More Morning Misgivings

What have I done?

Yesterday I went back and poked around the boat that I had chosen for this fall and decided that I would, after all, despite my earlier misgivings, go sailing. Back at our hostel I skyped Delta and cancelled the second half of my ticket, the half that would have taken me home, a process I fear is reversible. And my path was committed.

Now, at 4 am, I am terrified.

I want to call Delta back up right now, beg and plead and cry, ask them to give me the other half of my ticket back. By committing to go sailing for four months on this boat (something relatively small – that I am not very sure about anyway) I have also committed to giving up my home (something huge). I wasn’t thinking about that yesterday afternoon when I was talking to Delta, I was only thinking of the boat. How could I have forgotten such a huge part of the equation? Do I really want to go? I don’t care, in the grand scheme of things, about this four months sailing. I have been sailing before and will go again… but giving up my house… deciding to not fight for it… to just hand it over to my husband… that is something I do care about.

Before I left home last week I boxed all my stuff up and while I am gone my husband will be moving back into ‘my’ house (well, ‘his’ house actually, which is, of course, the point). I have lived there for the past 15 years. My kids were, effectively, brought up there. Their tree fort is in the back woods. My memories of their childhoods are there; the room where Alexander suffered terrible migraines, the windows that Fred broke playing hockey in the backyard, the basement Ben and his friends hid out in watching endless sci-fi movies instead of going to dances... The alternative to going sailing is to go home, work my permanent supply job, and fight to keep the house for me. By committing to go sailing I am committing to honour my agreement with my ex that he can have the house back. Which leaves me homeless. And terrified.

My husband and I did a one month trial reconciliation last spring that was an unmitigated disaster. (Our marriage fell apart almost four years ago because he had ‘had the brilliant idea to have a discrete affair’. It fell apart this spring, or, rather, was irreconcilable, over another other woman he was seeing on a very regular basis…) Just before I left to come here we had a huge blow up (over her) and I felt for the first time in four years, in other words forever, that our marriage was over. Done. Finished. Over. (Which had me in tears for hours.) And at that point I considered staying home, fighting to keep our house for me. (He did after all move out over three years ago and is currently living in a different house he owns on the other side of town. It made a lot of sense, to me, for me to buy our house off of him and for him to stay in the house he is currently in. He didn’t want to do that however, he wanted our house back for him. He wanted to sell his other house, move back into our house, and kick me out (which, incidentally, to him, and somewhat more significantly, to me, would leave me homeless). I went over to talk to him, to try and convince him to let me keep our house. And he said the only thing that he could possibly have said that would have made any difference. (I don’t know how he managed to do that.) He talked about how, our marriage having failed and his parents having died, he is feeling somewhat lost in life, about how that house is his tether to reality. It blew me away. But it’s my tether to reality too, I said, so how do we decide what’s fair? There was no clear answer. We both wanted it for almost exactly the same nostalgic reasons. Which was weird. So I conceded, I said he could have it, mostly because, for the first time in ages, I could understand what he was saying, could sympathize with what he was saying, and it all seemed too bizarre for words.

But now, at 4 am, literally continents away, about to embark on a small adventure that I am not even sure I want to go on, I am very unsure that I made the right decision then, that I am making the right decision now, that I should be going sailing at all, that, rather, I “ought” – whatever that means – be going home and fighting (a likely expensive and acrimonious legal battle) to keep my house and the continuity it would provide in my life. Here, now, at 4 am, I am very very unsure.

I could always, of course, I tell myself, return to Deep River and just buy another house (if I could find some way to afford it). I could do that. But it would not have a tree fort built by my kids out back.

What have I done?

First Impressions II

            A week later, back in Copenhagen, staying at an upscale hostel, waiting for Ben and Steph to arrive, Alexander and I have a couple days free and when he asks what we are going to do today I say that I want to go back and see my boat again (maybe even snatch my bag off of it ready to flee back to Canada). So we do. We take the train to the nearest station and then walk towards the ocean.

This time the only person on the boat is a college student from Spain, Aitor, who is also booked to sail the first leg. He is happy to let Alexander and I look over the boat at our leisure. It seems a lot bigger than before. Also he points out to us that there will only be a maximum of 12 people on board, not 14, which, somehow seems to make a difference. Certainly 12 will easily sit round the salon table for meals. Certainly the boat will sleep 12 without too much trouble. Certainly it will all work. We test out all the bunks and I choose the one I want. It is in the foremost cabin, a cabin that sleeps 4, but has several advantages; it is big enough that one can breathe in it, it has a few cupboards, it has its own head (washroom). I choose the exact bunk I want and put my bag on it to claim it. Part of the reason that I chose a bigger boat this year was to look for more community, more camaraderie, so why not start out by choosing a bunk in a room for four? It fits. I like it.

