You are born alone. You die alone. The value of space in between is trust and love: Louise Bourgeois
How we spend our days is of course, how we spend our lives: Annie Dillard
We spend our lives fleeing from the present moment, constantly occupying ourselves with overplanning the future, recoiling with anxiety over its impermanence, thus invariably robbing ourselves of the vibrancy of aliveness- Maria Popova
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: Shakespeare
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy practice compassion: Dalai Lama
Every day we wake slightly altered, and the person we were yesterday is dead: John Updike : so why be afraid of death, when death comes all the time?
All these quotes are a compilation from a blog I have been getting on the internet and references from this blog. It is called the Marginalian by Maria Popova. It was previously called Brain Pickings. I started our blog because Stephen encouraged me to write one and reports that people want a blog from us. I was like who has time to read a blog? Who follows a blog? Just live your life…
Well, 4 years of me blogging to capture our journey and I am glad I did because my memory is so poor. So if none other than to have it be a diary of our sailing adventures it has been worth it. I don’t know if anyone journals, and I have in the past besides the blog, but it is interesting how you can be transported back to that emotional state immediately and sometimes the physical arena you were in just by reading something historical you wrote. I somehow and cannot remember (see?) how but this blog, The Marginalian, fell into my email account or I came across it in a googling adventure perhaps on existentialism but I am captivated by her flowery language and topics and started to read it.
It led me to get a book on my kindle called: 4000 weeks, Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. It is a book about how productivity is primarily futile and steals away from our valuable time. It is a long essay essentially about “time” with lots of reflections and projections on its meaning and projected value to the human.
When I read it, I feel like it validates our choice to step off the hamster wheel every so many months to be present. And I should clarify, we attempt to have meaningful cadence when not on the boat but there are more distractions to deflect. "distracted from distraction by distraction"
The very trendy “be present” ….. we can achieve that easier on the sailboat. Well, I should speak for myself. Stephen does have a gift with time management. He has the ability to say “No” to a lot of things that he thinks may impinge on his “present being” time. I on the other hand like to pack it in!!! Lots of stuff on my plate. It is a struggle for me because I do find I am happier with a fuller plate but yet can that be true? Oliver Burkeman states, " 'missing out' is what makes our choices meaningful in the first place."
When we are sailing, I can attempt to arrive more easily at a meditative state perhaps that I cannot achieve on land because of all the distractions. Don’t get me wrong, the boat is demanding and demands your attention but once out of internet range and isolated on a large body of water for hundreds of miles from a land source, things prioritize easier and there does seem to be more “time” just to be….
This is also true of long-distance backpacks, where again, food/shelter/water/sleep/walk is the daily mantra and hence why there are a ton of books written on walking the PCT or AT, etc… I always would say and find to be true, many of those folks on the trail are trying to sort out some life event out by walking: a divorce, break up, lost job, job change, death…
Well, the purpose of this blog entry is to celebrate the value of our time spent in 2021 and to look forward to how we spend it in 2022. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives as the quote above says. We had a lovely return to the Carson Valley at the end of August and moved in to be the “basement dwellers” of another amazing family: The Jaggers. We feel blessed we are in such a loving home and on a mini-farm to boot. Two basement dwellers to start:), Us:) Troy, Shawn, Maddy, Jadyn, 3 dogs Dexter, Gauge, Ollie, 2 Horse Zeus and Atlas, 2 parakeets, 1 fish, 2 cows just arrived, and chickens. I think all the humans and pets are accounted for in the list. We say “Basement” but allow me to contextualize it; we live in a lovely finished space with a kitchenette that is not unlike our galley on Soulstice. We have large windows and sliding glass doors that are open to the South with a beautiful view and Slide Mountain and the Washoe Valley.
Below are some pictures of our summer adventures. Our next journey via the sailboat will start end of April. We plan to sail from Hawaii to Alaska. We just talked to our friend Ron, on Mar de Luz. We met him in Hawaii in Hilo and had our last rendezvous in Kauai. He has already sailed up to Alaska via the Aleutians and is currently in Berkeley CA heading down to Mexico. He gave us some advice on AK sailing and we offered up our Sea of Cortez sailing recommendations. Our plans for French Polynesia and New Zealand remain on hold due to the “Rona” and all the indecisive and ever-changing travel bans/restrictions. From now to the end of April, Carson Tahoe Hospital will occupy much of our time to aid to fill up the piggy banks and the rest will be spent to continue to nurture the friendships we have and savor the landscape of Nevada with a multitude of outdoor activities until then….
"But all a plan is--- all it could ever possibly be--is a present-moment statement of intent. It's an expression of your current thoughts about how you'd ideally like to deploy your modest influence over the future. The future, of course, is under no obligation to comply."
Happy 2022 to everyone!! It has been a challenging year for so many on so many different levels. We hope you can find time in your busy lives and schedules to revisit how you want to spend your days/time=you ( kind of like the pie equation or Fibonacci sequence ).
***I asked Stephen what he thought of the blog and he said, "kind of self helpy" and I said I was just being reflective. He just wanted more objective statements about our experiences and I guess I wanted to attach meaning to our time - :)***
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