Ship Log Blog

Ship Log Blog

I write weekly stories from life working on a cruise ship.
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  • Spontaneous Uncontrollable Joy

    And no pictures to prove it

    This story was originally published to subscribers of Ship Log Blog on Substack. Get new posts by email at the link below:

    shiplogblog.substack.com
    Not Antigua

    Last week I signed up to “escort” a shore excursion in Antigua. This is a cool opportunity crew has to tag along with the adventures offered to sailors. It is technically a volunteer experience as we are often asked to help out a little, but helping usually consists of being the line leader to the bus and filling out a survey afterward. It’s a great way to do really fun things in port for free.

    The excursion I signed up to escort was “Half Day Catamaran to Beach”. Which sounded pretty fucking perfect to me. Antigua was the only port left that I had not yet gotten off to explore and this was my last chance.

    I met the Shore Excursion people at 9:30am and by 9:50 I was leading a group of about 30 sailors down to the gangway and out to the port where we met our tour guide, a delightfully grumpy Antiguan woman who mama ducked us to a small dock just in time for our catamaran to pull up. We hopped on and buzzed away from the chaos.

    It is difficult to explain how incredible it feels to leave the ship and get on a boat. Please feel free to go back into the archives at shiplogblog.com for an in depth explanation on the difference between a ship and a boat. They are not the same. The ship is an artificial floating city where I both live and work. A boat is FREEDOM. It zips right past the towering hulk of the ship and zooms away into paradise.

    Antigua IS paradise. It has a truly indescribable color to it’s water. Milky teal? That sounds gross. Lightly pearlescent blue green. That’s better.

    I sat at the front of the catamaran by the nets with some sailors from Houston and navigated the usual questions about what it’s like working on a ship that always come when people find out I’m crew. I’m used to it. It’s boring but not terribly taxing. It honestly makes me seem exotic and interesting which of course I am.

    We got to our first destination, a coral reef. I donned my snorkeling gear and nerdy bright orange floatie that I was required to wear for insurance reasons and jumped in. I love being in the water and bonus points for any opportunity I get to keep my face submerged for as long as possible. I’ve seen enough reefs to recognize that this one was dying, but most of them are. It didn’t make the parrot fish any less beautiful.

    After about 15 minutes I climbed back on the boat, already sporting what would turn out to be a pretty killer sunburn on my ass, and I broke my no day drinking rule to partake in some local rum punch and flirt with the boat crew.

    We unmoored from the reef and sailed to shore, pulling right up onto Dickenson Bay Beach, one of the more beautiful and popular beaches on the island. Our snorkeling guide Marke handed me another rum punch and asked if I’d like to share a joint with him, an offer I had to regretfully decline due to the invisible contractual tether tying me to maritime law no matter where I am.

    I swam alone into that pearlescent water and got my heart pumping with some gentle freestyle laps back and forth away from the tourists. Here’s where that spontaneous joy comes in.

    It hit me like a wave, tickling each chakra from the root to the crown until it burst out of me in a surge of laughter. I floated there in that tropical eden, looking out over the ocean, overcome with such gratitude for this existence, this life, this planet, there was nothing I could do but laugh and spin while tears spilled from my eyes and the salt from my body rejoined the mother from which it came.

    I may complain sometimes about the sacrifices required to do this job, to be away from my friends and family for such long periods of time, but it’s moments like this that remind me how lucky I am. If I died tomorrow I would die happy knowing I didn’t waste my life tucked away in some cubicle I hated. I LIVED. I may never have any measurable success or money or a storybook romance for the ages, but I walked out into the world bravely and I tasted life, the good and the bad and I thanked the stars for the meal.

    I got day drunk and suffered the subsequent hangover because sometimes the cute boat crew and sunshine call for breaking your own rules.

    Here’s the kicker. I didn’t take one picture that day. I never even took my phone out of my bag. I’d like to think my memory will hold this one for me. I am trying to break the habit of performing life for the algorithm. This life is for me, not for the followers or the saturated calorie rich validation I get from the likes or for Suckerberg’s bank account.

    My journal, this blog post and my own neurons will have to be enough to sustain this memory’s hold. And if the fog of age and time take it, that’s ok too. Because the magical connection I felt to all things in that sparkling milky teal moment charged me like a battery of love and joy and gratitude and that will never not be true.

    Thanks for reading and joining me on this journey of living an authentic life in an increasingly artificial world. Breaking my old people pleasing habits and nurturing love within myself instead of chasing it from external sources has been a longer path than I could have imagined, but I’m walking it and I’m happy to know I’m not walking alone.

  • Because I said so

    On being done with asking “why?”

    This story was originally published to subscribers of Ship Log Blog on Substack. Get new posts by email at the link below:

    shiplogblog.substack.com
    Why this particular bathroom selfie?

    I feel bad for “who, what, where, when and how”. My whole life I have been obsessed with just one: Why? It’s like those other poor Ws don’t even matter. I didn’t care about the practical, give me existential every time.

    My mom ended up deploying that classic mom response in exhaustion.

    “Because I said so”

    I hated this sentence so much. I found it inexplicably frustrating not to have the reasoning behind every family decision, every get in the car, every no dessert until you eat your vegetables explained to me as though I had the right to approve or deny based on the information.

