Adventurer + parent: making the combination happen

...on sailing and fear and parental responsibility

 
One of my favorite things about sailing is the space it gives me to think, or not think. I find it so meditative to be out on the water with only the sound of wind and water lapping against the hull. Yes, sailing is romantic. It can also be meditative when the wind is up and we're heeled over, sometimes burying the rain, scrambling to shorten sail - that's the time when 100% of my attention is on the action at hand. My mind is certainly not drifting to my daily stressors. There's no room for them on board. That's a different kind of meditation.

I've always done some of my best thinking and dreaming out on the water. It's one of the only places that I can let go of the daily grind and just be. The kids feel it too. I'll often hear them singing or humming when they're on deck - caught up in the moment.

Last week I went sailing with a friend who is a newbie and she started asking questions about making long passages. She wanted to know if I was scared when we were out on the ocean, out of sight of land, back in the days when we were cruising in the Caribbean. My answer: no, not really, and for a few reasons: 1) I was 100% confident in our boat and I have enough boat and sailing knowledge that I knew how the boat would react to big waves or big winds, 2) we were prepared for worst-case scenarios, we knew what would happen and how we would deal with man overboard or sinking, 3) we only made short passages so, with the exception of squalls, we were never surprised by the weather, and 4) I was in my 20s, pre-kids. What, exactly, are single, 20-year-old kids scared of?

So now, ten years later with two kids and a little sailboat, I admitted that I do get nervous when it gets windy on the river, or when the boat heels (tips) uncomfortably, or when a gust of wind pushes us. I haven't felt that kind of trepidation since we first started sailing, when I didn't really know what I was doing, and even then it wasn't the kind of "oh shit gut-wrenching fear" that I get sometimes when the kids are aboard.

We have dreams of taking our kids on long sailing trips. I dream of showing them places in the world that are only accessible by boat. I dream of long passages. My friend, similarly, dreams of going on adventures with her family - living in different places, exploring the world, not falling into the easy trap of suburbia. How, then, can these dreams become reality if, as a mother, I now feel a type of protective mama bear fear that I've never felt before? The stakes are infinitely higher when you are responsible for little people. Their lives, literally, are in my hands. (I can see why people choose to stay snugly in suburbia.) The stakes are a little higher, to say the least. With these high stakes and with the fear and with the socially-accepted, easy option of suburbia, how can I be both an adventurer and a parent?

Preparation
We bought a little sailboat last summer because we like sailing. I missed sailing and needed to be out on the water (in an active sense, not sitting on a boat at the dock like I do with 80% of my time). By taking the kids sailing on a regular basis, we're teaching them how to sail and, hopefully, instilling a love of sailing at a young age. (At least we're teaching them that we love sailing and they just have to grin and bear it.) Generally speaking, kids don't like change. By incorporating sailing into their lives at a young age, hopefully it won't be too shocking when we move onto a sailboat, cut the docklines, and sail to the horizon. Here's hoping, at least.

Equipment
Get the right gear that will keep you and your kids safe. This is a big deal. I'd be scared shitless if I were driving down the highway and the kids weren't strapped in carseats. Likewise, I want a boat (my chosen method of adventuring) that has tough enough rigging for strong winds, that has heavy ballast to right itself, and has a sturdy rudder that will stay firmly attached to the boat. I want appropriately-sized ground tackle (anchor and chain) to keep us in one place all night. Hans recently rebuilt the v-berth on our current sailboat so the girls will be more secure when we're underway. Sailing with kids is more relaxing now b/c I don't have to worry about them falling through the gap between the cushions.

Knowledge
Having a strong base of knowledge to fall back on can keep you confident and rational. Knowledge has always been a big thing for me. Before I actually stepped on a boat, I read about sailing. A lot. I practiced knots in the living room. I learned the vocabulary. When, at long last, I finally did start sailing, I wasn't (too) scared of capsizing, I knew how to cleat off the line, and I knew that ropes are called lines. I wasn't always comfortable and I was certainly scared at times, but I knew the reason for everything and I could logically talk myself out of fear.

