Windy’s sister Mariah and brother-in-law, Jorge, arrived the beginning of this month from San Jose, Costa Rica for a 10-day visit. They’re both architects by training, live in the interior of the country, and make extraordinary (really extraordinary) cakes (many topped with sugar flowers that are works of art) for a living. It was fun and illuminating to see our world through their eyes. The weather for their stay couldn’t have been nicer and we took advantage of it to get them out to the nearby islands. They adapted surprisingly well to our rolling, pitching, close-quarters accommodations and our less-frequently-than-daily shower schedule.
But as near-perfect as their visit was, and as closely as we were able to represent the reality of our lives, we just can’t get all the way there. Windy was the first to make that observation, several guests ago.
Beyond the fact that we deliberately don’t spend our guests’ vacations tending to boat maintenance and school work and writing and laundry and shopping, there’s a Heisenberg-like distortion of the reality they experience. It’s the difference between the movie clip they get and the unfolding saga that’s happening for our family.
Accordingly, one of the tangential joys we get from having visitors—and separate from the pleasure and importance of re-connecting with people we love—is the reminder we take away from each one: that we four, living and growing daily together aboard this floating home, are bonded tightly by our common, fundamentally un-shareable voyage afloat.
In our twenties, we traded our boat for a house and our freedom for careers. In our thirties, we lived the American dream. In our forties, we woke and traded our house for a boat and our careers for freedom. And here we are. Click here to read more from the Log of Del Viento.
