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an everyday life

an everyday life

Tag Archives: Cruising

Cruising Clichés

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by Janell in Life at Home

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Alaska, Cruising, Everyday Life, Travel

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Tracy Arm Fjord

I’ve been wondering whether some, those who haven’t yet experienced what I have been fortunate enough to now have immerse myself in twice, have come to consider an Alaska cruise a cliché.

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Mount Roberts Look-out over Juneau

The thought is not an idle one since it springs from a couple of causal conversations that took place a week before my husband and I boarded the Celebrity Solstice.  Both mentioned that their spouse had expressed interest in taking the cruise — or that they thought their spouse would probably enjoy the cruise —  but it hadn’t happened yet, for reasons unknown.  One could see it happening someday… while the other had little interest in visiting Alaska.  Both had planned other vacations this year; the “uninterested” one had gathered her eight closest friends with their husbands and her own, to jet over to Europe in a few weeks, to take a cruise sailing from Barcelona with many ports of call, including an exotic sounding Morocco.  Someday, I’d like to do that, too, for Barcelona is near the top of my travel bucket list.  I remember how surprised she was to hear that I had chosen to return to Alaska… since there were so many other fascinating places to visit in the world.

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Tracy Arm Fjord

Funny thing about that, though, is that with this second visit almost over, I can see myself returning here for a third time.  There is so much to see and experience.  The first trip we marveled over the quiet and wild beauty and all the wildlife.  Seeing humpback whales up close is something I still shake my head over in wonder.  This trip we not only took a float plane into the Misty Fjords near Ketchikan…

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Flying in the Misty Fjord

…but were lucky enough to float a guided raft down a “skinny” river in a eagle preserve near Haines… on a blue sky sunny day!  My two photos of the day serve merely as icons of the moment…I know they do not hint of the sacredness of place and time experienced there.  Hopefully, they’ll help me remember.

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Eagle Preserve, north of Haines, Alaska

I believe that every place possesses its own special brand of beauty and secrets.  And all I need to do is show up, with eyes open at half-mast.  Sounds easy, doesn’t it?  So why is it… that for the most part, I’m not alert enough to see it. To sense a place with ears and nose and fingers and toes.  I do better, here in Alaska, I think, since distractions from everyday life recede in the majesty of what lies before me at every angle, as far as the eye can see.

IMG_0806 Here, in Alaska, the playing field is leveled so that even the normally non-observant ones, like me — the ones who have their heads in the clouds rather than feet planted on firm ground — can sail away feeling a little more in tune with nature and God.  And maybe, a little more in tune with themselves.

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Alaska’s wild blue yonder

Alaska is too artsy and alive and awake… to ever grow into a tired and overused cliche.  Wonder of wonders, in spite of receiving three-quarters of a million visitors each year, there’s plenty of majesty left.  It waits for you.  And it waits for me, too.

It puts me in the mood to pull out that journal of John Muir I purchased last time I was here.  How I wish it were here with me… instead of waiting on my bookshelf back home along with all those ever-so-lovely distractions.

The Laundry Channel

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by Janell in Far Away Places, Life at Home

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Cruising, Friends, retirement, vacations

Jamaica CarnivalLast week’s sailing in the western Caribbean seems far removed from the stacks of laundry surrounding me.

It doesn’t seem real that we swam with dolphins four days ago.  That only five have passed since we parasailed with friends in Grand Cayman.  Or that Jamaica — the land of “no problems… and only situations,” where the header photo was shot six days ago — should feel as fuzzy as any ethereal memory freshly minted by dreams.  How is it that the good feeling created by vacations carries over, while the concrete specifics of good times wash away from memory… minutes after they happen?

My husband and I’ve been home less than two days, enough time to work through seven loads of laundry.  I didn’t realize we owned so many clothes.  But somehow, it’s the clothes that anchor the reality of our dreamy cruise vacation with Texas friends.  I remember wearing the red ruffled tank with the shimmery pants on Monday evening.  Wednesday saw me in white denim cropped pants and Caribbean blue tank.  Thursday, a Hibiscus red cotton skirt with an indigo blue tank.

Each outfit carries a care label, which I follow to a T.  Cold water wash.  Tumble dry low.  Lie flat.  Line dry.  And though I have no clothes line, the chair backs of my patio table make perfect personal valets to dry wet shirts and pants upon.  Yesterday’s warm sunshine and strong winds witnessed four “loads” hanging across those metal chair backs.

Even now, I marvel at how easily this trip fell into place.  I didn’t expect invitations extended in late January to two Texas couples to be received so positively…. that they would rearrange planned events in their lives to make it happen… all to join me and help celebrate my husband’s recent retirement.  When I thanked them for coming, they said they were honored to be asked.  All week long, we took turns saying how wonderful a time we were having together.  And how nice it would be if we could make it all happen again.

But here’s the surprise souvenir from my time away:  I return to laundry and “real” life knowing that it will be okay if the miracle of traveling with these dear friends never happens again.  Because when something is good enough the first time, fine enough to feel like it belongs to the world of dreams rather than waking life, repetition becomes unnecessary.  Once becomes enough for a lifetime.

Which makes me wonder whether there are greater lessons to be learned in what happens in everyday life.  In those things, like laundry, which require routine repetition.

Cruising Along Time and Space

02 Thursday Sep 2010

Posted by Janell in Life at Home, The Great Outdoors

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Alaska, Cruising, Travel

Alaska’s beauty robs me purpose, of the small discipline I normally possess.

Tuesday’s mission was whale watching.  Yesterday’s was to wander the streets of a third coastal town.  Today’s intention remains unknown.  All I know for sure is that thoughts of home are stirring …and that, as nice as cruising is, one day and town run into another.

Was it Tuesday or Wednesday?  The question generated big discussion at dinner two nights ago; the question was settled by the calendar on someone’s watch:  It was Tuesday.  Instead of days of the week, ports of call mark time on board.   Tuesday was Icy Strait Point, Wednesday was Ketchikan.  Today we are cruising along time and space, set loose upon the seas.

Activities too, partition time into 45 minute intervals.  Wednesday, after touring Ketchikan, we gathered for afternoon activities; my husband and I learned the basics of Italian in the first set of 45; later, we played another 45 of “Name That ’80’s Tune” trivia game.

Would you believe two young things from Jersey won?   These girls were wearing diapers and running around a school playground when these songs were first spinning from a turntable.  But yesterday the tables had turned – the songs, once ours, we no longer knew by name, no matter how many notes streamed from the IPOD.

The competition was good.  And though fair, it wasn’t pretty.  Had my mother seen it, she would have called them bad sports – and she would have said it loud enough for everyone to hear.  Every time they jotted down a correct answer – about 17 for 20 — they scanned their competition.  And finding stumped expressions, they’d taunt their poor feeble minded competitors with, “Come on, you guys grew up with this music.  I can’t believe you don’t know this one.”  They took the prize, these two from Jersey.

Of course, the best prizes don’t come from shipboard games.  One of mine came in Tuesday’s port of call.  A picture postcard setting — periwinkle seas shimmering silver from sun dripping through clouds, the ocean mirroring a faint outline of distant mountains – fading into background when, not fifty feet from where I stood, a beautiful Humpback Whale broke through the sea’s surface.  As her head skimmed the waters beside us, she blew geyser mist above her blow hole, disturbing the quiet with a giant rush of air.

Taking deep breaths is preparation for cruising along time and space.

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?”

-- Thornton Wilder, "Our Town"

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