Planning
Have a good plan in place for the trip or adventure - a plan that considers the basics of sleep and food to more abstract preferences such as personal interests of each person on the trip. Basically, don't get hungry, don't get cold, don't get tired, and make sure everyone is having a good time. Scale back. When we go sailing now with the kids, we go for an hour or two. Enough time to get the wind in the sails, but not really enough time for the kids to get bored and whiney. Change the adventure to accommodate shorter attention spans, hungry bellies, and the need to be with other kids and running around doing kid things.

Community
Find your community of adventurers and embrace it. Make friends - local and long-distance - and get support and encouragement from like-minded people. Choosing adventure over a more traditional lifestyle of house-school-job is challenging. It's hard to go off the beaten track, but having a group of people to bounce ideas off of and get inspiration from is invaluable. Likewise, involve and educate your everyday community (your friends and family) so you can get support and encouragement from those that already love you and your kids.

Flexibility
Go with the idea that plans can and will change, but choosing adventure means being open to the adventure, no matter how that adventure may evolve.

Commitment
Be confident and clear in your dreams and aspirations. Naysayers abound and successful adventuring depends in a large part on remaining steadfast to your own personal commitment. Know why you want to do something different - the short-term benefits and the long-term benefits. There are so many reasons that I want to take my kids on an extended sailing trip (aka cruising), but many of them revolve around the reasons why I feel it is important to travel with kids. I'd like to take them out of their comfort zone to know that with risk comes reward. Sure, traveling by sailboat is often akin to camping, but then you get to an island unpopulated by humans. You see a night sky untouched by light pollution. You hear the earth uninterrupted by human noise. You can sail to an iceberg.

We're still a number of years away from going on a big adventure with our kids, but I'm determined that the adventure will happen. I'm working on making it happen now. We go on small adventures - we go sailing, we go camping, we go on road trips and the kids can easily handle a six hour car ride (thank you DVD player). A stationary life has never been the life for me. I love my community and I love making local connections, but I yearn to see what's around the next corner and what people a few hundred miles away are eating for dinner. With some planning, knowledge, and preparation, I'm confident that I won't let fear or the ease of a more traditional life get in the way of taking off. The promise of adventure is just too great for that.

our monkeys aren't afraid of much

I think they have the adventurer spirit built in to their DNA.

Living Authentically

 A fellow blogger over on Goodie Goodie Gumdrop posed a question in a recent article that challenged me: Tell me how you are living authentically?

Jessica defines living authentically as striving toward a life that makes you happy without fear or naysayers dictating what you choose to do.

Am I living authentically? Yes. In the sense that I am trying my hardest to make life good for myself and my family, while at the same time acknowledging the long view. Is my life 100% perfect and exactly how I want to live? Nope. There are things I want to do now but can't because of my commitment to my family. I've absolutely put a lot of my own aspirations on hold for my family. I have dreams of where I'll be in ten years, and it's not here. Not on this boat at a dock with my husband working and me being the housewife and having my days arranged around playdates and naps. It's great right now because that's where we are in life. I've said it before, right now works, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. It's not perfect and it's not my ideal, but it's authentic. Yes. I am being true to myself and my dreams.

As a family, our authentic life is defined by: a certain amount of self-determination, a certain amount of compromise, and concrete limits (Hans's training and our finances). How do I find the sweet spot of living authentically (read: happily, fulfilled, challenged) within the constraints of regular life? How do I make my current life satisfying and happy when I know it's not my ultimate dream?

Embrace the now
Embracing the now is probably the most crucial component of living authentically. It's impossible to be happy today if I'm only thinking about my ideal life. Embracing the now means doing things that make me happy and also challenge me. Sailing is huge. We have a little sailboat and my happiest moments are spent out on the water. You can call it a hobby or a past time, but, regardless, in order to embrace the now it's important to find an activity where you can just relax and be happy. Running, sewing, playing a team sport, cooking - there are lots of options. I gravitate to being active and outdoors.




Challenge yourself
I struggle with finding challenge in my daily life. Don't get me wrong, I am not a supermom. But, at this point, dealing with tantrums, cleaning up the constant mess, providing space and activities for my kids to be engaged - this is all pretty routine and, while dealing with a tantrum is most definitely challenging in the moment, I'm talking about finding personal challenge for myself that engages a different part of my brain than making pb&j and drawing with sidewalk chalk.

These monkeys keep me on my toes!

