This dream is a staircase (in Bailey Island, ME)

I’m realizing I’ve had it wrong all along… as our friend Bonnie pointed out, “after the last 5%… there’s just another 5%!”

Because this isn’t a one-time, one-and-done thing. It’s a lifestyle. A whole way of living. A whole heck of a lot of work right now. It requires compromise and flexibility and an acceptance that we are really not in control of anything. And it may not *actually* be possible. But while we’re still trying, we’re at the mercy of the winds, the waves, the weather, the boat, and now… Zephyr! 🙂 So having high expectations is pretty much a guarantee for disappointment. See previous post about plans 😉

Anyways, today Jon made a comment that stuck with me — that if we could make just a tiny step of progress towards our dream, we could count the day as a success.

So today we finished moving back onto Brio.

We’ve been living in my incredibly understanding mom-in-law’s house (actually, in HER bedroom!) for the last bit while we had bad projects going (epoxy, fumes, torn apart boat bits, etc), and it was time to make the official move, and say goodbye to hot water, our vehicles, the pack-n-play (although Z loves his little boat bed!), thermostats, washing machine and general house-comforts that we sooooo appreciate!!

Doesnt sound too bad, right?

Well my poor husband literally made the trip from the beach to the boat with a fully-loaded dinghy TEN TIMES to deliver all of the food, water, fuel, clothing and linens, our liferaft, my sailrite sewing machine, our spinnaker, and all the other random boat bits we’d taken off. He’d deliver a load, I’d try to find a corner of the cockpit to stash the bags in, and Zephyr happily self-entertained inside on the floor, discovering the wonders of clothespins and rug edges. He’s the best baby ever. And I’m not biased at all 😉

Anyways. In my imagination we were going to accomplish all of this moving & organizing & storing & smushing (we live on a 33’ boat… smushing is definitely involved sometimes) yesterday morning so we could sail away today to far away places… but yesterday it poured and stormed and we visited Z’s great-grandma and made waffles and sat by the wood stove with Jon’s mom instead, and sailing to far away places requires your stuff to be more stored than just smushed in the cockpit, so that plan changed.

And now we’re onboard, Z is happily snoozing in his boat-bed, half-ish of the stuff is put away, the Newport Dickinson is keeping us all toasty warm, the stars are twinkling outside our new Vetus hatch (which was one of last week’s projects) and I’m feeling pretty damn happy with our tiny little baby steps of progress towards our dream today, regardless of where we actually get to this winter 😉

– LMK

Do you see it?? The dot is afloat! This is progress, people!!


Comments

This dream is a staircase (in Bailey Island, ME) — 4 Comments

    • Thanks Dan! Zephyr is a serious trooper so far… loves the outdoors, doesn’t mind the motion, thinks waves are entertaining… fingers crossed he stays this flexible!! And warm is definitely our #1 priority / concern. Especially as it gets later and later into the season!! 🙂

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