    This need to know followed me into adulthood, except at some point it turned inward. Why is it so hard to advocate for myself? Why do I always fall for narcissists and addicts? Why does my brain always say such cruel things to me? Why do I always think of the witty comeback when it’s too late? Why do I sleep so much or resist online dating or want to eat triscuits and cheese for every meal when I know it hurts my tummy?

    Why am I always sad when I should be angry? Why can’t I decide what I want next? Why am I so averse to loving myself?

    I’ve spent years in therapy asking these whys. Like if I could just figure out the causation, truly understand the reasoning, I could fix it. I could make a plan and turn it around.

    My therapist used to say to me “Ya know, right now it doesn’t really matter why”.

    I wish he had screamed it. I wish I had heard him, believed him the first 30 times he said it. But that’s not how the heart, mind and soul work is it? We come to these understandings in our own time. But I think I finally get it.

    Why is the least important, least interesting question there is.

    Why is the past and what matters is the present.

    As I am on my midlife enlightenment journey, embracing radical acceptance has been an incredible gift. It makes the “why” of it all so much less important. “Why” is ruminating, which has been my ego’s favorite game for as long as I can remember and WE DON’T DO RUMINATION ANYMORE REMEMBER??

    When I realized that knowing why wouldn’t change the past, present or future, I began to see how little weight it carried. Does it help to understand your traumas to know that you created your egoic mask for self protection in the first place? Sure, but once you understand that the ego is a defense mechanism that no longer serves you, the only path is releasing it. At a certain point “why” becomes obsolete.

    This is an incredibly liberating understanding and helps in all aspects of life. Including the tightly controlled environment I currently live in.

    Ship Log Blog is free but it makes me feel good about myself when you subscribe.

    Which brings me to the ship.

    A cruise ship is all the best parts of corporate structure and military structure smooshed together in a tight floating package. They are the peanut butter cup of American capitalism.

    There are a lot of seemingly nonsensical rules, regulations and requests that crew members must obey. A lot of these things make no sense to me. Some of them actually make no sense at all, and were decided by people who love spreadsheets in a boardroom far far away.

    Meanwhile, some are very important.

    Like the maritime rules. These I don’t question. I don’t understand how this big bitch stays afloat. I watched the Costa Concordia documentary. I accept that safety is and should be the number one priority on the ocean. So when they close down deck 7 for maintenance or run an hour long P.A. test at 8am or hold an analogue crew drill that requires two hours of standing quietly in line wearing a life vest in 95 degree heat, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and let it go.

    I do not ask why. If I did I’m sure the captain would deploy my mom’s answer.

    (When they told me I had to wear sleeves in the mess hall I DID ask why. “Because it’s unsanitary to have exposed armpits hanging over the salad”. To which I said “excellent point” and bought a cute little shrug to go over my strappy dresses.)

    Some of the corporate mandates from shoreside are very annoying. I’m talking about the “hotel” side of the operation, not maritime. These are the decisions handed down by those data loving boardroom overlords. These are harder to radically accept. I want very much to ask why. Sometimes I still do, quietly and snarkily to my peers.

    But alas, my why’s go unanswered, so these too I have released. I have to wear the hot itchy accessory for the entirety of my show? ok. I’m not allowed to eat upstairs in the dining hall until 5pm on sea days? sure why not. No gym clothes in the mess hall, no stickers on my name badge, no saying “cunt” into the microphone? You got it boss.

    I used to rail against it, but now I am at peace with the madness. It’s all above my pay grade anyway. Rules change as senior leadership comes and goes like the phases of the moon. One can’t be too precious about anything.

    A new decree came down the pipeline this week. Very soon we will reposition to NYC for the month of April. NYC is my home. I was excited. I had plans. I was going to rehearse my play in midtown and visit my best friend and pick up those toiletries I left behind.

    But then “they” changed our port from the one in midtown to the one in Red Hook.

    Then “they” announced that the CBP (US Customs and Border Patrol) would not be granting shore leave. This means that crew members would not be allowed off the ship.

    You read that correctly. I, an American citizen, when docked in my hometown, a few short miles away from my apartment, am not allowed to get off the ship in which I am currently contractually contained.

    One friend stated it succinctly when she said “That sounds prison-esque”

    DOESN’T IT JUST?

    I’ve often described working on a ship as like being in prison in paradise. It’s unsettling to be accustomed to a certain amount of freedom and to have that freedom stripped away. Considering all the authoritarian atrocities being committed across the world and in my own country right now, I am talking from a place of real privilege here and I recognize that.

    In flows the radical acceptance. I don’t need to ask “why” the CBP isn’t granting shore leave even to the American crew members. I could offer any number of guesses but it doesn’t change the outcome. I have to stay on the ship.

    SO I’ll try to sign my theater company members onboard on day passes so we can rehearse here. I’ll find another friend who can bring that bag of toiletries to me. And I’ll wave at Brooklyn from the edge of deck 16. I’ll see her again soon enough.

    These days, when a “why” starts to bubble up, as it has the habit of doing, I hear the answer from God/the Unmanifested/the Tao/the Universe and it sounds surprisingly like my mom.

    “Because I said so”

    There are plenty of important battles to be fought, grounds to stand, major life decisions to be made. As I a sit in the middle of a huge inflection point in my life, I don’t need to wrestle with the small stuff. “Because I said so” is good enough for me.