After years of dipping in and out of yoga practice, I'm fully one of those yoga people now. Like a friend said: I drank the yoga Kool-Aid. I aim to do at least three videos a week and, in turn, those videos make me feel strong, a tiny bit more flexible, and my bad shoulder is FINALLY starting to feel better.

I would like to start volunteering and I've found an organization that would be a perfect fit for both my schedule and my interests, but it seems like my initial challenge is simply finding a time to meet with the volunteer coordinator. Between her schedule, mine, and my kids being sick, the initial meeting has yet to happen.

Community
I talk about community a lot. It is extremely important to me. (Case in point: two neighbors came rushing over to help yesterday evening when I was home alone and Freja vomited all over the main cabin. LOVE my marina neighbors.)

One of my job titles is stay-at-home-mom, and, like all other professionals, I need colleagues. I have a number of mom friends, near and far, that I rely on for play dates, internet humor, and nap time phone calls of support. I recently started going to a weekly mom's group (childcare provided!), and the support and community offered there is strong.

Eyes on the prize
While I am currently living authentically by focusing on the here and now, I can do so because we have concrete goals for the future. We have a rough time line, we have a plan, we have a clear vision. We know what we want to do and we feel confident that we will get there. It is vital to have a game plan, otherwise we'd swing from branch to branch, looking for the perfect place to land, but taking ten years to get there, as opposed to five if we had a good plan. I keep the plan in my back pocket, so if I'm feeling stuck or having a bad day, I know that it's all part of the bigger picture.

Cutting myself a break
Striving to live authentically can be exhausting. I certainly don't spend every day thinking about how I can make it the best day ever, nor do I want to fall into the trap of just letting the days go by unnoticed and unremarkable. But some days I just chill out. I let the girls watch TV. I read a book on the back deck at nap time. I nap at nap time. I drive the girls to school instead of bike. We order pizza for dinner.


Living authentically means being happy today and dreaming for tomorrow. I try to strike a good balance between the two; I recognize my weakness and try to actively work toward personal challenge; I try to sit back and enjoy the here and now.

Finding your passion

I've never found one grand passion, I've never felt a calling, I've never felt the need to devote most of my energies to a singular cause. I'm passionate about a lot of things: my kids, my husband, travel, sunshine, warmth, sailing, the beach, food; and I can get passionate about a lot of other things: politics, social justice, America's role in the world, gun control, child care and family leave, work-life balance, immigrant rights, and much, much more. Just give me a chance to hop on my soap box and I'll start preaching.

That said, I do not have a specific, career-worthy passion. In our society where people like to know "so, what do you do?" and where caregiving is a devalued occupation, I find it hard to determine how to live my life in a way that makes me happy. Since I've become a mother I've struggled to define my new identity and and settle into that role. I am uncomfortable with that fact that merely having the room to think about my identity is a luxury when many moms are struggling to feed their kids and provide them with a safe place to live. But life is all relative and my "struggle" is real--to me at least.

But in the past six months I've settled into and embraced my identity as a full-time, stay-at-home mom more than ever. I'm Susy Homemaker at times and I'm drinking white wine in the sun on the back deck at 3 in the afternoon at other times. The kids are happy and thriving and I'm (finally) learning to just kick back and enjoy what I have instead of trying to define it.


I see lots of "life is too short" quotes on the internet. Similar to this:

Which lead me to think, life is too short, I should do what I want and do what makes me happy. ....

Thanks for the pic http://www.wherethecoconutsgrow.com/blog/ !!

Yet, there's a reason we quit cruising back in 2009. (Well, yes, we were indeed running out of money, but it was a little more thoughtful than that.) We knew we wanted to do more than be boat bums. We knew we couldn't just kick around the Caribbean indefinitely waiting for plans to develop. (My only plan was to fill a cooler with beer, drag it to a beach that didn't have a beach bar and sell them for $2 a pop. A profitable idea but not much room for upward movement.)

These quotes about living the life you want have always clashed with my desire to actually do something. Can I reconcile doing what I want with being a productive member of society? Can I reconcile the two without having a "passion?"

Yes. Yes! As the girls get older and I have a little more time to breath and think beyond snack and nap schedules and playdates, I'm brainstorming what I can do to make myself happy. Can I have my cake and eat it too? Yes!

