In order to help us decide whether or not this trip idea is right for us, our family sat down one night in March and created a PRO/CON LIST.  Chris and I wanted to get an honest, gut-level idea of what the kids thought of the trip.  Of course, there are more pros and cons than are listed here, and we have since addressed all of them.  But here are all our answers from that night.  I won’t say who put what on the list….

PROS

Make new friends

Get to live on a boat

Get to do things we can’t do in NJ

Mommy is our teacher

Discover new places like Mosquito Island, Parrot Island, The Baths, and The Bubbles

Family becomes closer

CONS

Will miss friends from home

Will miss new friends at the end of the trip

Will miss school

Hard to leave work for a year

Financial concerns

Not getting to golf or bike for a year

The space is smaller

We can’t bring all our belongings

Comfort- ie. sleeping

No hot-cuzzi (what Porter calls our hot tub/Jacuzzi)

Safety: pirates, drowning, illness, boating hazards

No ice cream

April 1, 2011: Today I thought about how much I love our house.  It’s just the right size for our family and it’s pretty clean and uncluttered most of the time.  Then I thought about living on a tiny boat for a year.  I’m not claustrophobic.  I just like organization.  And staying organized in small spaces is super-challenging, even for a Hobbyist Organizer like me.  I wondered what other kinds of  things I would miss from our lives here in Ho-Ho-Kus.

–Our Home.  We’ve loved our house since we first set eyes on it.  We love our street and the tudor colonial style.  We love the chimney on the front wall of the house.  We love the staircase that goes up sideways.  We love our new family room.  I love our new laundry room.  We love the “Winter In Nantucket” coziness of the sea glass blues, the washed out whites, and all the creamy neutrals.  I love our floors: our dark, wide-planked, clean and sleek floors.  People really shouldn’t love floors as much as I love ours. In my ongoing efforts at non-attachment from material items, I would gladly give up clothing, jewelry, hair products, furniture, and kitchen gadgets before I would give up my attachment to these floors.  If you’ve been in our home, you know immediately from my shrieking, “WE DON’T WEAR SHOES IN OUR HOUSE!!!!!” that I’m really into our floors.  I’ll miss our backyard, small as it is.  But it has our hot tub, which we won’t have on a boat.  And my vegetable garden, unless we make room for hydroponics.  The mowing and the weeding and the powerwashing I will be okay with giving up for a year.

–Our Friends, Family, and Neighborhood.  We will miss having neighbors and friends so close to home.  We will miss going on 1 mile bike rides as a family that take an hour because we end up stopping on every block to say hello to someone.  I will miss walking my children to school throughout the year, watching the seasons change, one 20-minute walk at a time, day after day, for ten months.  I will miss jumping in my car to run a quick errand and being able to hit a pharmacy, a yoga studio, a craft store, the library, or a nail salon in minutes.  But most of all, I will miss my friends: the 10am phone chats as we clean up the breakfast dishes; the funny banter at drop off or pick up; Girls’ Night Outs; the joy we experience when watching our children play together; the collaboration while working on a project for school; and the knowledge that I can rely on someone for help or a compassionate ear at a moment’s notice.  My solace is that we plan to trick our boat out so that phone calls, email, Skype, and other forms of communication are always available.  The friends I have are true friends, so distance will create hardship, but not sacrifice.

–Speaking of Salons. I will miss all the primping and fluffing that is such a yummy, luxurious part of my alone time: massages, manicures and pedicures, facials, and getting my hair done.  I’m going to have to stock up on home hair color. There’s nothing cool about Caribbean Gray.

–Grogin and Grogin. Larry and Cheryl have been incredible supporters in my growth and healing over the past few years.  Each week, I look forward to my sweet safe haven at acupuncture.  I get complete healthcare, inspiration, a crazy-deep meditation, and sometimes a gentle nudge in the right direction.  Cheryl is such an inspiring coach who simultaneously cheers me on while asking me all the questions I need to hear in order to manifest everything I want in life.  Getting feedback from someone who doesn’t have a horse in the race and yet has my best interests at heart is such a gift.  If only these two amazing people would take their show on the road.  Or on the water.