    ADDENDUM:

    It turns out bad information is as common as seasickness around here. A few days ago the crew engagement officer stopped me on the A1A to tell me he’d heard I was saying there was no shore leave for NYC when in fact they cannot stop Americans from leaving the ship in American ports.

    Like, duh.

    So it looks like I AM allowed to get off the ship in my hometown. I’m so glad I already arranged for my theater company to come onboard. It’s a good thing I’m so relaxed and zen about everything these days or this whole misunderstanding could have been pretty annoying.

  • Touching Land

    How to stay connected to the Earth when living on the water

    This story was originally published to subscribers of Ship Log Blog on Substack. Get new posts by email at the link below:

    shiplogblog.substack.com
    My hand touching Africa for the first time

    When you live at sea, land becomes a gift.

    My ship contracts are six months long. Over the course of those six months we often visit the same ports over and over again with one central “home port” at the center of every week. There are exceptions to this. Sometimes we reposition, ship speak for switching from one home port to another, often crossing whole oceans.

    On my second contract, I started in Australia, crossed the Indian Ocean to Africa, swept around the Cape of Good Hope, danced with the desert in Namibia, sailed up the west coast of the Motherland, through the straight of Gibraltar and landed in our new home in Athens. A truly once in a lifetime journey. Rarely experienced and for me, never to be repeated.

    I am one month into my current contract. Five months and three home ports to go.

    This contract will reposition a few times. Right now our home port is San Juan Puerto Rico. A lovely base. Beautiful, historic, practical and ass deep in mofongo. All the things a healthy crew population wants from their weekly hometown.

    While stationed out of San Juan we hit a wide variety of Caribbean islands. You know the vibe: turquoise water, beautiful white sand beaches, a kaleidoscope of colorful homes, abundant rum drinks. It’s peak colonialism and touristy as hell, but it’s warm and sunny and calming to the nervous system.

    I am determined to save money (says the bitch who buys an oat latte onboard every goddamn day), so I’m not shelling out cash on cabs, beach resorts, lounge chairs and piña coladas. Instead I get off in ports where there is a beach within a 30 minute walk. If I can find a patch of sand under a tree and an egress into the waves I am happy for an hour of quiet communion with Mother Earth.

    Sometimes there are cute towns right next to the ship with shops and markets and coffee, like in Curaçao and Martinique. Usually it’s a tourist trap candy coated discount diamond shopping facade surrounded by palm trees and iguanas.

    Some of my favorite days are when the crew engagement officer plans events for the “Impact Squad”. This is when a group of us go out and volunteer in one of our ports, usually doing a beach clean up. Not only is this a great way to see a part of an island I might not usually get to see, but it also helps assuage some of the guilt I feel for selling my soul and working on a fucking cruise ship.

    Impact Squad in Barbados

    Soon we’re sailing north. We will reposition to New York City for the month of April. This is exciting for me, as NYC is home. Sailing into New York harbor under the Verrazzano Bridge and past the statue of liberty (long may she stand) is going to be thrilling and probably a little emotional.

    My life is divided into two halves (It’s actually divided into so many more halves than that but that’s a different post). The New Yorker half and the seafaring half. I spend one half of each year in each place. To have these two people come crashing together on my birth month will be… something. I don’t know yet how it will feel so I’ll let you know when I get there.

    Most crew members have never been to NYC. For them it will be a once in a lifetime opportunity. They cannot wait to see Times Square.

    Me? I’ll be running from the ship where it will be docked in midtown west to a rehearsal studio on 54th street to do a run thru of the play I’m premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. NYC means taking advantage of being home and putting on the other mask for an afternoon. It also means my best friend can bring me that bag of extra toiletries I left in my coat closet.

    Then we cross the Atlantic.

    I’ve crossed the Indian Ocean, I’ve crossed the equator at sea, I’ve touched five of the six continents, but I haven’t done the Atlantic crossing yet. If I were collecting sailor tattoos this one would earn me a single anchor on the forearm. I’ll probably just add another bird to my progressive tattoo by Gerald Feliciano. Maybe a pigeon.

    Crossings are awesome. Not the many sea days in a row but the variety of ports you hit when you get to the other side. I am especially excited about The Azores and Tangier.

    Once we’re in the Mediterranean it’s a whole new ball game. The ports are beautiful ancient cities. The water is teal instead of turquoise, the beaches are rocks instead of sand, and the food is incredible. You can walk off the ship, put your name badge in your pocket and disappear into the throngs for the whole day. I love getting lost in Europe.

    Our first stop in the Med will be dry dock in Palermo. This is when they take the ship out of the water and fix all the shit that’s broken. Our ship launched in 2022 and believe me when I say that four years is a long time for a tin can floating in salt water full of drunk people. She’s ready for her spa day. I love Palermo but sadly they are kicking us off the ship during the two week dry dock period. Weird they don’t want to pay us to sit around and eat their food while they’re replacing the engines or whatever.

    I’ll spend dry dock in Switzerland with my best friend and my mom. I’ll tell you all about that when its’s over.

