A year on hold Part 1

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My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

What have I been up to for the last year? Nothing!

In the fall of 2005 I quit my job in New York City to go back to school and finish my Bachelor’s Degree. I gave myself a few months off to wrap up my life in New York, visit my family in California and then move to Colorado in January. The week after I quit, I binge-watched all six seasons of Sex in the City on Netflix DVDs. After a week I got together with one of my friends who eagerly asked me how I was and what I had been up to in my new life of leisure. How am I? I don’t know- but I can tell you how Samantha is doing! This year has felt like that. What’s new? NOTHING! Have you heard about going back? Nope. The transition from the ever-changing activity of the ship to the peacefulness of life on the farm has left me feeling like I’ve been doing nothing. But looking back over the whole year, that isn’t true- a few things have happened while we’ve been waiting for the world to open up again.

Legit family time

Obviously, I have a tendency to wander. After being held down by gainful employment (with minimal vacation days) for five years I view my time off as time to travel. Though my home base between contracts is at my aunt and uncle’s farm, I’ve only spent a couple of weeks there during my two month breaks. I was only planning on being back for a couple of days before I squeezed in a trip to London (to visit my friend Rose), Liverpool (so Lauren could show me around her hometown) and Prague (I haven’t been!) really quickly before my cousin’s wedding on May 9th. But by the time I landed, no one was going anywhere. Still, it was a couple of months before I really unpacked my suitcases. This time with my family has turned out to be an absolute blessing.

I am also grateful that I was locked down in a bubble of five people rather than being by myself, which I relish in spurts but it can be so isolating long term. We took turns making dinner, played Dominos and Uno, put together puzzles (generously provided by my friend Sarah) and drank lots of homemade wine (admittedly, it was made in someone else’s home). More importantly, we’ve really gotten to hang out beyond filling each other in on what has happened since we last saw each other.

How have I been filling my days?

I’ve watched lots of Netflix and read lots of books (things I fantasize about doing on the ship). While juggling normally about 5 books at once (I like to alternate between at least one fiction, one non-fiction and a memoir) my biggest accomplishments, reading-wise, were Ron Chernow’s Washington and Barack Obama’s latest book (both of them over 700 pages). Those books required a level of concentration and commitment that I haven’t had in years. At least half of the books I’ve read were by women of color or stories about people in other countries. I thought that after a year off I would be able to read all the books on my wish list at the digital library, but somehow, that list keeps getting longer.

At first (when I thought this ‘pause’ would only last a couple of months) I busied myself catching up on this blog– writing about the adventures I’d had over the last 6 months and learning a new Zumba routine. After two years of doing the same routine, I had given up on the idea that I would learn a new routine during my two month vacation or during my spare time on the ship. It took four months of basically having nothing else to work on before I had a new one ready to teach – that didn’t make me feel so bad!. In addition to finding the perfect flow of speeding up and slowing down and the choreography, the hardest part is learning the cues to indicate what move is coming next. As I’ve gotten tired of doing Zumba alone with my computer, I’ve transitioned to doing more walking with Blue, Cameron and Selina’s dog.

We walk around the vineyards, and Blue leaps through the fields and the ditches like a deer. We’ve gotten up to walking 5-8 miles a day. I listen to podcasts (where I devour all the latest updates on COVID 19) and Blue chases squirrels.

I mean, that’s pretty much it! Going to the grocery store has become an event that I look forward to. With so little to report on how I’ve spent my time, it still amazes me how quickly the time flies- it’s the weekend again before I know it (though I’m only able to recognize the weekend because more people are home)!

Drama

Drama and gossip were definitely things I missed this year. When everyone in the house is home all day, there is less to talk about- a play by play of my trip to the grocery store became an interesting story. When we ran out of our own drama, other people’s drama felt closer to home. I often called my mom to tell her stories about people she (or even I ) didn’t know just for the act of sharing some gossip. The election and the trial of George Floyd’s murder had us glued to the TV for days.

Holidays

You wouldn’t think Holidays would get its own caption during a pandemic, but this year has been really fun for me. On the ship, every holiday becomes an extra party to host. I mean, every day we try to create a vacation level of fun anyway, so when a holiday comes around, we have to up our game to make an experience that’s even more special without being able to test it out and tweak it week by week. In other words, on the ship, holidays are a lot of extra work. This year I indulged in enjoying the party- not that there were any parties- usually we just ate more and drank more with the same people. On the ship I host and dance, off the ship I really enjoy only dancing when I want to. Easter, Fourth of July, not dressing up for Halloween, Thanksgiving with my family-by-blood, Christmas. Sometimes I even changed out of my daily sweatpants for the occasion!