Being happy isn't just relaxing on white sand beaches. I do need warmth and sunshine and water and sailboats to be happy, but I also need a little more. I need connection with my community. I need to feel like I am contributing to my community. And while that sounds like work, (and how can work be fun if I don't have a passion?), one of my passions is being with people and engaging with people (people that are bigger than 3 feet tall).

Not sure what or how yet, but I'm tossing around ideas and researching different organizations, and finding ways to get involved and expand my horizons. I'm finding balance in my life and, maybe, just maybe, I'll find a new passion as well.

Choosing optimism

 The Facebook un-reality

My Facebook posts tend to revolve around cute picture of the girls, funny stories of things they did, and personal achievements. My life looks pretty awesome on Facebook. Is it true? Yes. But not 100%. Of course I don’t live in a world that is all sunshine and unicorns. I rarely share the times when Matilda doesn’t nap or the challenges we currently have with her hitting and scratching and pulling hair. I don’t post about the times when Hans and the girls don’t see each other for days in a row because of his work schedule and their sleep schedule. I share the good parts of my life with the world. My social media presence is not an accurate portrayal of my day-to-day. It’s biased, it’s selective, and, yes, it looks like a brag board. But it’s not. At least that’s not my intent.

Choosing optimism


How I portray my life on social media is intentional. I’m intentionally choosing to portray the good stuff, hoping that I can create a top-down trickle-down optimism policy in my daily life. Life is hard. Life can be miserable, lonely, exhausting. And I can choose to focus on the tough times, or, as I tell the girls when they fall: I can get up, brush the dirt off, and go back to playing. I choose optimism as my public presence and I hope that rubs off into my daily life and attitude.

I share pictures like this one, taken at the fort in St. Augustine. Because I want to remember my girls having fun in the towers, spending some great quality time with their Meme (my mom), rather than remembering dragging a screaming Matilda out of a store and a whiney, tired Freja.

It’s a fine line. It’s important to get stuff off my chest before it mushrooms into a bigger problem. Constructive criticism and feedback from peers is invaluable. If I don’t share my struggles with friends and family, I’ll be bogged down with them in my own head. It’s important to analyze our failures and our difficulties in order to learn from them and improve on the future. But if I talk about them too much, if I dwell on them, I won’t be choosing optimism. I’ll be choosing to focus on the hard stuff in life instead of enjoying the good times.

And, really. I'll be glad if in 10 years I don't remember how crappy our NEW fridge/freezer. The one I have to defrost every couple weeks and can't get a repair person out to the boat to fix even though it's under warranty.

Trickle down optimism

There are lots of studies of gratitude. If you keep a gratitude journal, if you verbalize or write down what you are grateful for once a day, you will be happier. Parents that want to encourage empathy and kindness in their kids are advised to help them develop a gratitude practice by sharing something they are grateful for at dinner every night. By actively acknowledging your gratitude, you bring it to the forefront of your thoughts and you feel better about life.

The same can be said for optimism. By actively recognizing and sharing the good things in my life, I’m bringing positivity and happiness to the center of my thinking. Instead of dwelling on my challenges, I’m celebrating what I love about my life. I’m choosing optimism over pessimism.

I promise you, my life is not any more fantastic or miserable than anyone else’s. I struggle, I laugh, I celebrate, I cry, I get in funks, I get frustrated. But I’m working to live in a happy place. And an easy way to do that is to share my triumphs and my joys - to broadcast them to the world, which, at the same time, reminds me that through the hard stuff, there is a lot to celebrate.

And, of course, some days are just really really good. No need to filter my memory.

Why travel is good for kids

It should come as no surprise that I will endorse the viewpoint that travel is good for children. Infants, toddlers, school-age, and teenagers. At the same time, for the parents of said children, travel is a whole new ball game. Goodbye long road trips with stops for Little Debbie snacks and goodbye spontaneous karaoke parties that last well into the night. Nope. Travel with small children involves planning, healthy snacks, singing annoying kid songs in the car, and a secret stash of not-so-healthy snacks.

But since I love to travel so much - really it's my major passion in life - I'm willing to compromise to share my love and excitement for the unexplored horizon with my kids. The experience may be different (relaxing doesn't really fit into the equation), but my reasons for travel stay the same, with or without kids.

