rudderless

Underway!!!!!

It’s been over four years in the making, but this baby left the dock!! We went out for a spin! Our boat MOVES under her own power. And gracefully at that! How good it felt to wake up Friday and get out a chart, plug in a GPS, stow the accumulated junk on the table, throw off some lines and GO SOMEWHERE IN OUR BOAT. We took two trips on Friday- the first, for us, while the girls were with a babysitter. And the second, with them. They were totally nonplussed. Sophie read a book in the cockpit and barely looked up, like this was the most normal thing in the world. Rosy relaxed into the motion and nearly fell asleep, even after a two hour nap. While we hollered and high-fived around them, they were simply at home.

And that’s all we’ve wanted for them. We did this for them, but also a little bit for us. One thing parenting has taught me is that they will never understand what we do. There is no way for them to conceive of the hard work involved. The constant meeting of needs. The sleeplessness, the working, the taking of walks when all you want to do is lie down. The four years of boat projects, just to make a floating home.

They won’t understand it, until they have kids of their own, and renovate a house or a boat or an RV or canal barge while parenting two small kids. And when the work is hardest, I have to remind myself that we chose every bit of this. We chose to make this our home, because before there was a Sophie or a Rosy, there was this part of us. In the midst of living with and loving them, we’ve also made something for John and Ellen. This is who we were, who we are, and who we will continue to be. Leaving the dock on Friday, that fact is what I was most thankful for.

Underway!