Monday, August 3, 2015

“Here's another nice mess...”

With parts for the Beast and the solar panel install in transit from places hither and yon, we left Kintala to her own devices this weekend, rented a car, and drove to PA for a visit with family. It is about a four hour run from here to where my parents live. We got there in time to join them for lunch. While in the dining room word came that the closing on the condo was complete! For well and true everything we own now floats with us on our old Tartan.
Road Trip!

I have to admit to a moment of thinking, “Well, here's another nice mess you have gotten me into”. (Which is the proper quote from Professors Laurel and Hardy.) We are, by some reckoning anyway, homeless. And, just for the record, I was talking to myself. I have a long history of backing myself into a corner and then having to invent a way to escape. Some were harmless. Some less so. A few could have been down right serious and required some quick thinking, fast action, and a huge dash of luck to escape unscathed. (Or, occasionally, with a slight case of scathe.)

But the reality is that we were in a bit of a mess but are now in much less of one. The constant drain of resources: financial, emotional, and in relentless hassle and effort that having a place on land entailed, is gone. Though we be “homeless” in the normal sense of the world according to the American Dream we do, in fact, enjoy a very nice home. (Even if we do share it with a Beast.)

In fact we have many homes now or, perhaps, a really big home with many, many rooms. Biscayne Bay is a room in our home, as is the Chesapeake. The Abaco Islands are a different room, along with several places in the Eleuthera Islands. Once we find a place, set the hook, and hang around for a while, it becomes another room in our home.

This home is so big that we don't really own it. It owns us. It rocks us to sleep and sometimes rocks us awake. It teaches, frightens, soothes, admonishes, and rewards as it sees fit. Sometimes, for days on end, we stay in the same room. Sometimes, for days on end, we use a different room nearly every day. But regardless, in a way I am still learning to understand, we are always at home.

The condo is history. Kintala is in the water. There are only a few projects left to finish before we go explore some more rooms in our home. It really is a very nice mess we find ourselves in.


3 comments:

Mike Boyd said...

Congratulations on your mess! :-)

-Mike
ThisRatSailed

Unknown said...

I prefer to say we are "houseless", as we have a home, she just floats :)

Jeffrey Michals-Brown said...

Congratulations! Sorry to bring it up, but I hope there is enough in the bank for a Plan B should it every become necessary to live ashore again.