It's important to travel (with kids) because:

• we meet new people. We see how different people live; what type of structure they live in; who they live with. For the kids, they hear different languages; they see different skin colors and different types of clothing. We learn tolerance, acceptance, and develop an attitude of openness and understanding toward the other.
• the food. This is a big one for me. I love to eat and I love to try new, local food. Since we've moved to Florida our girls have developed quite a taste for oysters (Freja) and shrimp (both of them). They love fish, cooked any way. Fish is plentiful, fresh, and local around here so we eat a lot of it so while most kids would run away when they see a raw oyster, Freja has learned to tip her head back and slurp it out of the half shell. 
• the discomfort. Don't get me wrong. I love to stay in a comfortable hotel room with crisp white sheets and fluffy white towels. I love comfort. But I also love being comfortable with the idea of staying in a one star hotel or camping in a tent or bunking in a youth hostel. When kids travel frequently, they learn to sleep in different places with different sounds. That's pricesless for parents! While I like comfort just as much as the next person, I love that my various travel experiences have toughened me up so I know where my baseline is (an army of ants crawling up a wall next to the head of my bed). I always want my girls to feel safe and secure, but I want them to be flexible enough to adapt to various places and be open to the experience they may find there.
• the family time. Traveling as a family gets pretty intense. You end up spending hours cramped together in the car singing inane songs and counting license plates; you all sleep in the same room; privacy is a joke. And, thus, forced intimacy is intimacy, regardless. You learn who snores and who doesn't, and who remembers to flush the toilet and who leaves the seat up. So much intense family time forces siblings to play together since there may be no other kids around, and it forces the entire family to be kind to each other. When you're on a joint quest, the family has to work as a unit, thus strengthening that unit.
• the learning curve. Kids, and adults, learn so much in new environments. We see more, we're more aware of our surroundings, and we're open to learning. On our last trip, just a short one, our girls learned what a hermit crab is and how to track them in knee deep water. They saw the sun set over water for the first time (well, a first for Matilda), and we saw so many stars after the sunset that we started talking about the universe. Freja learned that the sun is a star and that all stars are suns. 

So a lot of people say: what's the point in traveling with small kids? They won't remember any of it anyway?

True. They won't remember playing in the sand at the beach with short-time vacation friends. They won't remember trying escargot for the first time, or seeing a shrimp boat for the first time.

Well, in that case, might as well lock them up in a padded room with a toilet and some food until they're old enough to make memories. 

Extreme? Yes. But so is saying that the only reason to travel with kids is so they'll remember the trip. Does it matter if they remember the trip or not?

No!

Sometimes eating chips is more important than watching the sun set over the water.

This sunset...that apparently wasn't that impressive to our little ones.
The chips were way more exciting (and fulfilling).

What matters is that travel instills some pretty vital fundamentals in young minds - fundamentals like openness, adventure, flexibility, different - that will carry them through life and help them become world citizens in our ever-flattening world.

entering a lock and learning how we make water go up and down

Travel does not need to be far-reaching or a privilege of those that can afford plane tickets and vacation time from work. Travel can be to the next town. Travel can be a short train ride to the next town (with some car shuttling figured out). Travel can be to a different school, or a different library, or a different part of town. Travel does not need to be exotic or far-flung. Travel is simply seeing a different part of the world (which can be five miles up the street), meeting new people, seeing new things. The most important part of travel is being open to the experience and that, I believe, is one of the most important things we can pass on to our kids.

Use(less?)(ful?) information abounds

The other day my mom and I were sitting side by side on the couch, each with our own computer in our lap, pinning. I know, real quality time. I chortled and showed her a pin that popped up on my page: how to chop up a cauliflower. Her response: who goes to the effort to take photos and write a blog post on how to chop up a cauliflower? Just get out your knife and start chopping!

That got me to thinking about how much totally useless information abounds on the internet. We're filling our heads with junk. Factoids, fake factoids, rumors, urban legends, inconsequential stuff. We over-parent, over-share, over-think. Yet, at the same time... how exactly do I chop up a cauliflower? How do I shred cabbage without a food processor? I'd better do a quick check online before I make the same coleslaw that I've made for years, because maybe someone has a better way.

And maybe someone does have a better way. That's when the internet gets good. Push past all the crap, all the distractions, and we get something amazing: information and community. Real, actual, legitimate information abounds on the internet, and the community that writes it, reads it, and shares it is awesome.