We, Alexander and I, continue poking about, check out the captain’s cabin and look to see what is in the compartments under the floor. Yes, to both of us the boat seems bigger than on our previous visit, scarier perhaps, but bigger. The student is friendly. The day is sunny. I decide that, despite my previous misgivings, I am going to go. The duffel bag I have left on the boat seems large so I go through everything in it trying to decide what I could possibly pare out and send home with my son but apart from my foul weather gear, first aid kit, and snorkel, I have one book, one polar fleece, three pairs of shorts, four t-shirts, and a couple of sun dresses… nothing that seems large or un-necessary. I decide to keep it all. Most of my clothes come from ValuVillage anyway and so could be left at any port along the way should I decide that I really have too much stuff.

OK, I decide (not for the first time). I will go. Why not? 

Biking round Denmark

Biking round Denmark - No stories to tell

Alexander and I have an uneventful flight to Copenhagen. We use public transit to make it downtown without trouble. We have a bit of a panic at the bicycle rental store as their webpage said that they don’t take reservations but that there are usually about 100 bicycles to choose from and when we get there are exactly TWO left and we have to decide right now if we want them or they will rent them out to the next people in the lengthening line. We take these, the last two, a very pink woman’s bike and a very blue man’s one, which are, fortunately, about the right sizes. Miraculously we manage to fit everything into our panniers, not only the stuff we have brought for a week of biking round Denmark, clothes and computers and camping gear, but also everything I brought for four months of sailing, foul weather gear and books and snorkel gear including a wetsuit, and we bike the 25 km to where my boat is currently docked and unload a whole duffel bag of stuff off of the bikes and onto the boat.

We like the bicycle trails here in Denmark. Both in cities and out there are separated bike lanes, safe and well-marked, easy to navigate and going everywhere. The bicycle culture is well established; even on roundabouts there are separate bicycle lanes, wherever bicycles might want to cross a road they have the right of way, routes from one city to another are well laid out and signposted, and nowhere is it ambiguous wrt whether a bicycle lane or trail exists or not.

We also like the campgrounds here in Denmark. They are usually situated right in town and come with free internet and large clean washrooms and comfortable indoor common areas including kitchens and lounges and TV rooms. It is not a hardship to stay in them at all. We arrive in mid-afternoon, set up our tent, have a hot shower, then wander downtown to do some window shopping before finding a curbside café where we sit to drink a cold beer, eat an evening meal, and watch the people walk by.

During the day we cycle from castle to castle stopping to visit other tourist highlights along the way; picturesque little towns with thatched roof houses, a cathedral where generation upon generation of Danish royals have been buried, a modern art museum, a fantastic Viking display showcasing not only authentic reconstructed relics but also modern replicas made using traditional methods and used on current expeditions tracing the ancient routes…

The bike routes often offer spectacular views over the ocean or wind through surprisingly pastoral countryside. They detour past marinas, into villages, and through historic forests with 2000 year old oaks. The temperature is perfect, everyone speaks English, we seldom get lost and we find many good places to eat.

It is all good - there will be no stories to tell from this week. 

First Impressions I

Immediately after arriving in Denmark Alexander and I bike to where ‘my’ boat is.

A friend and I who had been wondering how four young people could afford to take four years off and sail around the world had surmised that perhaps one of them had a rich parent who had bought the boat for them but it is immediately obvious that this is not the case with this boat. They saved their pennies to buy it. And it looks it.

The 70' of decking is gleaming real old teak and looks fabulous. ‘Wow, it’s huge!’ we say. But when we descend below the interior, which would have fitted 8 very nicely, has had extra bunks squished in everywhere so that it will now sleep 14, I guess, though we will see. It looks tiny. Man, and I thought I had a wee space last year. Little did I know. My own cabin from before – with two doors, a bunk, a wash basin, a whole cupboard, and floorspace - seems a mere fairy-tale, lavish wrt to what I will get this year. At least I will have fodder for my blog - though maybe not a place to keep my laptop (literally). No big flat screen TV on this boat like on the last one, no auto-pilot, no AC, no hot water heater, no personal cabin, no wasted space, just a tiny tiny interior…

… and lots and lots of things that obviously need to be finished and then stuffed, somehow, into the boat. The dock beside the boat, all 70 feet of it and more, is piled high, very high, with bits and pieces, coils of rope and spare engine parts and woodwork that needs painting, and there are two long long lists taped to the mast; things to do and things to buy. One of the owners is there and a teenager helping him out but it looks like hundreds of man-days of work still remain. Alexander and I almost ditch our bike tour of Denmark to stay and help. We can see they need it. ‘Are you going to leave on time?’, I ask. ‘We have to,’ the answer is, ‘too many people have bought tickets to join the boat along the way’. And I get a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach: I was on a boat before that didn’t wait for good weather and the results were tragic. The two owners who are not joining us right away are working, one as a security guard, trying to get enough money cobbled together to sail on their own boat! All in all it looks like a disaster waiting to happen. I am worried.

