Weather Helmed

I was going to write a post about our Halloween weekend, but Matt’s blog entry is just so…. awesomely perfect, I’ve decided to simply repost it here (with a few additions of my own)   🙂   This is just one of the many reasons why I love him:

MOVING FORWARD: 

It’s Halloween night, and I found myself sitting with Karen at a table in the (*deathly silent*) common area of our building complex (*which is essentially a poorly disguised retirement home*), making large To-Do lists for the next few months and planning the details of how to dispose of our worldly belongings and cancel all our accounts and memberships and subscriptions and plans.  I was walking back to our apartment and it dawned on me that most other people were busy spending the night socially – i.e. dressing up, drinking, partying, scaring people, trickortreating, whatever – while we were sitting in a large dark quiet room, alone with big pieces of paper and magic markers and highlighters and lots of old partially completed to-do lists.   Then I had the thought: that would have been me a few years ago – i.e. partying and doing halloween stuff  – but now I’m the type that is planning a monstrous cruising trip without even remembering what day it is.  And also I thought: maybe that’s what people who really sail across oceans would be like when they planned their trip.

Anyway, Karen and I started looking at where we will go in January.  Sure, we’re headed south, then across the pacific, that’s the general plan, but honestly up until this point I haven’t even looked at a map to decide what ports we might hit on our way down the coast. No clue.  So to buy a map (*like we did this weekend!!*) and look at aerial photos on google maps and make a list of the spots we can duck into if the going gets rough–well that means we’re getting to a whole new stage of this adventure.  That’s a different kind of preparation than sanding the deck or mounting solar panels (both of which also happened today – *sanding sucks*).  For one, it is a lot more fun to point at the map and say “let’s go there”.  For two, we’re at the point where I’m (*WE’RE*)actively doing all those things that one needs to do in order to  depart from one’s former life start anew, disembark, cut ties, and set out (*like quitting our jobs!!  woohoo!!*).

And also it means that hey! – we really think it’s going to happen!  Just like that point in The Matrix when Mr. Anderson shows up and is about to put the smackdown on Neo, who wants to run, but then starts to feel all badass and the computer guy back on the mothership says “what’s happening??” and Morpheus says all matter-of-factly “He’s Starting To Believe” with incredible articulation of his words and then Neo doesn’t run to the phone booth to escape but turns around and looks all cocky and then gets totally caught up in this wicked gunbattle with Mr. Anderson but wasn’t truthfully ready to come into his own as “the One” and so gets his ass royally kicked and nearly dies via punching to the stomach followed by being hit by a train before barely escaping. 

Moral I guess being that in the end (after the beat down) neo sails around the world!  Metaphorically.