–Sports.  tennis, cycling, skiing, yoga in a great yoga studio with the greatest teachers.  We’ll have bikes with us, so I’ll still get to bike.  And nothing beats yoga on the beach or trying to balance on a rocking boat!  Plus, I’ll have the chance to explore other sports, such as swimming, hiking, and rig acrobatics:)

–The Fireplace. Plus Snow (don’t start with me.  I know I’m the last human in NJ who still wanted more snow last winter.)  Fall leaves.  Crisp fall days.  Boots.  Fingerless gloves.  Sweaters.  Seeing your breath in the air.  Wrapping up in a blanket.  Crocuses poking their devil-may-care heads up through the snow way too early for flowers that should know better.

Driving.  Well, not lately.  The Swagger Wagon doesn’t cut it for someone who loves the thrill of driving with the windows down and an awesome driving song blasting.  But I’ll miss the idea that I could drive around, if I had a cool car.  Plus, people keep Crashing Into Me (maybe I should take that one off my Driving Playlist?)

–Personal Space.  5 people.  47 foot boat.  ’Nuff said.

–Personal Care:

–toilets/heads on a boat are notoriously small.  Most are flushed using a hand pump that must be pumped up and down 15-20 times.  Can you say “hassle”?

-my hair is crazy fine.  It looks flat, flat, flat, even with lots of “volumizing” hair products and a professional blow dryer.  The wattage needed for a blow dryer just doesn’t work with the limited electric power on a boat.  I’m really going to miss my not-completely-flat hair.-

Showers: depending on what type of boat we get, there is a possibility that I will not have a proper shower for a year.  We will either be showering off the back of the boat, using a handheld shower nozzle or we will be showering in the head, where the sink faucet “magically” becomes the shower nozzle, like in some kitchen faucets that pull out.  The entire head: sink, toilet, cabinets, floor, everything is now “The Shower”.  So everything gets wet and soapy and has to be rinsed and squeegeed and dried off. Sounds love. ly.  Doesn’t it?  There IS a teensy weensy chance that we will end up with a boat with an actual stall shower. If we do, that shower stall is going to be lovingly, passionately called “Nirvana”.-

Makeup: I know. Shallow and Vain.  But I like the way I look with a little makeup.  And it’s not going to be a part of the daily routine on a boat.  It’s just not practical.  On the bright side, I do look better with a tan.

–Ice Cream…needs to be kept cold.  Boats have itsy bitsy freezers that sometimes don’t live up to their name.  And there are many places you can’t buy it.  Oh, Haagen Daz, your creamy, tempered consistency will be dreamed about on many a sweltering night!

-Listening to my children playing piano. We are contemplating bringing the keyboard that connects to our computer, but I see a huge pile of things in my mind that I want to take with us and will take up way too much room.  Can you say five bicycles?

-Christmas Decorations: I’ve been pretty lame lately about decorating for Easter, Thanksgiving, and even Halloween.  I’ve chosen to save the time of digging it all out of the attic, putting it up, cleaning around it all for 4 weeks, and then putting it away.  But the winter is different.  I love how our home looks at night, all decked out in lights and winter decorations.  It’s so cozy and makes us want to drink cocoa and watch A Christmas Story.  After thinning out our collection of decorations a few years ago, everything we now have is either full of sentimental value or is something we think is absolutely beautiful.  I am currently taking suggestions on how to have a Christmas tree on our boat…

As with every new endeavor, there are sacrifices to be made.  But friends and family aside, if I put all the hair dye, tennis rackets, and hot tubs on one side of the scale, they won’t put a dent in what we stand to gain on the other side…

What I look forward to:

–the view of the sea from our new home.  I have always, always, always, wanted to live by the sea.  Living ON the sea will be beyond my dreams.  Looking at the sea instantly reconnects me an with nature and the universe.  Everything about the water speaks to me, on every level.  I’m sure I’ll be saying it over and over again, but the ocean reminds me that I am one with the universe and that I am amazing.

“It isn’t that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.” -Sir Francis Drake

-spending time with my husband.  Chris and I work well together.  We love a project, a team sport, something to research together.  Living on a boat will be all three of these together and more.  At night, when the kids go to sleep, I look forward to sitting on deck, having a snack, listening to our “Boats” playlist, and looking at the stars.  No mindless tv.  No movies.  No nighttime scout/school/bookgroup meetings.  No business trips.  Just us. Together.  Not missing it.

