard practice on that map since we started playing. Then this happened (at a time when I wasn’t even touching the keyboard, I think I was munching on chocolate bar at the time):

*click* *BANG* “you have killed Predator”

THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!!!

Sorry, Pred…my Big Brother taught me well…

I see that…and I am unimpressed by it…

Mwahahaha

Mine is an evil laugh…

Posted in Below the waterline, C.O.D, East Coast Adventures 2014 | 2 Comments

Crossing Shadows – At Sea – [10/06/2014]

Posted on October 12, 2014 by GypsyShaughnessy

Secretary1One thing about working out here is that we are constantly having to think ahead. Yes, the most important thing is that the current sailing’s worth of passengers have the best time possible, we’re here to create memories after all – but in the back of our mind? Is always the next voyage…

The Crossing is once again looming…and the Crossing, as always, requires a lot of prep work.

Two weeks ago I finished the schedule for the first portion of book club, though I still have to draft the book club guide and the questions (that only takes about an hour), and I have to actually read the book, which is more of a challenge than it might sometimes sound…in addition to that, I just managed to finish redrafting the quiz schedule. That last was unexpected, because my predecessor had been kind enough to prep it for me but then Toffy and I went through and rebranded/reformatted and essentially re-did the entire quiz program before she switched positions, which necessitated the whole thing being redone. Easy work, just time consuming. And in the midst of all that, I’m still attempting to run inventory- though that has rather fallen by the wayside these days as I’ve been much busier than I anticipated.

And of course tied in with all this is dealing with the regular stuff: a near full team change over (only two of us left from when I started this contract), a new cruise director (always takes some getting used), and a whole new crop of passengers to be retrained on the internet system (which is still not working quite as it should).

In about three weeks we’ll hit NYC, and from there we’ll start crossing over to Italy. Once we get there, I’m hoping it’ll be another lovely stretch of good food, good wine and good friends, which is what Italian contracts usually end up being (oooh I so can’t wait to taste proper Italian pasta again!). We just have to not all go mad getting there!

Now…where did I leave that book I just picked up…

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Of Shining Waters – Charlottetown, P.E.I – [08/26/2014]

Posted on October 8, 2014 by GypsyShaughnessy

PEI-AnneGreenGables-MedGetting only four hours of sleep before an early morning tour is not perhaps the wisest course of action, but hey it wasn’t on purpose! And that’s why the world invented coffee!

Actually, my participation in the Ultimate Anne of Green Gables tour this morning was somewhat unplanned. Only found out about it a day or so before. I had been intending to sign up, but I kept never getting around to it, until I was on the phone with the tour department for something completely unrelated and she happened to ask why I never signed up for anything, a few minutes later I had the confirmation email in my inbox!

Besides, Amras had IPM today so that worked out well, there are only so many days I can stay on the ship.

You go Sis, go be a kid, I’m super happy you got the slot.

It’s amazing how much you remember that you have no real idea is still in your head from when you were small. Granted, I did attempt a re-read of Anne a week or so ago, but things kept getting in the way and I Never got past the first few chapters.

But I remember it.

Remember enough that I bit back a tiny gasp of appreciation when the guide pointed out the vast sparkling lake on either side of the road as we approached the museum.

For those of you familiar with the books, that is “The Lake of Shining Waters”

Anne, you see, is Canada’s answer to Pollyanna. Only instead of the ‘glad game’, Lucy Maude Montgomery endowed Anne with the most incredible imagination, so she never called anything by it’s “normal” name, in Anne’s eyes, everything – even a country lake – was fantastical.

The Anne of Green Gables museum itself, couldn’t have been more what I needed. Nothing – for me at least – soothes dragons like books, and when I started out this morning the dragons were roaring loud. But this is a literary museum in addition to being part of the inspiration for the books and tucked in the every glass cabinet are books, old books,. As in first editions, the kind of books m fingertips would tremble to handle .The very small of those books is balm to the dragons’ scales.

Every time I do these tours I say I won’t spend anything, in whits case I didn’t even bring money – but then I turned the corner in the tiny dusty gift shop and there was a sale table, and a tiny painted forlorn face just looking at me no box, no certificate of authenticity, just these big deep green eyes, and a price tag that had been marked down, and looked as though it were about to be marked down again.

I am truly such a weak willed person.

