On Land, With Uncertainty Emily Whebbe
“We’re just taking a break for the winter”, “We might want a new boat”, and “We’re clear out of money”, became the lines I repeated when explaining why we were preparing our boat for winter when EVERYONE around us was outfitting to head south. They packed their boats full of canned goods, their favorite American toilet paper brands, and spare parts. They repaired rigging for going offshore and installed new equipment. Their hypnotic excitement flooded the air causing me to sometimes forget that I wasn’t joining them. I’m generally not a big follower of people unless they have really spectacular ideas like living
aboard a boat, tasting every flavor of donut, sailing south for the winter…those types of things I wanted to follow. I had a mixture of emotions as we packed up all our belongings and moved off Twig. The chapter did not feel complete. I was haunted by the aching feeling that we hadn’t traveled as extensively as I envisioned two years earlier. Still, I forced my hands to painstakingly scour every inch of her, removing each of the things that made her ours. We were erasing any evidence (minus all the upgrades) that we had been there. And yet, as I sat there finding notes my daughter SisterShip 17
