Musings on Aging and Winter

Its been interesting winter so far, and I've got to say I've been loving it. I enjoy the seasonal travel by boat, exploring new places, but at the same time, its been lovely staying in one place and watching the landscape gradually change with the seasons. I feel just a bit more in touch with nature this way - ironic, since in fact we've spent the last 3 months in a plastic bubble rarely able to look outside except to the east, but in fact, feeling a bit chill, hearing the hiss of snow or the pat of rain, and the shift of wind and tide, *does* make me feel in tune with the seasons. When we went south, we stayed in a little bubble, a zone of 70-degree weather (20 C, I think?) for months on end, moving south then north again as that temperate zone moved, and it was disorienting. But here, its been cozy, we've spent a lot of time cooking, and hanging out just the two of us, as there is little activity on the dock.

But not totally antisocial ... we had an absolutely awesome superbowl party, connected up with a lot of new folks, and of course it was nice that the local team won. At one point Dan & I realized that we were the oldest people there, and the second-most experienced cruisers. Most of the folks we'd learned from had moved back ashore, if they were still interested in traveling, they did so by car and plane. We were able to advise the next group of younger, newer boaters, which is very cool ... but was making us feel old. I remember visiting the American Indian museum in Washington DC and they had a videoed conversation with an elder, and at one point s/he was asked, "How do you become an elder?" and the answer was something like, "There is no ceremony, no declaration. You become an elder when there is a question, and there is no one older or wiser to ask." Suddenly, at our superbowl party, while we were chatting with K & D about boat insulation for winter, we realized that *we* were the elders. Both exciting, and humbling. Becsuse yes, we have a lot of info, but there's still so much we *don't* know. It feels like a responsibility, what if while we're talking with them, we leave out something important? And that causes problems for them? Back in September, we had sent them an email warning that (certain kind of heater) doesn't work in cold water, and most of us use oil-filled electric heaters in Jan & Feb. But that was in September, and during the last cold snap, they had long forgotten that advice, and tried to use the other heater, which didn't work, as predicted. She'd acknowledged that when she went back to the email, everyhting she needed to know was there, but she hadn't remembered. So now we're going to get together later this week, and go over again with them everyhting we can think of about living on a boat in winter ... and I'm really hoping that its not my turn to forget something. [Special bonus for me, is that some of what we discuss will help me organize my thoughts for my part of the book I've been invited to coauthor]

In contrast to being the elders on Sunday, yesterday we went to an awesome science lecture on legal & regulatory issues about water pollution. I know, that doesn't sound exciting, but for me it was. They talked about issues that almost exactly spanned the timing of my professional career, and on the intersection of science with public policy in writing rules that worked. (yeah, okay, sounds dorky, I get it. Bear with me, okay? I really miss getting deep into the science - as I mentioned in a blog post a couple of months ago, I no longer *work* as a scientist, but I never stopped *being* one - science is still the way I look at the world, I still want to know "why" things are the way they are.) That evening, we were chatting about the event and some of the audience questions, and side conversations. Many of the latter were about things like identifying people in old photos from approx 1920s and 1930s, and how the people were gone, and in many cases even the children were gone. And some of the audience questions sounded like people were a bit desperate to prove that they were still relevant, that they still had a grasp of the science or that their old work was still relevant. And I thought, uh-oh, will I sound like that too, in some years? Right now, we're the rock stars of this group - people are fascinated by our stories of life on the boat, and Dan pointed out that I was the youngest person in the room. And maybe, just being aware that you can come across that way, will prevent it happening. But I realized that that was one of the reasons I didn't want to do anything science-related in retirement, I wanted to focus on *new* things - maritime history and sailing - so that I wouldn't be tempted to live in my own past. And don't get me wrong - I'm incredibly happy doing what I'm doing now. Just thinking about future, a little bit.

Some of this musing has been brought on by our discussions of what I call our "reentry fund." Someday, we too will need to move back to land somewhere. We're keeping some money set aside to remodel our condo or buy or build a new home, when that day comes, and buy some furniture and a new(er) car. [We're still discussing how much that should be, and how much we can spend now. Which of course depends on a whole bunch of things we can't answer, like, when and where we'll move ashore. We haven't found our perfect place, yet.]