But she’s so adorable! Don’t ask me how I’m going to get her home without a box…very very carefully packed in between blankets I suspect…or tucked in my carry-on next to my laptop…

The next and final stop was Green Gables itself. Yes it really does exist, once owned by the Montgomery’s cousins, now the centerpiece of a national park, the house is small; but you can see those famous green rooftops for what feels like miles.

Oddly enough it’s not the house that caught at me. The house has, of course, been lovingly recreated and refurbished, but it’s small size meant that you were basically funneled through one door and out the other without a lot of chance to really stop and take it in.

No, for me it was the walking trails that pulled at me. I didn’t dare go near them, because the driver had specifically told us that we did not have time, and I knew once I stet food in those would I would want nothing more than to lose myself in them as Anne herself so often did.

Montgomery was once quoted as saying that she often felt guilty when forced to admit that Anne was a fictional character, as though she were doing harm to a real person. And walking those grounds, you could understand what she meant.

Walking through those rooms today, feeling her footsteps parallel mine on the other side of the written word, I found myself in agreement with her author – as long as she is loved by so many, that little red-haired, freckled Canadian orphan is so very very real…

Posted in East Coast Adventures 2014, Historical Sites, Ports of Call | 2 Comments

Island Through and Through – Charlottetown, P.E.I – [10/07/2014]

Posted on October 7, 2014 by GypsyShaughnessy

59568fef9f5ec5a78c2dde1f9a0ebc8fWhen you know to mind your business
And you mind yer neighbour’s too
You’re Island, you’re Island through and through..

I walked past the marquee for – what has it been now – 2 months? Nearly three? Every week I’d saunter up Queen Street in Charlottetown on the way to the Irish pub and see the larger than life billboard poster staring down at me proudly proclaiming: “Anne & Gilbert: The Musical” – Anne of Green Gables is in love”…

I told myself I had other things to do, other places to be, and that I wasn’t going to drag my Big Brother to a show (despite the fact that he would probably go for my sake…if I perhaps paid for his drinks for a week afterwards 😛 ).

The truth was, I think I was saving Anne & Gilbert for when I really needed it. And yes, it’s a need, I think it may actually be a health requirement of well – being me. In truth I need to do a show – I know that pretty well at this point, I recognize the signs – but that’s not an option right now, so at the very least I needed to see one.

And I almost didn’t get to at all. Y’see, my work hours are flexible only as long as I clear them past my manager first, and keep the girls down at the reception desk advised of any changes because the PAX get somewhat internet-stressed if they don’t know when I’ll be back (I swear one day they’re going to put a tracking bracelet on me!); I had thought the show would only be two hours, which would have put me on my way back to the ship at 3:30, plenty of time to make a 4pm shift. But when I got to the theatre to buy my ticket, I found out the show as a half hour longer than I had anticipated. *gulp*, now, if I were a slightly less “care about my job” kind of person, I could easily have just swanned off the 15 minutes late that this would cause, but I’m not…so I trekked back to the ship (thankfully I had left myself plenty of time) in the hopes of catching my supervisor in the office before she left of the day so I could properly change my hours…only to run into her as she was walking off the ship.

Can I ask you a really quick question?

If you make it really really fast…shoot.

CanIpleasealtermydeskhourssothatIcangototheAnneofGreenGablesshowthisafternoon?

It may have been the fact that I really did say it practically all in one breath, or the fact that my supervisor and I get along and I really don’t ask for favours very often, but before I even got the sentence finished she had already said “absolutely”.

So that worked out.

I had bought my ticket hours early, but the box office attendant was kind enough to move me to a better seat without increasing the price, because the theatre – which is small enough to begin with – was far from full this late in the season. Besides, in a theatre that tiny, pretty much every seat is a good one. I lingered for a little while in the lobby, watching them put out what little merchandise is left this close to the end of the show’s run (it only runs in the summer, and we’re at the tail end of tourist season out here, the original Anne musical closed for the season a week or so ago). I eyed the tiny stack of CDs and official scripts somewhat warily, having vowed not to spend more than the price of the ticket.

How many soundtracks did you say you have left?

Ten…

That’s it?

Pretty much…10 soundtracks, and 7 scripts…

And passengers are coming? Like a ship tour is coming?

Yeah…

Something is telling me I should snag those now.

Might be a good idea.

As it turned out I was really glad I caved and picked up the soundtrack, because the music from this show is charming, and has proven – like most soundtracks – to get thoroughly stuck in your head. It’s only a 17 person cast, but a 17 person cast in a black box theatre that only holds 100 people – sounds like a much larger cast.

