Salt Touched

Don’t let them in don’t let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal don’t feel, don’t let them know..

Should any of you ever choose to go on a cruise, whatever the line, whatever the destination, we pray that you remember something.

Remember that your crew members, from the Master of the Vessel to the bottom of the engine room, to the people you never see who toil every day to make the ship run smoothly –are people. We are not perfect. We have hearts, we have feelings, and we can be wounded. While yelling at us may make you feel better, it will not ultimately solve the problem, nor will it increase our ability to do so.

Trust that we are already working to our utmost to resolve whatever issue may have been presented to us; trust that there are a dozen people behind us working even harder to come up with a resolution that will be suitable to your needs.

We wear a bullet proof vest over our emotions, we do not let them show, but that doesn’t mean that they are not there.

Please, have patience; with us and with yourselves. Understand that some of us are on the 8^th hour of a ten or twelve (or in some cases like housekeeping or bartending, 14) hour day. That our eyes ache and our backs are sore, that the smile is starting to feel false and that we are starting to fray around the edges though we aren’t allowed to show it or say it. That we are tired wired and sometimes wound too tight.

Understand that while we will do our utmost and go out of our way to make you feel at home and catered to there is only so much we can do. We cannot make the ship go smoother or faster, we cannot control the weather, we cannot produce more newsletters out of thin air when we run out, we cannot schedule events to fit your dining schedule. We cannot make the computers faster or the air conditioner colder with the snap of a finger.

Please understand that just because we sit behind a desk and wear a name tag does not mean we have the ability to solve all your problems or malcontentments with the way the ship is being run, much as we might like to.

Understand that some of us are tied by rules that we can’t explain because they are either too complicated or policy prevents us discussing them. Understand that while we may know a great many things, we do not all know the specifics of how the bridge is run, nor do we know the name of every single landmass that we happen to pass, or the genus of every bird that flies overhead. We cannot call up the captain for every question you may ask us. We do not have all the answers at our fingertips.

Respect that our personal lives, our hearts, our minds, our loves; are our own and that we are not always ready to be an open book to your curiosity.  Understand that we need just as much respect and consideration as anyone else you would meet. Ask yourself if the question you want to ask us is one that you would wish asked of yourself, and proceed accordingly.

Understand that we are people, not clockwork.

Thank you, bless you and Amen.

It is not to any house, but to this beach that I have bonded. I belong alongside this rocky inlet with its salt tides, its pine tiered green islands, its gulls who remember us even when we’ve forgotten ourselves – Women in the Wild

Many people have asked why I have this job. Why I ran away to sea. A wise co-worker of mine (who, at the time, had no idea how wise she sounded) said to me once that we all come out here running from something, but we stay because we find somewhere we can stop running. I don’t think she really realized at the time how right she was.

Truth is, I don’t remember a time when my life didn’t have a touch of salt around the edges. I was a quiet child, but with that quiet solitude came a natural ability to balance with the world around me, and always, always, I was drawn to the water. That could be because I grew up so close to it, or perhaps it was something else altogether.  I have never been afraid of the water, I have never worried that it would hurt me. As a child I clambered over rocks speckled with sharp barnicles and slippery patches of seaweed, as a university student I climbed those same rocks blind and barefoot, suffering not a single cut or scratch along the way.

I don’t know where it came from – though I have my suspicions – all I know, is that no one – except possibly me – was surprised when I ended up living a life that’s almost solely dictated by the tides. I suspect that if I hadn’t have ended up on the more predictable schedule of cruise ships, I would have ended up on the wind-driven salt crusted schedule of Tall Ships. Something I suspect is still in my very near future.

People ask me where my home is. The truth is, these days I don’t always know. I have roots – very strong ones – I have a house, I have a roof over my head, I have a family who loves me, but home? Home is something I carry with me these days, and it shifts with me from place to place. I take pieces of it with me, and sometimes my heart gets very sore for missing it, but it’s never really far away from me. After all, somewhere, somehow, we’re all connected to the same ocean. I need to remind myself of that sometimes.

Apologies for the overflow of too many thoughts; I suppose I’m just still looking for my seal skin…one day, someone will find it for me, and turn it into a coat and keep it in the attic, and perhaps that will temporarily still me…but I doubt it, because I suspect the only person who would do such a thing would be someone who is just as much a selkie as myself, and we are no more at home on land than a lion would be in the water…

It’s so hard to believe that tomorrow is Christmas Eve…it’s so easy to lose track of the days out here. Besides, as I know I’ve said before – Christmas out here doesn’t really …feel …like Christmas.

Christmas ship-side is all glitz and glamour and sunshine and man-made magic. Yes, we can make snow where there should be no snow, we can track Santa Claus on our radar and we have some of the most beautiful Christmas trees many people have ever seen but it’s all…missing something.

At least it is for many of the crew. You really are so busy creating Christmas for everyone else out here – that is for the people who are paying to be here – that you don’t really have time to feel it for yourself.  Sad as it is to say, absent from our families (both blood and ‘adopted’), absent from all the people that your heart misses so very much, December the 25^th runs the risk of becoming just another day.

Though you can’t show that of course.

Most of us have Christmas before we even board. I imagine it’s a lot like families who have loved ones in the armed forces; you simply transplant holidays, celebrating them when the people who matter to you are at your side instead of miles away. If that means we celebrate Christmas in July? Well that’s what you do. For my part, I had a near perfect Christmas three days before I boarded the plane for San Francisco; there was only one person missing, and that couldn’t be helped. In fact it felt so much like Christmas that we kept forgetting that it was only the 15^th…

Which goes to show you that it isn’t the date that’s important; it never has been. It’s not where you are, or what you’re doing. It’s about the people you love, the people your heart needs, the people who give your soul its wings.

And if you think of it that way…well then Christmas will come…whatever the time of year…whether you have a nine foot tree or not a single strand of tinsel…