    The last three months, May, June and July, will be based out of Barcelona. A legend of a home port. We swing around France, Spain and Italy on a constantly rotating itinerary of beauty and perfection. Florence, Rome, Ibiza, Sicily, Majorca, Corsica, Nice, Cannes, ugh I’m annoyed at myself just thinking about it.

    cheesin in Malta

    The reality is everything gets old eventually. Feeling like a tourist all the time is boring. There are plenty of days I don’t get off the ship at all. Sometimes it’s nicer to stay onboard when all the sailors are gone and enjoy the quiet of my office on deck 7 all by myself.

    Crew members find hacks for port. We get to revisit the same places again and again so there is less pressure to get it right the first time. We can volunteer to escort the shore excursions for the sailors and get a taste of that vacation life, but most of the time it’s about experiencing the place as a visitor, a person who wants to really appreciate what makes that place unique.

    For me that is the nature, the food, the language, the architecture. I’ll save a few key points in my google maps in my extensive pre-port research but once I’m there, I’m a bird. I fly on instinct. Usually alone but occasionally with one or two friends.

    Connecting to the land is the balance that makes life at sea possible.

    I always dreamed that I would have a life that would allow me to see the world, I never knew that I would be doing it from the water.

    I’ll make sure to come back here and give updates when I visit new ports that I especially love. I am pretty proficient on all the Greek and Croatian ports I visited on my first two contracts, check out my archive at http://www.shiplogblog.com for those.

    PS. I am in the midst of a deep psychological, spiritual and emotional shift. It is psychically draining. I am trying to balance using this space to process those feelings with fun truths and levity about life at sea. Forgive me if it feels schizophrenic. Forgive me if I take longer than a week between posts. Healing is hard.

  • There’s nothing typical about this

    How I function in a tin can in the middle of the ocean when the world is on fire

    This story was originally published to subscribers of Ship Log Blog on Substack. Get new posts by email at the link below:

    www.shiplogblog.substack.com

    Today I’m frustrated because there are too many people sitting in my spot.

    Two days ago I was elated because I had a spiritual experience while held in the arms of Yemaya in Aruba.

    Such is the swing of daily life at sea.

    You build a routine only to have it disrupted, over and over again.

    There is a place outside on deck seven that I refer to as “my office”. It is my refuge. It is the only place on the ship where there is no music playing. There are big couches and shade from the sun and the waves washing away from the ship for miles in every direction. I do a lot of my best thinking there.

    Unless it’s a sea day, like today, and every one of the 2700 sailors onboard have no port to explore, no beach to get drunk on, so they stumble upon my space and think “OH NEAT, LOOK WHAT I FOUND” and lay down and fall asleep.

    The audacity!

    This is of course their ship more than it is mine. I live here, but they pay for it. Such is the truly zen level of acceptance I have achieved.

    I came here with the intention of giving you a “day in the life” post, but I can’t do it.

    Why not?

    • It’s formulaic and I’m done producing what I think people want instead of what feels important to me.
    • There is no such thing as a typical day here. Everything changes while everything stays the same.
    • Nothing about this week has been normal. Nothing about my life or my soul or my country or this world or even the cosmos is normal right now.

    If you’re witchy like me, you probably noticed all the articles about the big astrological shifts happening this week/month. I’m not an astrologer and I take most things with a grain of salt so I won’t attempt to explain them to you, I’ll let the experts do that. Saturn and Neptune moved into Aries (my sun sign) which is a shift 36 years in the making or maybe 6000 years in the making depending on which corner of the sky you’re interpreting.

    The Lunar new year changed over from the Wood Snake to the Fire Horse. There is fuel to be burned and the fire has begun. There was a new moon and an eclipse and a full blood moon on the horizon.

    I am 40 going on 41. I just went through a devastating experience where all of my codependent and insecure attachment tendencies that I REALLY THOUGHT I had worked through were violently hurled upon me. Like I thought I was being presented with a delicious cake that I had patiently waited years for but instead the eternal jokester snuck up behind me and shoved my head so hard into that cake it went up my nose and burned my eyes and choked me out in a very not sexy way.

    My nervous system went crazy. I questioned everything. All these years in therapy trying desperately to understand myself, as if I could just understand why I am this way then I could fix what’s wrong. The underlying belief being that there is something wrong to be fixed.

    When I’m at sea, I have a lot of free time. The kind of free time that might drive some people absolutely nuts. I come into these contracts with PLANS. Writing projects, fitness goals, journals to fill, languages to learn and books to read.

    I finished my most recent book (The Stand by Stephen King) which is about a million pages long and was the same book I was reading when I went through the aforementioned devastating experience. I needed something very different to read. I proceeded to download as many “classics” as I could (I wish I didn’t have to rely so heavily on a kindle while I’m here but I’m sure you can understand the logistical nightmare that physical books provide)

    My downloads included The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1984, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights (duh), Frankenstein, The Old Man and The Sea, The Bell Jar, 100 years of Solitude and more.

    But all the nervous system regulation I was doing: intentional breathing, grounding into my feet, mantras of “I am safe” and “That was then and this is now” were not doing the whole job, I needed HELP in the weeks between therapy sessions.

    So I went in search of my second spiritual awakening.

    My first spiritual awakening happened in my early 20s when I read books like The Alchemist and The Untethered Soul. I distinctly remember the sense of peace I got from the practice of meditation and detachment that I learned from those books.