Two of my children will be in Copenhagen to see me off, and yet, at this very point, despite this, I fear that I may yet fly home with them at the end of August instead of embarking. I can’t see surviving with so many other people in the tiny space that is this boat. It looks impossible that they will be ready to go on time. I am concerned about their sailing according to schedule rather than according to the wind. I am seeing lemons lining up.

Misty Melancholy Morning

It is Sunday and I am up early. Today is my last day home, here, forever. I have a lot of packing to do; I have to pack up stuff for the weeklong biking trip I am going on round Denmark with my youngest son, I have to pack up for my 4 month sailing trip across the ocean, and I have to pack up all my other worldly belongings. Today I am giving the keys to this house back to my husband. I am not moving out, per se, I am leaving all my stuff boxed in our unfinished basement, and my husband has very generously agreed that I can live there when I get back while I look for somewhere else, but I doubt this house will ever be home again.

Thursday I had a last, lovely, cup of tea with a co-worker and friend and Friday I had a last, lovely, glass of wine with my wonderful walking partner and yesterday I had a last, lovely, gentle sail out on the river with my newest friend but today I expect to spend all on my own. As I trek out to the garage to get yet another pile of empty boxes the early morning mist still sits heavily all around. It feels like fall and the silence, brought by the mist, adds to my sense of aloneness.

Back inside I zip open a large duffel bag to double check what’s inside before deciding which pile to put it in and the faintest whiff of young-sweaty-body smell escapes out into the empty room bringing with it a cacophony of happy memories from all the years my boys played hockey and I am Margaret Lawrence’s Hagar, startled to find that the years have already passed. Was I not a young girl myself mere moments ago? How can it be that my own children have grown up and left?

I agreed that I would give this house back to my husband. It is, after all, his childhood home. But it is also my children’s childhood home and packing up, planning to move out and leave forever the familiar passages, is decidedly poignant. I remember packing up and moving as a teen, dancing, happy, music blaring. Today however I am decidedly melancholy and the mist outside, dampening and isolating, fits my mood perfectly.  I don’t even turn on my old friend the CBC; I patter back and forth in silence, nostalgic, allowing old memories every chance to echo.

Summer 2013

Summer 2013 - A post which shows that I have learnt nothing whatsoever from the books leant to me by Leanna!

Just for the record I haven’t blogged all summer. (You might have noticed). I have been busy both doing things while, shh, don’t tell anyone, avoiding making any decisions about the fall. It was a happy summer.  I spent a few wonderful days at Suzanne’s cottage, took up golf with Shelley (ok so the golf didn’t go so well but I was very good at the drinking of wine afterwards), did serious white-water kayaking with my youngest son, received and read and re-read fantastic ‘status updates’ from my oldest son, showed off the wonderful photos of my kids kitesurfing down south to anyone foolish enough to come near me when I had my laptop out, went on an awesome canoe trip (I’d forgotten how much I loved canoeing), had epic phone conversations with my best friend Sheila who lives 3000 miles away (and is coming to Ontario two days after I depart), read a whole pile of books leant to me by Leanna (thank you), had random days in Ottawa with various friends (including Karen who helped me with my camera shopping), started biking (thanks to everyone; I really enjoyed riding with you, really loved the positive energy and am really looking forward to next year!), spent some time at my favourite beach, enjoyed hanging out at the Yacht Club and attending the music nights there, and, most importantly, found time to sit still and chat and sip tea with Catherine, and lemonade with Steve and Maryanne, and beer with Shelley, and coffee with Terry and Rick and Don, and martinis with Emily, and I even made a new friend (thank you Alison who introduced us) and sat and sipped water with her while overlooking the river… In short it was an idyllic summer. Nothing to write about at all. (Well, maybe a bit of drama involving my husband but I don’t want to go there.) Hopefully my fall will be more eventful. My goal is to post two ‘real’ blog posts a month (this one certainly doesn’t count, for example). I expect to be able to manage that. (Though, come to think of it, my stated goal this summer was to learn to make kick-ass mojitos, which you wouldn’t have thought was too challenging a goal for a season, and, although Jane gave me mint (thanks!) I didn’t really master the skill, so, who knows, maybe my blog will be as barren this fall as it was this summer.) We’ll see!

Ash River Photos

ASH River Photos AKA Testing Lipsticktoo

I am getting ready to go off sailing again, and, as previous followers of my blog might remember, last year I had a little red camera that I first fell in love with and then chose to give away. (Any new readers please take a minute to go back and read my very first post titled ‘Disclaimer’.) As part of my preparations for this year’s trip I bought a new camera. I’d been thinking of upgrading to a proper DSLR camera but in the end got another little red one, Lipsticktoo. I took her out canoeing with me last week on the Ashuapmushuan River to test her and here are a couple of shots from that trip.

