Getting to daily life

As GOE's would have it, I arrived in the Bahamas overtired and under-prepared for the adventure before me. So, I worked as necessary and I discovered, in retrospect, something about the necessity of rest. I slept, and slept, and slept, and I think this sleep was a gift from my new ancient mother, the ocean. I doubt she knows me, or cares, but rock she do! She has rocked me to all the sleep I needed on her great moving body these past two weeks. It was a bit frightening to have no choice but to 'let' that happen to me, a total surrender of little me to big she; I sometimes thought I would never fully awaken! But now I am both awake and deeply rested and I know that rocking is there, it is there in my memory, there in my body, and with it a qualitatively new experience of life.

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So, since the blog is new, here's the edited version of what I've been up to (meaning, I know this post is a bit long, so bear with me!). Also, I'm trying and trying to add photos, and we just don't have the bandwidth on the ship. So the photos will have to come later. Yes, I know pictures are worth a thousand words. But here are the thousand words anyway!

The first hours were memorable. Waving goodbye to parents in the Bahamas, and then turning to say hello to the Caribbean while floating awkwardly down long hallways... all of us so aware of setting out on a life-changing journey, but having no idea what that would mean. We were like a thousand gentle drunks in bumper cars, engaged in something both exciting and surreal as we navigated the ship. Soon, many of us were turning green and barf bags appeared in stacks at every juncture. A young woman I'd never met came up and introduced herself and asked me to hug her because she was sick and scared; another spilled hot coffee all over herself, needing both my first aid and my shirt! Most of us have now acquired that wide-legged sailor walk, and, combined with motion sickness meds, it works.

In old San Juan, I delighted in drinking a pitcher of sangria (made with wine, rum, citrus liqueur, and a splash of juice over ice) while listening to salsa music in an open garden, this to celebrate Courtney's birthday. And I went out one night with a group of about 60 students to kayak on Bioluminescent Bay, combining two of my favorite things, bioluminescence and kayaking. I went to sleep that night steeped in beauty and the joy of that continuous paddling motion.

My days start at 5 or 5:30 if I sleep in. I make coffee from the hot water in my thermos and my French press mug, and then I do my morning spiritual practice, culminating with meditation on my balcony (yes, MY balcony!!) when weather permits. I hold my 'office hours' before my 8 a.m. class (followed by global studies, a class that all 700 students attend) and then my second class. When I get back to my cabin, it's been cleaned, my bed made, fresh towels and ice set out! (My cabin steward, Bryan, has fun arranging all the pillows and placing my stuffed piggy in creative ways--tonight she has headphones on and is sitting on the top bed pillow.) When we're in the dining rooms, we're attended by staff, such that we never carry out our own plate after a meal; to do so would be an affront. I also get my laundry washed and pressed and delivered to my room. I'm not sure I'll be able to return to normal life in which I'm the laundress and cook and cleaning staff! And working out on the treadmill is quite challenging with the sea pitching you and the machine into the air and catching you again.

One interesting difference in life on the ship is that complaining is really taboo because life simply is not convenient in all the small ways we're accustomed to controlling, so it's generally expected that you find a way to adapt--with a smile. To do otherwise would be to ostracize yourself fairly quickly. And so I learn that I really don't need to complain; what a concept! Many of us get it that complaint is so much a part of our 'customer satisfaction' culture, and we're relieved of the burden of critique; and many of us have learned how to sit and stare, or sit and trance, like cats and dogs. Work is for when you need to work, and not for anything else.