    But time took over and I forgot.

    So I started reading Eckhardt Tolle’s The Power of Now. I’m still reading it. It’s what I need. Rewiring 20 years of neural pathways and divesting from an addiction to pain is not easy. In fact it is very painful and confusing.

    Some favorite metaphors of how it feels to be me right now:

    • Being dragged along the muck and silt at the bottom of a river.
    • Dissolving into goo inside a cocoon, fully rebuilding into a butterfly who must fight and push and break it’s way out and then lay vulnerable for days until it’s wings are strong enough to fly.
    • The thick ass seed of a lotus flower that has finally cracked open and must push it’s way through the mud before bursting free into the water and blooming.
    • Trapped in a fucking washing machine full of razor blades.

    That day in Aruba I wrote these words to myself:

    Today’s the day I broke the pattern

    Todays’s the day I took my stand

    Today’s the day I chose myself

    Today’s the day I shed my skin

    Today’s the day I took my power back.

    It was February 16th. That day held astrological power but also personal significance.

    The experience of the last month has been the most painful rebirth of my life, and I believe it will be the most powerful.

    I don’t want understanding anymore, I want peace. I don’t want to shrink myself to make other people comfortable, I want to be big, loud and honest. I want to know that I belong in the room where it happens. I don’t want anyone to ever touch me again unless it’s with love.

    This week in St. Maarten I rode the highest zipline in the world and I chastised myself the whole time for not staying in the moment. The next day I suddenly remembered the powerful way in which I can connect to chi (the life force of energy that flows inside us) as easily as flicking on a light switch and I felt like a powerful magical sorceress.

    Healing is not linear because it is a spiral and holy shit am I riding that spiral right now. Around and around like a blender I go. I’m exhausted, I’m exhilarated, I am DOING THE DAMN THING.

    I’ve started writing to God for strength. GOD. I have a very eastern definition of God and I’ve finally stopped being so prissy about using that word. Interpret it however you want. I need divinity right now.

    We all do.

    This transformation is not singular to me. The old systems are dying. Good riddance. The weak, shriveled patriarchy is gasping it’s last breath. It’s death will be violent. The divine feminine is rising. She will not shrink away and hide her power anymore. Her reign is coming, albeit slowly. The full transmutation may not happen in my lifetime, but I feel it on the horizon.

    The only hope for the human race is spiritual intervention. I can’t say whether we can do it, but I know I’m doing my part. Right now, in my tiny corner of the universe, by facing and embracing my darkness and divinity.

    Here’s your day in the life at sea:

    • I wake up
    • I struggle to get nourishment
    • I hydrate
    • I sit in “my office” to write, read, drink coffee
    • I take pee breaks
    • I giggle with TJ (ship bestie/show partner)
    • I nap
    • I go to the gym (cardio! lifting heavy! it sucks!)
    • I eat again, however unsatisfactorily
    • If it’s a show day, I do the show
    • Breakfast for dinner
    • Bed

    Additions: Have an existential crisis, cry, battle my inner demons, feel guilty, feel enlightened, swim in the ocean, volunteer on land, wander around a new port with cellular roaming turned off, talk to my mom, my therapist, my best friend, embrace the universal truths I have to share, feel scared for the world, feel helpless, delete instagram, resist the urge to live in my pain body, wonder if that guy with the pink scrunchie thinks I’m cute, ignore the DM from the community dick, doubt myself, believe in myself, trust the process, break one rule just to feel alive.

    and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

  • A Peek below

    What’s behind all those “crew only” doors?

    This story was originally published to subscribers of Ship Log Blog on Substack. Get new posts by email at the link below:

    www.shiplogblog.substack.com

    Last night I was walking down the A1A, the navy blue river of buzzing crew business that runs aft to stern on deck four. Carrying my swimsuit in my tote under the bright florescence, avoiding eye contact with housekeeping and tired food service staff amidst a sea of conversation in Tagalog, Afrikaans and Croatian.

    It’s the entertainment department spa night and I don’t want to rub it in. After finishing my first double show, I’m looking forward to getting into this sacred space after midnight with all the dancers and acrobats to sweat out the stress of moving day in the sauna and freeze away the aching pain in my lower back in the cold plunge.

    My show partner TJ and I finally moved into our crew cabins. It was a long day of hauling around suitcases and tracking down someone to unlock our doors but we made it. There is a whole city down here and having the safety of your own room is absolutely key to peace of mind.

    This hidden city includes a crew office, medical center, mess hall, laundry room, dressing rooms, gyms, bars, smoking room, garbage room, a botanical closet for the horticulturalist and even a weapons closet. Not to mention all the food storage rooms and freezers, the engine control room, the ballast tanks, water desalination center and all the other places I have never set foot in my life (I did get invited to a couple secret parties in the engineer’s workshop a couple times but you didn’t hear that from me).

    Amidst all this, my cabin is my sanctuary. I decorate it the second I get inside. For me decorating means using magnets to cover all of the hospitalesque white walls with huge colorful scarves creating a kind of bohemian wall paper. I have a large room (relatively speaking), a full sized bed, two portholes, closets, a desk and my very own bathroom. This sounds luxurious (and for ship life, it really is) but don’t get it twisted, we’re talking about a room that the Kardashians would consider the size of a very small walk in closet.