I think she’ll do!

I decide to go sailing

I have been dithering: do I go sailing this fall or not?

I have made long detailed lists of the pros and cons and they balance on a knife blade.

For a long time I just don’t know.

I like to have well laid plans to look forward to. I like to have orderliness in my life, familiar routines, simple goals. I like to wake up knowing what I am supposed to do that day.

I like being a high school teacher and having a rigid curriculum, exam dates set in stone and bells ringing all day long. I thrive on the structure.

It’s also why I like many of the sports I choose; biking, canoeing, sailing. I know what the goal is. Go 100k. Or whatever distance. Go forward to the next town, campsite, point on the ocean’s surface. And then stop for the night, or not. The goal on any day is clear: move.

Last fall it was simple. Last fall, as I said many times, God couldn’t have made it clearer if he had written on my bathroom mirror with permanent marker that I was supposed to go sailing. Last fall I had no job, no kids, no husband - so why not? Last fall I was setting out on the boat of my dreams. Last fall all three of my kids had well-made settled plans, my husband was off gallivanting with another woman, and I had a house and job to come back to in the spring. Last fall it was a no-brainer.

This fall it is all less clear. This fall two of my kids are lost between activities and one of them might even boomerang back home. I would hate to be gone if he were here. This fall I have picked a different boat that I am less certain of. This fall my husband is saying ‘let’s try again’ and I fear that if I go I might lose the possibility of reconciliation forever. This fall I have to move out of my house before I leave and next spring I will come back to a pile of boxes and nowhere to live. Next spring I have no job to come back to. Maybe I should stay here and get my life in order instead of running off to sea.

I don’t like my indecision or the uncertainty it brings.

I dither. I dither. It is only three weeks to go and I have to decide something.  If I am leaving then I need to pack for the trip. (I also need to pack up my life here. I am supposed to be moving out of the house I am living in before I go and as yet I have neither collected a single box, let alone packed it, nor started to look for somewhere else to unpack them. My situation is, undoubtedly, alarming.) 

I bought a return ticket to Copenhagen, my port of departure, because it was cheaper than a one-way one so I note that I could go and then not stay. This thought is an indication of my state of uncertainty.

I consider staying here. I have friends. I could supply teach. Hunting for somewhere to live I come across an ad for a waterfront house for rent and assume it will be wonderful, will convince me to stay, but when I go to look at it it is small and dark and I can only imagine being desperately lonely living in it on my own.

I am getting sick, literally, from the lack of decision.

So I make one: I decide to go sailing. I have to. I will. I am going to do it. My mind is made up. There.

Elated and energized I spend the day moving from one bedroom to another one. It is an odd pre-packing process which might be seen by some as counterproductive but it is cleansing in more ways than one. As I move my bed, my bookcases and my belongings across the hall I prune. I only transfer exactly I want to keep. I take enough used books to the library to fill the box there and make three trips to the whistle-stop with old clothes.

I go to bed happy that both that I have made a choice and with it, exhausted from the physical effort of moving things, very content both with my decision and my day’s work.

I had thought the mere act of deciding would stop my anxiety attacks.

But no.

The next morning I am woken up yet again by the oh-so-familiar raging tornado of uncertainty washing over me, through me, enveloping me with such force that my heart is beating far too fast and my grasp on reality almost lost as I am sucked into its vortex. All I can do is lie still, resolutely, with my eyes determinedly shut, waiting for it to pass. Without moving a muscle I allow a small tendril of consciousness to reach out and check that my body is in fact still lying on my bed – yes I can feel the sheets below me, I am physically safe – and then I retreat back into myself as the emotional storm surges; the battering winds of worry and sheeting rain of doubt wracking me, wrecking me, lifting and tossing and crashing me with such force that my emotions are without words. I am churned and disoriented and breathless as if being tumbled by a huge onshore wave. I am gripped by dark menacing apprehension as if it is a horrifying mythical beast that has me in its claw. The fear dread panic becomes so strong that that I hide even deeper within myself, folding into an impossibly small place, and merely wait as the seemingly endless surges of terror, slowly, oh so slowly, dull to mere trepidation, and finally, as with all storms, eventually pass altogether. Even when the calm arrives I continue to lie still. I am emotionally and physically drained. My muscles ache. My mind is numb. I am shaking. Really? Even now, even having made a decision, my subconscious is so uncertain of my choice that I am woken by this? Woken by it? What is that? I slowly roll over open my eyes and note a sliver of pale light escaping beneath the blinds. It must be almost morning. I am exhausted, bone tired, done in. I feel I ought to get up but instead I pull the covers right over myself and just lie there too tried to do anything, to feel anything, too tired even to cry.

I have decided, I remind myself, to go sailing. I want to. I will.

But I am less sure than I was yesterday.