-spending time with Bryson, Riesling, and Porter.  I want to build legos with Bryson and snuggle with him.  I want to write stories with  Reese and draw, sew, paint, and sculpt with her.  I want to play card games with Porter and teach him to snorkel.  I want to explore with them, play board games with them, learn from them.  I look forward to taking a short break from organized sports, scout meetings, art classes, dance classes, and the myriad distractions of this routine. Perhaps some space from them will help us determine which ones are true passions, worthy of our time, and which ones can be de-prioritized.

–Boatschooling: I want to teach Bryson Calculus, like he’s been begging us to.  I want to watch Riesling have time to write her stories and  illustrate them.  I want to teach Porter to read, write, and add.  I loved being a sixth grade teacher, but didn’t get to do it for long before we started our family. Teaching my own children will be very different.  With only three “students”, I can allow them to drive the direction, pace, and scope of each area of study.  We can use a stop in Virginia to study colonial times.  We can study chemistry by visiting a rum distillery in Barbados (I will do anything for the sake of education…).  They will understand the science of living things by learning about sea creatures.  They will learn mechanics, physics, and math by learning how the boat operates, sails, and gets fixed.  I envision an enjoyable, special time together, where they will emerge at the end with all the skills they will need to reenter school in their respective Second, Fifth, and Sixth grades.

–Writing.  Well, you know one thing already.  I love to write.  I look forward to writing about our adventure: to contemplate it, to share it with loved ones, to inspire fellow sailors, and to create a memory for our children.

–Reading.  I love to read and look forward to whiling away guilt-free hours, catching up on the long list of classics I’ve always wanted to read.  I want to read to our children much more than Chris and I get to do it now.

–Sailing. Javisst!  (of course! in Swedish)  Oh, how I love to sail.  I love the wind in my face, the sound of the water smacking against the hull, the flapping of the sails, the clinking of the rigging, the pressure against the rudder, and the knowledge that I am moving through space and time by harnessing and borrowing the power of nature for just a little while, without destroying it or using it up.  While sailing, nothing else matters.  I am just “in it.”

–Sleeping/Balance. I am a BFOS (big fan of sleep). Most of us don’t get enough of it in our regular lives.  I should be sleeping right now.  It’s 10:27pm on a Friday night and I’m sick.  But I’m not doing it.  I’m looking forward to finding a lovely balance of awake and asleep, active and relaxed, working and playing, thinking and being, trying and allowing.  In my yoga practice, I am better at balancing poses in the weeks when I have had a good amount of sleep and have struck a nice balance in all the aspects of my life.  I think that the simpler (while not necessarily easier) way of life while cruising will reset my balance so that I can bring that equilibrium back into our daily lives here.

–Adventure: seeing new places, learning new things, feeling the history of a place beneath my feet.  Sharing that love of adventure with my children will be a gift that my mother (and Charles Ingalls) shared with me.  Living in Sweden for a semester in college was an experience that changed my life in so many ways.  Another life-changing moment was visiting the Domincan Republic in high school to visit my class’ foster child.  Nothing can open one’s eyes to what else is Out There besides going Out There and seeing it for yourself.

–Photography: I look forward to adding to my portfolio of photos on our trip.  The islands of the Caribbean have some of the most  spectacular vistas in the world.  The bright colors set against dirt roads, the rich foliage, and the rawness of life down there make for fabulous aesthetics.  Photos of the ocean, sea life, and my children’s happy faces will bring me so much pleasure.

-Making new friends. All the blogs I read about cruising families are full of stories of new friends made along the way.  The children of cruising boats seem to have a natural way of finding each other and striking up instant friendships.  I imagine there will be a similar “community” feel with cruisers as we had with sailboat racers.  Even though it’s been years since we last raced, we can be anywhere in the world and strike up an instant rapport with a fellow racer.

The best things I look forward to are the ones I don’t yet know about.  Where will this adventure take us?  What amazing things await us?  Not knowing is delicious.

What would you miss the most from your life right now if you were leaving for a year?  What would you have time and space to do if you could take a break from your routine for awhile?