    My most valuable perk are the portholes. Living by the movement of the sun and waking to natural light is essential for my mental health and for it I am grateful. Few crew have them.

    All operational crew areas are clean and sterile with uniform blue floors and shiny white walls. These arteries of the ship run absolutely everywhere, behind every wall, next to every staircase. It’s overwhelming and confusing at first, but you learn your way around quickly. Discovering the little shortcuts and hidden doors is an important hack to survival. Knowing how to slip through sailor areas because you aren’t wearing the right kind of shoes for the A1A or cutting across that crew stairwell to get to the accessible bathroom in the balcony of the nightclub can save a lot of time and energy. It helps to follow around a seasoned seafarer for your first few weeks to learn the ropes.

    Your peers are the lifeblood of your survival, without them you might as well be adrift at sea screaming for Wilson like Tom Hanks. I could do a whole post about social life below decks, and maybe I will, but for now here’s a brief overview.

    Let me start by saying that I am an anomaly. I’m 40, which makes me an outlier within entertainment where most of the performers are fresh out of college. They like to hang out in big groups and go together to beach clubs and restaurants on land and in gaggles to crew bar on emo night. People plan movie nights and watch parties and dance classes.

    There are so many group chats.

    Having friends and a social support network is important for morale. I participate in this lifestyle sparingly. I tend to collect 2-3 very close friends who are my ride or dies. These are the people I spend time with when I am not sleeping late or reading quietly on deck 7.

    Crew members usually form bonds with those they can relate easiest to, those from the same country or who work in the same department. Smokers end up being friends with smokers, dancers with dancers and drinkers… get fired. Romantic bonds build quickly and intensely and blow up just as fast. More on that later.

    The biggest side effect working on a ship has had on my life and the hardest to explain to those who don’t do it is the unbreakable change in my perception of time. I told myself I would do one contract. “One and Done” she said. And somehow three years have gone by and I’m still here.

    My friend Megs, a ship general manager and career seafarer explained it to me once. She said “Just wait, before you know it we’ll be sitting right back here eating pizza in my cabin and it will feel like we never left”. She was right, it’s like that every time.

    I go home and I relearn how to live like a normal person, I buy my own groceries and cook my own meals, I snuggle my cat and hustle for gigs, I trudge up and down the subway steps in the snow and feel superior for having lived in NYC for my entire adult life.

    Then BOOP suddenly I’m back in my crew cabin staring at the gold Paloma Picasso scarf I use to cover my TV and wonder which port is just outside my window. I’m stuck on this merry-go-round now and I don’t know how to get off. I’ve started longing for it when I’m home, the quiet moments to write and read and lift weights for free while exploring places like New Zealand, Namibia, Montenegro and Martinique.

    While the Sailors sit by the pool getting hammered on piña coladas and achieving their perfect 2nd degree sunburns, thousands of people are below them shuffling up and down hallways pushing carts full of wet towels and cold ice and hot pappardelle ragu.

    While Susan and Derek are getting that sunset selfie in the window of the steakhouse, Althea and Gabriel are washing dishes and shoving dry waste into the incinerator.

    Since mom and dad left the kids at home, they’re fucking on the balcony for an audience of fishes while the contortionist just pulled a muscle in his scapula and the entertainment director has to cancel the 10pm show.

    It’s two worlds on top of each other. Stranger Things has nothing on us.

    I recently went to visit a friend on their ship contract and I spent nine days as a sailor in my own cabin on deck nine. I will never do it again. I did not enjoy the experience of being on a ship without being crew. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was supposed to be working, that I was part of the upside down instead of one of the rubes. I was constantly annoyed that I couldn’t access the crew spaces I’m used to being able to hide away inside. The crew lifestyle has become normalized for me and I don’t want to be onboard unless I’m being paid to be there.

    I’ve tricked you all into thinking this is going to be a blog about working on a cruise ship, this post in particular was the amuse bouche. I hope I’ve lured you into a false sense of security because really soon I’m going to hit you with the heart wrenching existential crisis of it all. See you soon.

    *my company refers to passengers as “sailors”

  • Welcome to Ship Log Blog

    Life behind the scenes on a cruise ship

    This story was originally published to subscribers of Ship Log Blog on Substack. Get new posts by email at the link below:

    shiplogblog.substack.com

    Ahoy crew, welcome aboard!

    My name is Anna, but most people call me Boo. I work as a performer on a cruise ship. This has been my life for the past three years and I am about to embark on my fourth ship contract.

    I live at sea on contracts that last six months at a time. I exist in a double life between the strange floating world that most people only see for a week and my life of the last 22 years in New York City.

    I used to refer to my land life as my “real life” but the longer I’m at sea, the less either feel particularly real.

    This is Ship Log Blog.

    It’s where I write about what life is actually like behind the scenes at sea and how it feels to step back on land.

    The parts few people see.
    The parts you can never truly understand unless you live it.
    The parts that are funny, exciting, heart breaking, beautiful, lonely and surreal.

    Because working on a cruise ship is not a normal job.
    It’s a lifestyle that completely messes with your sense of time, relationships, sleep, geography, and self.