Drama a little closer to home

In June 2020 my sister, Megan, came over for a socially distant visit and we noticed that her normal eccentricities seemed to be unusually magnified. Our dad was diagnosed bipolar a few years ago, and her demeanor was reminiscent of our dad when he was in the middle of a psychotic break. My sister’s friends had contacted my mom saying they were concerned about her behavior, so my mom arranged for Megan to visit her in Washington state. At the Seattle airport, Megan was behaving erratically enough that she was picked up by the police and hospitalized before my mom was able to pick her up. She was diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder, and unlike my dad, she embraced the diagnosis. She said that the diagnosis actually helped her understand how her brain worked differently and clarified why many experiences in her past had been uncommonly stressful or uncomfortable. While she was in the hospital, we speculated about how much help she would need when she got out. Because of the pandemic, my mom wasn’t able to visit her, but she was able to bring her some extra clothes (she ended up being held for a couple of weeks). Luckily, the hospital in Washington was able to get her connected with a schedule of followup services. Megan ended up staying with my mom a little longer than she had initially planned. They looked into having Megan move up to Sequim, but ultimately, Megan decided that it would be easier for her to get situated with her network in Sacramento. A few days before August, my mom and Megan drove down to California to attend my cousin Cameron’s wedding and get her settled back in Sacramento.

Cameron’s Wedding – The Event of the Summer

From the moment I’d heard that my cousin Cameron had proposed to Selina, his girlfriend of 13 years (they got together in middle school), I knew I wanted to be at the wedding. This was in the spring of 2019 and they set the date for the wedding for May 9th, 2020. I was on the Caribbean Princess at the time and I had already extended my six-month contract by over a month. I did the math and figured out that if I extended my contract again (to just under 9 months), went on my two-month vacation, then did another six-month contract, my next vacation would allow me to be there in May. It worked! When the world started to shut down toward the end of my contract on the Golden, my boss quietly asked if anyone needed to go home. If we didn’t get off the ship then, there was a chance we could be stuck on board for a couple of months. I was really enjoying the people on board, but I wanted to be sure to be at that wedding (which at the time was 7 weeks away). My contract was close enough to the end that they ended up sending me home without my needing to ask for special treatment. Ironically, when I told my boss that I wanted to be back for a wedding in May, he said, ‘There’s not going to be a wedding in May. There aren’t going to be any weddings or anything for a long time.’ I rolled my eyes thinking he was being overly dramatic.

Well, as you know, I made it to California in time, but with the shut down in full swing, Selina and Cameron moved their wedding to August 1st. Surely things would be better by then! (It was close enough that if I was asked to come back on the ship, I would just tell them that I wouldn’t be able to go back until after the wedding. Ha! Little did I know, it’s over a year later they still haven’t asked me to come back.)

As August approached, Cameron and Selina went back and forth about what to do about the wedding. They had originally thought about having the wedding at the Farm, but as the guest list grew, they reserved a winery on the River Road. As August grew closer, though, it became evident that public gatherings wouldn’t be allowed anytime soon. They cut the guest list down to just family and some very close friends and moved the event back to the farm. Every weekend everyone would work on fixing up the yard and the house. I was so entertained by watching how everyone thought that different things were most important to fix up (and they thought someone else’s idea of a priority was silly).

Selina had asked me months before to be a wedding coordinator. I told her I didn’t know exactly what that entailed, but I would totally do it. I learned that there were people who were paid big bucks to do what I often did on the ship! My job was to make sure everything was set up and in its place and everyone was where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there. My organizational skills were so happy! I pulled up a fresh Excel sheet and made myself a schedule down to the minute (including making sure someone fed the dogs and the horses).

Finally the day came and we crossed our fingers as all of our separate little bubbles came together, masked, distanced and outdoors to celebrate the love of Cameron and Selina.

Now I’ve been to small weddings and big weddings. I’ve been a guest, I’ve been family and I’ve been a bridesmaid a couple of times. Weddings always made me think of a play where the bride and groom are the stars of the show, the wedding party are the supporting characters (the ones who stood closest to the stars in the cast picture), the family is like the ensemble (they’re important and they have to be in some specific places, but it isn’t too hard to figure that out) and everyone else is like the audience (an essential part of the experience- but they pretty much just show up and have a good time). I was the stage manager. I was busy, but I got to see the show and be a part of what happened backstage. I loved handling (and delegating) all the little issues that pop up that no one anticipated.

Cameron and Selina each shared their vows with me before the ceremony so I could make sure they would sound good together and wouldn’t be repetitive. They did.

It was just the best day. Everything went the way everyone wanted it to with a couple of extra surprises thrown in. Selina was happy. Cameron was happy. Wendy and Stu were happy. We talked about our favorite moments for months afterward.

Two weeks later we all let out a sigh of relief. No one who attended had gotten sick. We had taken as many precautions as we could think of and it was such a blessing to be able to celebrate that day without regrets.

I did start looking into more Wedding Coordinator gigs, but alas, like acting and traveling there weren’t many out there.

So I guess I’ve been up to more than nothing. I’m going to need to break this up into more posts. More to come!