Thursday, January 24, 2013

Back South in Marathon


Well, we're back again in the sunny south after a holiday season full of great visits with Jenn and Greg, Sam, Jeremy and our grandsons, Nathan, Chris and Ryan, as well as with Sandra's sister Paula and her brother Scott and family. What a full and enjoyable three weeks for us! Of course it was winter up there. We managed to get slowed down by a winter storm as we attempted to make it from Virginia to New Hampshire in a day. It ended up taking two. We were glad that we kept our winter jackets with Sam in New Hampshire. With temps dipping down as low as 5 degrees, we were reminded why we spend this time of year in the Keys. After the visits, we drove our car down to the Keys to provide us with extra mobility as we've done for the past two years.

The title of the last blog entry included the word “Home” in the title. Now that we've returned to Marathon and our boat, I've been thinking a bit more about what is behind that term for us. During our travel north, we visited areas of the country we once called home. While still familiar, they don't any longer fit the definition of “home” for me. How do I define home these days. Do I not have any real home. Certainly the definitions offered by the norms of our culture fail to provide as adequate description. Most people have a house or rental unit in some town they call home. We have the boat,but it isn't connected to a particular geographic location.

As I thought more about the subject, I came to the conclusion that other factors are key. While we are here in Marathon, we are more involved with local activities. We appear to be more social as well. While we can't say that the friends we spent time with last year while here are the ones we socialize with this year. (There's always some change in the population each year.) So far we've split our time between boaters we called friends last year with others we met after we arrived this year. There are still others who live in Marathon all year. We've reconnected with a few of these as well as the boaters in the harbor. When we combine all this with the list of activities attracting our attention, we find ourselves forced to make decisions about what we will engage in and what we'll bypass so we don't find ourselves over scheduled. We still look forward to spending time at the beach or taking the boat out periodically to some remote island in Florida Bay for a couple of days of isolation.

A Bahamas seminar
We've been back here after the holidays for two weeks. In that time We've been to a couple of seminars focused on boat maintenance and the Bahamas; Sandra has also spent time helping others learn how to make pine needle baskets;we've both been to Tai Chi classes in addition to spending some time helping others new to Tai Chi; we've been to contra dancing twice, once led by our local dentist. We've both also worked on several boat projects. And we spent a couple of days out in Florida Bay totally by ourselves. Additionally, we've had friends over to dinner twice and been on the boat of friends on another occasion. Our schedule at any other time of the year in other places has been nowhere near this busy. Does this level of activity help to define “home” for us? I'm still trying to figure it out. What do you think, and how would you define “home”?
Our neighborhood...home?

I've been dealing with energy issues and the repair of our windlass, but these will be the topic of a future blog entry. Till then....

Carpe Diem

Captain Bob

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