When you first walk in the theatre, you’re really struck by how small a space it is. The set is nearly within arms’ reach of the first row, all aglow in pastel colours that look like something out of a classic children’s book. After the inevitable shuffling of seats is finished and the ushers have made their speech about no photography whatsoever do-not-make-us-intimidate-you, the lights dim, and suddenly you’re in Avonlea. As though its residents walked right out of the books and onto the stage.

Anne is one of those stories that makes you laugh, and cry, and roll your eyes somewhat all at once; and there is…a lot in the story I can relate to, which is, after all, the point of a good story.

But really, it could have been any story; it could have been any show. That’s not why I went, not really. The reason I went? The reason I had to go? Was that feeling I still get when I hear a show-band tuning up for an overture that you just can’t get anywhere else and that tiny little invisible whisper against my ear:

Pssst…hey Shaughnessy…welcome home…

Posted in Below the waterline, East Coast Adventures 2014, Ports of Call | Leave a comment

Walking the Railroad Tracks to Crossing 32 – Quebec – [10/05/2014]

Posted on October 6, 2014 by GypsyShaughnessy

ce73ac2eb0b884a67f0edc8c61badf75Birthdays spent ship-side are always a little odd. It doesn’t particularly matter if you’ve been away from home for your birthday for ages (I’ve not been home on my birthday since 2011…I think), it never ceases to feel odd. This time last year I was traipsing through Guadi Park in Barcelona with Amras (“what did you get for your birthday?” “Oh…nothin’ much, just Barcelona”), this year I’m ambling through the damp streets of Quebec instead.

Really, my life is so bizarre.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve become not a huge birthday celebration person, other people can have their big splashy parties (and trust me, we have plenty of birthday parties in the Officer’s Bar of a season), I much prefer a nice quiet lunch with a good friend and a few overly-long phone calls to home.

And today the museum I’ve been meaning to go to all season had a discount on its admission, so $5 gained me and my friend KitKat entry into the world of Greek mythology. The audioguide that was provided with the exhibition was narrated by the ‘voices’ of two ancient Greek poets, one of which was Homer – they didn’t give credit to whomever the voice over actors were, but they were excellent. I wonder how one goes about getting a gig like that. Note to self, look more deeply into museums. The exhibit itself was beautiful, the artifacts themselves were from Berlin, and I’m not sure where they’re travelling to after this, but I was so glad I had the chance to see them before they left (which they will do in the next month or so).

I stand by my opinion that Greek mythology, while beautiful, is also…somewhat messed up. I mean, look at Zues! I am Zues, king of the gods, also…father to most of the gods…lover to several of the gods (including some of the ones I am father to), and I turn into animals to seduce humans because I’m bored. See what I mean?? Messed up! And don’t get me started on the nymphs, nymphs have a seriously bad run in greek mythology.

But…not all of it is funny, or dysfunctional. There are…some things, that are most definitely not.

There are those of you who will know exactly what it meant to me to stand and stare up into the eyes of Artemis, even though parts of the statue were restored/modern additions, it was still Her – and that’s so still what matters.

Hello Lady…care to tell me what to do next?

She didn’t answer…but then again, She so seldom does. But…I did feel something unclench inside me while I stood there looking at Her, like a knot of tension I hadn’t even realized was there.

The sun had finally managed to struggle through the clouds by the time we got out of the museum, so the walk to the resteraunt was bright and felt almost like spring if it weren’t for the chill that is ever present in the air this time of year.

Thankfully, despite the fact that we were getting there late, the resteraunt didn’t have a line up (something nearly unheard of for ‘rush hour’ in this place), though we did have to sit at the bar. Which wasn’t so bad really, since the bartender was really friendly. Sometimes it’s just nice to get away, and the place is far enough off the beaten track that no one really finds it, and those who do normally can’t be bothered once they see that it’s crowded.

Work was quiet once I got back to the ship, and that alone is a gift in and of itself. Completely unexpectedly KitKat got me flowers! So pretty! And then, my Event Manager calls looking for KitKat, which – in the world of the entertainment department – means just one thing when it’s someone’s birthday. I poked my head around my door (KitKat lives across the hall from me)

Tell me it’s not a surprise party…

Um…

If it’s a surprise party I’m not going…they scare me.