I read a lot of blogs and I often think about how well documented our world is now. We take thousands of pictures of our kids, teenagers take thousands of themselves, and how many cute cat videos are there online? We're constantly snapping away and sharing the big and little details of our lives. What will this look like in 100 years? Will we look at them in 100 years? Will we still be documenting in 100 years? Here's an opinion piece where the author asks us to stop using the internet. Heck no!

But here's the thing, no matter uselessness of all the information out there, I love my online communities. I'm in a local mom's group where we trade info on daycares and pediatricians; I'm in a global mom's group where we find and give support and advice; I'm in group for women sailors where we can ask boating questions and give advice in a judgment-free zone (turns out that the sailing world is pretty macho and there are a lot of know-it-alls out there); I'm in a sewing on boats group where we share our projects and get ideas about, yes, sewing for our boats. Etc.

The world is wide open and the internet gives us the space to find people with common interests and share and learn from each other. So, yeah, there is a whole bunch of crap online. And, yeah, I spend way too much time reading the junk when I could be reading an actual book (although I try my hardest to stay away from those online quizzes). But my love affair with the internet is wide and deep and I am not embarrassed about the amount of time I spend tapping away on Facebook and other websites. I love my online community!

(Although I'd be negligent to forget to add that the internet is a fabulous vehicle for my own procrastination.)

image courtesy of ChurchMag

Breaking out of the mold

Compelling street art from Philadelphia
image courtesy of The Foundist.com

I think it can be safely said that I've never really fit into any mold. Quitting a lucrative and challenging career to live as a sailing bum in the Caribbean, living on a boat, raising kids on a boat, no 401k or life insurance to speak of - I've done it a little differently than my peers.

Yet, at the same time, it's so similar. My husband works full-time, I stay at home with the girls. We have kids. We go grocery shopping. Two cars. Bedtime at 7:30 (for the kids, not us!...although, some evenings...). On a day to day basis, my life veers more toward the hum drum than the unconventional lifestyle that it looks on the surface.


In brief
I want: an unconventional, nontraditional, exciting, adventurous, travel-filled, challenging life that pushes me out of my comfort zone and gives us lots of family time.
I currently have: a pretty staid suburban life. (Albeit aboard a boat, but, still. The boat doesn't go anywhere.)
What we're working toward: a nomadic life, based on family time and free time. 

To further complicate, I was raised and schooled to be a feminist. I struggle on a daily basis against this 1950s lifestyle that we've created for our kids. If I lived in a bubble, in a vacuum, where I wasn't influenced by societal norms and expectations, I'd be totally fine to sit back and say: this is what's working for our family, right now. It will change, it will evolve, but, right now, it's working for us.

But we don't live in a bubble. And I know our kids are happy and living a good life, and, generally, I'm happy and living a good life. But then I come across a study that says that kids of working moms are more successful later in life; that kids that are raised in families where household work is split evenly are more likely to be engaged fathers and men (moot point, I guess, for us since we have two girls, but, still).

The pressure
So I sit here, knowing that, like it has been for the past six years, our current set-up is transitory. We'll be doing something different, and then doing something different again. So I settle in to today, knowing that today is good. I'm looking big picture. Think 5-10 years big picture...then I get excited. The minute I can release myself from the pressures of the mold; once I know that, yes, I will be able to break out of that mold, my mind is at ease and I am so excited for that future to come.

It's amazing to me how much influence our peers and society has on our fundamental beliefs. I feel like I am pretty strong and certain in how I feel and what I am doing, but, yikes, the minute I get too settled in our (floating) suburban lifestyle, I start freaking out. Must set goals, must make plans, must do more. 

The pressure to do more; the pressure to compete; the pressure to measure up and reach certain goals = it's not just adolescents that feel peer pressure.

I read a great article by Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love and Committed to name two of her books), that urged women to just "lighten up." You're good enough, you're doing enough, just chill out and enjoy life. I really struggle with that and I can spin myself in circles and wrap myself up in endless arguments about what I want to be doing, what I am doing, what I should be doing. When, really, I should just lighten up.

Sunrise, at anchor off Amelia Island.

(And the truth that I know: when I am out on the water, on a sailboat. I am happy. Satisfied. Content. Fulfilled Some fundamentals never change. I've known it for 12 years: all I need is a sailboat.)