    One day you’re watching the sunset in the middle of the ocean.
    The next you’re trying to remember what country you’re in.
    You form intense friendships that last a contract and disappear at the gangway.
    You live in a tin can with thousands of people and still find ways to be completely alone.

    And somehow, you also become completely addicted to this life. That’s the part that surprised me the most.

    I started writing Ship Log Blog because friends and family kept asking the same questions:

    “What is it really like to work on a cruise ship?”
    “Aren’t you sad to leave home?”
    “Can you fuck the passengers?”

    The answer to that last one is no. The answers to all the others were too big and too complicated for small talk.

    So I started writing them down.

    Here, you’ll get stories about:

    • Crew life and the weird rules we live by
    • Ports around the world through crew eyes
    • The emotional whiplash of living half your life at sea and half on land
    • Relationships and what both distance and extreme closeness does to them
    • The funny, the absurd, and the unexpectedly profound moments that happen on board

    This isn’t a travel blog.

    This is a logbook from someone living at sea.

    If you’ve ever wondered what happens below deck, you’re in the right place. Except it’s not a Bravo show about a luxury yacht, it’s the diary of someone in the trenches struggling to find an empty washing machine in crew laundry on day six.

    I plan to write once a week, either straight from my favorite spot on deck 7 or from the in between moments on land when I’m trying to remember what “real life” means.

    If you’re new here, I’m really glad you found this corner of the internet.

    And if you’ve been reading Ship Log Blog on my website for a while, welcome to the next chapter. This is where the stories arrive first now.

    If you want to dig deep into the archives, check them out at http://www.shiplogblog.com

    Thanks for being here.

    Let’t set sail.

  • New Rules to live by

    Rule Number 1: Don’t fall in love with the fuckboy

    Here I am in Orlando, at rehearsal, about to start my fourth ship contract and instead of brainstorming my writing projects and saving all the cool coffee shops and vintage stores in google maps for my upcoming ports, I am bogged down by a foolishly broken heart. For the past year I have been romantically entangled with an emotionally avoidant Romeo. We spent the majority of 2025 in a long distance non committed unofficial sexy emotional situationship. He spent a week with me in NYC before leaving for his own ship contract. I decided to go visit him onboard during his first month at sea to show him the ropes and finally get dicked down on the balcony of a passenger cabin. After a passionate and intimate week together, I kissed him goodbye and then he jumped into bed with one of the women in his cast so quickly I’m surprised he didn’t get whiplash. Honestly the most embarrassing part is how much it hurt. As if I didn’t see this coming from an ocean away.

    After being single for the past 12 years and celibate for the past three, my heart had finally softened, my pussy swelled and my nervous system bonded to this man. Turns out I can’t make eye contact with you while you are inside of me for nine days straight and not get attached. The resulting crash out has been much more destabilizing than I could have imagined. It holds so much power because I genuinely care about him and I believe he cares about me too. But that’s not enough. I collided head first into the reality that I simply cannot do what I was trying to do. I can’t be in a “casual” relationship with someone who is still building their identity. I can’t deny what I truly want; connection, intimacy, passion and most of all devotion. Denying these truths is denying who I am and I shan’t do it anymore. I SHAN’T I SAY!

    I cut it off as quickly as a could, which in this case was about two weeks later, following an intense theatrical rehearsal and premier process in NYC (more on that later). I miss him. I miss talking to him everyday. I miss sharing thoughts and advice and loving support with someone I care for. Most notably, I miss the innocence and excitement I felt. Hoping and believing that our very genuine connection would lead to attachment, despite all his warnings to the contrary.

    Rule Number 2: When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

    I am proud that I’m honoring myself, listening to my intuition and breaking my generational trauma of codependence but I also hate it here. It felt so good to be seen by him, to feel sexy, desired, cared for. But it was all built on a foundation of uncertainty which was driving me batshit. I could write a novel of opinions about what happened between us but it’s not my business anymore. My job now is to remember that I don’t want someone who doesn’t want me, to let go, to move on and to not let my heart turn back into stone. It would be so cool if I could accomplish that before I leave Orlando so that I can step onboard next week in San Juan with a fresh sense of self. Lofty goals.

    Hey Boo, besides getting dicknotized, what have you been up to for the past seven months?? Good question, thank you for asking dear reader. First I would like to apologize for my long absence from this blog. I could have sworn I wrote a post after my last contract in July. I did not. So here’s a quick recap: I spent April in Vegas, May in NYC, June and July on the ship, attended a friend’s wedding in Greece, crashed with my high school bestie in Geneva, visited Harry in Edinburgh for the Fringe, did some hiking in the French alps, drove to Turin, spent the night in Orta San Giulio in Italy and then landed right back in Brooklyn in September.

    I wrote a one woman show. My visit to the Edinburgh Fringe was a fact finding mission; should I self produce my show here? The overwhelming answer to that question was a resounding hell no. Not yet. That is a financial risk I am not currently in the position to take. A beloved and trusted adviser and mentor told me: “The way to the fringe is to get cast in someone else’s show, go there on someone else’s dime, use your time to make connections, guest in variety shows and practice pitching your own stuff.” Her words to the goddess’s ears.

