I invite you to imagine, if you wish.
You are a sailor on a clipper ship, circa 1851. Your boat is your home, but it is also the remarkably thin barrier that separates you from the ocean.
Luckily, you have a well-built boat, straight from the yard, wood planking well-stuffed with oakum to prevent leaks. It’s as close to watertight as a wooden ship can be, which is good. Keeping the water out of the boat is the primary requirement for crossing oceans.
But it is not the only one.
Your boat also must allow people, food, and cargo to pass below decks, so they have cut holes into your otherwise watertight boat. Hatchways allow people below to breathe and force mildew spores to work a lot harder to thrive.
Most of the time, this arrangement works fine.
But what to do when a storm is brewing? Enormous seas could easily send a two-foot wave careening across the deck from stem to stern. If such a wave gets through the hatchways and fills the hold with water, your boat will sink in mere minutes.
How do you protect these holes in your boat?
You’ve never heard of such substances as plastic or fiberglass, and vulcanized rubber has not yet found its way from laboratories onto ships.
What you have is canvas. When you place a sheet of canvas in the rigging, you call it a sail. Place one over the hatchways, and it’s called a pall. Good start, but not especially waterproof.
Ah, but you also have tar. Loads of it. It’s heavy, and smelly, and awful to work with, but your captain requires you to smear it on standing rigging to keep it from fraying, and dip oakum in it before wedging it into cracks. And now you coat your canvas—your pall—in tar to make it water resistant.
You call it a tarpaulin.
One day, your grandchildren’s grandchildren will simply call it a tarp, but for now, you have a reasonably waterproof covering for the holes in your boat. Next step—how to keep it in place? For that, you have long strips of wood that you nail over the tarpaulin like a frame. You call them battens.
You have now battened down the hatches.
The storm may come, and may even bring some boisterous conditions, but you can face it with the full confidence of preparation.
Well done.
Over time, your grandchildren’s grandchildren will start using your very literal phrase more figuratively, to prepare for other types of storms that may be brewing.
For me, in that context, March was very much a batten down the hatches month as Colin and I prepare to move and sell our house. It meant trimming back to only what we need to stay happy and sane through the transition, protecting a few essential objects and a couple of essential rituals.
As we sold, gave away, or packed everything else, I held onto my moka pot, laptop, and comfy hat like a 3-part security blanket. I also found that as long as I prioritized healthy meals and writing mornings, the days could be as hectic as they needed to be.
While the process wasn’t always clean or smooth, it allowed me to finish the first draft of the novel and be ready for the U-Haul at the same time.
So, yay! But wait—where are we moving to?
We have a couple of years to wait before Garcia builds our sailboat, so we’ll be spending as much time with precious family as we can, and doing some longer-term traveling.
As of now, we have no firm destination, just an open map. Essentially, we are becoming nomadic boat people again—be it land-based ones for the time being. And gypsy life means swapping firm plans for vague intentions and the willingness to embrace what presents itself.
Sound scary?
Sure. A bit. It’s certainly not how we’re used to living life, circa 2023.
In the GPS turn-by-turn directions era, we’re essentially deciding to sail off the map and see what we discover.
Then again, deciding to go all-in on your dreams is never about choosing the easiest path, or expecting any guaranteed outcomes. And we're extraordinarily grateful to be able to do just that.
Meanwhile, our hatches are well-battened, so whatever comes, we’re confident we'll stay merrily afloat.
Whatever conditions you face in April, planned, spontaneous, or otherwise, I hope you have a beautiful and empowering one!
Fair winds,
Cheyenne
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