She just wants to give you cake and sing happy birthday! I am making you go because I want cake!

So I recultantly make my way up to the office, fully convinced that it’s going to be the whole team there, which is always so awkward (and is the reason I never have my name on the birthday lists at work), but it’s not. It’s just my boss…who proceeds to present me with a tiny cake just big enough for two people…and who does in fact sing me happy birthday.

I know what a private person you are, I so wasn’t going to do anything public for you. But I’d also never forget your birthday silly girl! You are so loved out here, by lots of people, don’t you forget that…now go enjoy your cake you two.

Moral of the story: birthdays at sea are strange, but they can be pretty nifty sometimes…

I don’t know what this year will bring, I never do. This birthday hit me hard and strangely, and I’ve been trying to untangle why that is. But one thing I do know is this: I championed my way through another year, and if I don’t get ID’d at bars anymore? That’s nearly as much of a compliment as being carded used to be, because it means I look like I’m old enough to actually have a life, and at least any lines that might show up in the mirror? Are from laughing more than they are from crying…and that is always a good thing. 31 wasn’t always good to me, but nor was it always cruel…just like most of the other years.

And after all, it’s just another number, and numbers only mean something if you allow them to…and even then, it’s still just another step on along the railroad tracks.

Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me this far.

 

Posted in Below the waterline, East Coast Adventures 2014, Reflections | 1 Comment

Can You Hear? – [10/03/2014]

Posted on October 3, 2014 by GypsyShaughnessy

2936324-death_low

Can you hear them?

You can’t hear them.

That’s okay, no one ever can. Sometimes those of us who do wonder what we’re really hearing, wonder why our temples throb with a phantom pain that we know shouldn’t be there, wonder why we’re on edge, wonder if we really belong in the outside world at all, or if we would be better off somewhere else for everyone’s good.

But deep down, we know. We know what we’re hearing. What you can’t hear.

You’re still looking at us like we’re crazy. That’s okay, we’re used to that. You can’t hear them, but we can.

Voices just at the edge of normal senses, arguing, laughing, tempting, cajoling…

‘Come out, come out wherever you are…we won’t hurt you, you know that, you can trust us. Come out, come out and play…come and be the princess at the party. Don’t worry about the others, they won’t even notice you’re gone…”

Snatching whispers at the edge of consciousness. Nearly silent, and yet so very, painfully, Loud.

But you don’t hear them.

You send your children out into the dark and are ever expectant that they will return, send them out, your ghosts, your goblins, your infant witches, light their way with buck-tooth pumpkins and friendly spirits. Warn them of the dangers of the unknown, of the strangers, but it is not the living strangers you need worry about. Go ahead, enjoy your sugar train, have your fun. Pay no heed to the rest of us, those of us who lock ourselves away, who salt our windows and slip jet black beads around our wrists and ‘round our necks.

Don’t mind us…the ones you think crazy…

We’re not crazy…

You just can’t hear them…

Oh…and one more thing…

Happy Halloween

Posted in Reflections, Writing | 3 Comments

Time Painted Pictures – Sydney, Nova Scotia – [09/30/2014]

Posted on September 30, 2014 by GypsyShaughnessy

a_lonely_breeze_by_elestrenn-d5ps7tpThe pictures we carry, the frames we gladly add to the weight of our luggage, , are of the people we trust to love us no matter what. ~ Some Girls

There are two things that go into my carry on first on my way to every contract, before anything else, before the computer, before the uniforms, before everything. One is the clear folder that holds all the legal information to get me to, from and onto the ship…the other is a battered, torn up, nearly worn up office mail envelope that contains the photographs.

I remember the first photograph I pasted on my cabin wall. It was of Sarwean and I, grinning at the camera during a crew party in the mooring deck during my very first contract, the last picture we had taken together that was any good. We both looked care-free, just on the edge of a laugh. For three years that picture stayed on my “Pack wall”, until life dictated that it didn’t belong there anymore.

Sarwean’s picture is long gone, and others have come and gone in its place. Gabrielle’s image rested on the wall for a season, and may well get pasted there again; the team from my treasured Mediterranean Dreams contract is up there, as is the ‘Cats band from that same summer. Silver’s up there of course, twice. The only reason there’s no picture of my parents? Is because until recently one didn’t exist – growing up we just didn’t take a lot of pictures, and film was expensive to develop. I fully intend to have one of the pictures from California printed up this season, they belong up there more than anyone else after all.

