A Day in the Life [#18]

In Park City, when people asked, “What do you do?” they invariably meant one of two things: 1) What’s your job? or 2) What’s your workout?

I had magnificently simple answers to both:

1. I teach elementary school art part-time
2. I go to Rise Boxing and let MG and her crew of other-worldly fit warriors do their thing

But that was then. That was Park City.

That was a house and 2.5 cars and a camper and a riding lawn mower and a dryer big enough to party in. That was a dishwasher and 14 pairs of jeans and 1.2 incomes and a Nordstrom Rack and a dog groomer.

Ohmygod, I miss Bear’s groomer.

As you know, now is a little different.

I definitely still get asked, “What do you do?” But this time, what people are really asking is,

"What exactly do you do with yourself and your children all day, every day?!"

Well, let’s just lay it all out there on the table, shall we?

What do I do?

Truth be told — some days, not a whole lot.

Because I realize that response still begs for clarity, I’ll do my best to provide an honest glimpse into a currently-typical boat day.

Disclaimer #1: This feels a bit like letting everyone you know - and some you don't - walk through your back door (the one by the garage with the filthy rug and the tumbleweeds of dog hair), knowing full-well you haven't showered in three days, your laundry is in piles on the couch upstairs, and you're actively dredging the bottom of a Ben and Jerry's carton with a chopstick because all the spoons are dirty in the sink (with all the bowls). 

But you’ve asked, so I’ll oblige.

Disclaimer #2: Since I'm on a roll, I should also admit that I almost never know what day of the week it is. #sadbuttrue

Unless someone has a flight to catch, we typically don’t set morning alarms. For the kids, awake by 9:00 is the only “rule.”

Our mornings have an über-calm pace about them.

No one is ever about to miss the 6:51 a.m. bus. No one forgets a lunch or computer or walks into biology class without last night’s homework assignment. No one has to gag down a giant breakfast within five minutes of waking up, lest wait six hours until the lunch bell finally offers another opportunity.

Boat mornings are easy and we heart them.

John and I drink coffee and check weather and tides and emails, and then weather again. Hudson drinks tea. Wyatt sleeps longer. Everyone eats at their own pace as the day’s plans slowly take shape.

Invariably, there are a handful of yesterday’s least desirable boat chores still on today’s list:

• fill the water tanks
• scrub the other half of the deck
• wash a set of bedding
• put up the headsails
• shave Bear
• mark 300 feet of anchor chain.

That last one has been on our To Do List for no fewer than 92 days and I guarantee you it will still be there next week (and probably the week after).
Because it is going to suck and will take us all day, that's why.

There are always new and rotating tasks to add in:

• replace the Dorian-battered dock lines with the new ones that just arrived
• take down the old barbecue and set up the new one
• wash 4,000 dead love bugs off the aft deck cushions
• write a blog post
• order a new shackle for the new anchor
• clean the sea strainers

Recently, we’ve started getting serious about Boat School so, at present, both boys have math and English quotas to hit — much to their lament.

Wyatt works three hours a day as a dockhand here at the marina. John frequently has a hefty load of phone meetings lined up. I spend an equal amount of time trying to psych myself up for my 12 three-mile run while Hudson Googles celestial navigation and how to splice lines.

After lunch — but before happy hour, we might take a trip to a dive shop to look at dive tanks and a handful of other items still left to purchase. Perhaps we’ll swing by Dick’s Sporting Goods on the way home to checkout saltwater fishing gear and make fun of John having all the feels about it.

While we’re out, we should probably duck into West Marine. Bear will join us and find the biscuits kept behind the sales counter in new record time.

She has nicknames at most of our go-to stores, our favorite of which is Tater Tot.

On days we don’t make it out of the marina, we take advantage of the pool. We play monkeyJohn-in-the-middle with a water-logged-so-it-weighs-eight-pounds Nerf football; the kids have breath-holding competitions; I tread water for 20 minutes and wonder if that means I don’t have to go running.

Re-calendaring our departure from Charleston after Lousy Dorian stalled us in our tracks is definitely a high-priority discussion item, but hurricane season is proving a bit more of a beast to work around than we’d anticipated. So, it’s an ongoing conversation and one we’ve yet to wrap up in a timely fashion.

Which, of course, is bizarre since everything else related to this whole Boat Dream thing has gone exactly according to plan. 

Eventually, the day will melt into evening. John will barbecue chicken or burgers or pork loin. Unless it’s Taco Tuesday. Obviously.

I’ll make a salad (which, for the first time in the history of Pennell-Family-Ever, all four people will eat). Wyatt will actually talk — using real words — about what he did at work and how he made a $20 tip “just for taking a picture of some guys.” Hudson, one earbud lodged discreetly in his left ear, will attempt to hide his phone in his lap, while anxiously awaiting a signal from one of his BFFs that it’s time to play Xbox.

After we each wash our own dishes, we might play a round of cards or Exploding Kittens before the kids retreat to their cabins and John and I surf Netflix. At approximately 9:02, I’ll fall asleep and curse the fact that I didn’t brush my teeth earlier.

We’re still holding strong to the promise that there’s a version of this day in our future that might actually be worthy of your awe.

But today’s wasn’t it, and tomorrow’s won’t be either.

We’ve settled in to Boat Time. Life moves slower. Everything takes longer.

Most days, it doesn’t feel like we’re much farther along than we were three months ago.

But I’ll tell you what — three months ago, hand-washing dishes or hanging laundry to dry elicited the kind of nauseating whining I (falsely) assumed only other people’s entitled and annoying children were capable of producing. Three month ago, Hudson wouldn’t eat salad; Wyatt wasn’t a dockhand. We hadn’t sailed over 500 nautical miles or weathered a hurricane.

We sit together and chat every morning over slow coffee and again every evening over dinner.

Sometimes, Boat Friends wander by and join us.

We bond over a shared loathing of the September love bug hatch and an ever-expanding — and extremely loose — definition of personal space. Slowly but surely, we’re inching our way down this Channel of Preparation en route to open water.

Eventually, when people ask me what I do, I’m gonna have a wickedly drool-worthy answer.

I hope, when that time finally does roll around, I still don’t have any idea what day of the week it is.

Unless, of course, it’s a Tuesday. 🌮