The second image I ever added to my travel pack was of the ‘Cats band from my fourth contract – the season I met Amras. It was part of a series that were taken the same night. In it, “my boys” and I are caught mid-laugh, though the photo was posed, it was about the fifth we had taken that night, none of them had turned out quite right. But somehow in that one I have the most dazzling smile on my face. It was our last night together as a group, Amras was debarking the next morning, and I was honestly sure I was never going to see him – or any of the others – again…I think I had been crying moments before that shot was taken.

Lookie how wrong I was about that (thank heavens), because fate has thrown my Big Brother and I together nearly every summer since.

That picture is still the first one out of the envelope and the first one on the wall.

My second contract the paintings joined the pictures, printed off of office computers, selected with a combination of care and carelessness, the print outs have a story behind them too. Stories of dragons fought and conquered, of battles lost and won, scars healed and scars opened. When I first started travelling with them they weren’t laminated, and so they are tattered and torn around the edges, and the ink has been run in places where it got knocked with wet hair in a hurry to get ready for formal night.

They don’t just tell a story, those images on my wall, they are a story. You can track my life across them, if you know how to read…

 

Posted in Below the waterline, East Coast Adventures 2014, Reflections, Travel | 1 Comment

How Lucky – Halifax, Nova Scotia – [09/29/2014]

Posted on September 30, 2014 by GypsyShaughnessy

lovely_and_lonely_2_by_kel_esteves-d6m11phAnd when worst comes to worse
And we all know it will
Thank your lucky stars you’ve gotten this far
And tell yourself…how lucky you are!

There are times, as there are always times with every person in every job, everywhere, when I detest my form of employment. I know this may come as a shock to some people considering how amazing my job really is (and it is amazing, that’s never in doubt, not ever), but even we have days when we can’t bear the idea of dragging ourselves out of bed. When life just seems a bit…much.

The thing is, something always happens to snap me out of it. Somehow. Sometimes I just get tired of hosting my own pity-party, sometimes someone says something that makes me laugh so hard I can’t stay grumpy any more, and sometimes…I read the right book.

That last one, that last one is important. And current.

Books present themselves to me, I swear they arrive when I need them. For example, The Mists of Avalon keeps dropping in my lap ,though I am still – as of this contract – refusing to listen to its demands that I finish reading it. But that’s an obvious one, fantasy reads are easy to fall into. Non- fiction though? I never read non-fiction. Why read biographies? There’s always a death at the end!

And then, this book called Some Girls drops into my lap. In the midst of the week I was “allowed” to feel sorry for myself (Amras had just left, my cat was still sick, I was seriously overloaded at work, I was ill, and Toffy had just quit as my shore-side supervisor…welcome to the pity party). I originally picked it up because the subject matter related vaguely to a story I’ve been working on and I figured it would be good for research. But …then I started reading. Here was the story of a girl, once a theatre major, who made all the wrong choices…well, perhaps not wrong, but…reckless, dangerous, and who ended up somewhere…pretty dark.

Don’t worry, that’s not her. That’s not your little girl up there. She’ll never turn out like me.

And something about that pulled me up short. It’s like the whole concept of the railroad tracks that I was going on and on about last summer – any turning along the way and I would be different.

Is my life perfect? Is anyone’s? No. Because there’s no such thing as perfect. But the list of things I had seen and accomplished before the time I was 30 years old spanned 7 pages, and it’s grown since then. I have a family that’s still intact, I have people who love me, I have a job that – while hard, and draining and challenging sometimes – is more rewarding than the counter I would still be stuck behind had I not fallen into where I am. I have a ship-board family that actually takes the time to notice whether or not one of our number is alright. I’m relatively healthy (most of the time), and while my life is complicated…there are…so many roads I could have walked down, so many roads that people like me with pasts like mine have walked down, that could have ended up so shrouded in darkness that I don’t know that I ever would have found my way out.

A long time ago, I read another book, which became a very dear, very old friend, I don’t remember the exact words, but it went something like this:

As the hours went on, I found I let go of a lot of my bitterness. Did it matter that one child with skinned knees was pouty because the world didn’t genuflect every time she walked by? The sea didn’t seem to think so…and as the voyage went on…neither did I.

I…am one of the lucky ones.

 

Posted in Below the waterline, East Coast Adventures 2014, Reflections, Summer Contracts | 2 Comments