    Lo and behold. One month back in NYC, wondering what in the absolute fuck I was going to spend my winter doing, I got a text from a director I have worked with many times in the past. Someone I auditioned for 20 years ago and have done three different plays with including fringe festivals and an autobiographical one woman show that she wrote. She and her husband/co-producer took me to dinner and told me that after years of doing the North American fringe circuit, they are finally ready to go to Edinburgh and did I want to be in their play. Serendipity at it’s finest folks.

    I spent the fall and winter rehearsing for that play while also taking a writing class at NYU. The writing class was everything I hoped it would be and more, I would do it again in every timeline. I also spent this time barely making a living. My gigs have dwindled to the barest minimum and I had to live off my previous contract money. I did some production management for a producer I like, I took a marketing class, I got LASIK and I got really good at taking nudes. It helps to be creative when nurturing a long distance sexual liaison. Voice notes are fun. Damn I miss that part too.

    The man came to stay with me and I found I enjoyed navigating life next to him (uh oh), the holidays came and went, rehearsals ramped up, I visited the man at sea, my romantic fantasy came crashing down, rehearsal and tech week commenced while my nervous system shook like it was in a washing machine, I packed up all of my belongings, the show premiered, I squeezed my cat and then I got on a plane.

    The rehearsal process for the ship is different this time. TJ and I already know the show, we don’t need much work. We have understudies for the first time, so most of the work is them watching us and learning. I have finally come to the realization that this is my only source of income now. I have resisted the idea of coming back here over and over again but it looks like that is my path. There is not a lot of work in my field at the moment and I am very lucky to have this job. Over the past three years I have figured out how to lead two lives, six months at a time. I think I’ll be riding this wave for as long as it’s available to me.

    My contract will end on July 26th in Barcelona. We’re hitting 2 continents, 37 countries and doing a transatlantic crossing. As soon as I debark I’ll head straight to Scotland where I will join the team for our month long run with TheSpace UK in a 54 seat venue on The Royal Mile. We will run the show over zoom while I’m at sea to try to keep it fresh. When we are docked in NYC over the month of April I will get off the ship, go to rehearsal, run the show and then get back onboard. Talk about double life! While onboard I’ll be working on the short story I started in my writing class, workshopping my one woman show and developing a new tv project based very loosely on this blog. I am so grateful for this time to create art while putting money in my IRA and paying off my laser eye surgery. In September my best friend and I are going to Borneo to celebrate our 40th birthdays even though we’ll both be 41 by then.

    I promised a loyal reader I would blog once a month. I would like to transition this forum into one I engage with both on land and at sea. Help keep me honest.

    Rule Number 3: Don’t ever take the budget airline

    This rule needs no explanation.

  • Where do I even live?

    Welcome back sailors. I finished out my six weeks in April, told Angel not to have too much fun without me, and headed back to the big city. The night I arrived home, my dear friend Arthur who you may remember from previous contracts, was waiting for me at my apartment in Brooklyn. When the clock struck midnight I turned 40. The day of I had a very small, last minute party downstairs in Carrie’s apartment featuring 10 of my closest friends, Mediterranean tapas, a pillow pit, two cakes, many bottles of amaro and one large pizza. It was perfect. So far I love being 40. Friends who’d already done it tried to explain the freedom involved with the transition, but you really don’t get it until it happens. 

    Shortly after I crested that great big hill of life, I shipped off to Vegas for three weeks to work. Vegas is so weird. I was there at the perfect time of year, April, when it’s not too hot yet. In the middle of the summer it is hell’s front porch. Everything in Vegas happens in a casino. I hate casinos. But I like working so here we are. I split my time in Vegas between crashing with two different friends while I hosted a really fun variety show at a classic downtown hotel. I’ve said in the past that I would never take a full time contract and move to Vegas but time has taught me that I am not in a position to say no to any job that wants to pay me money to do the thing that I love. Do you know how low the cost of living is in Vegas compared to NYC? It’s absurd. I hate the highways and the cars and the tourists and the dry, dry dryness but I would absolutely take a long term contract there if someone offered. No one IS offering mind you but the point remains.

    Back in New York I found myself in the position of having houseguest after houseguest. I never really had a moment to myself. I presented a precious, personal work in progress at a much anticipated art salon of creatives for a production company that I respect and have the privilege to collaborate with. It was powerful and informative and gave me creative fuel to move forward. More importantly it gave me a project to focus on during my next contract at sea.

    In the blink of an eye I’m back onboard. It’s amazing how adjusted I’m becoming to this lifestyle. Shocking really. I don’t want to use the word “comfortable” because that would be overstating it, but at ease. Except when I’m not. I’m currently writing this from the floor of a rarely used staircase in the theater because it’s raining outside and the passengers are boarding and the chair in my cabin is too hard. Whatareyagunnado? The fact that I am once again only doing six weeks here instead of the full six months makes a huge difference. In total this current little dance with Poseidon will equate to one half contract, three months total. Barely a blip.

    What’s the difference? How did I finally gain this ease of life as a cog in the corporate ocean going machine? I acquiesced. It’s as simple as that. To anyone who’s ever acquiesced to anything you know that it’s not actually simple at all but heart wrenching and very slow. But I did it. I accepted the reality of my situation. I AM a mere cog in a giant floating machine. I keep my head down, I follow the rules, I do my job well and I continue to have the privilege of taking advantage of this corporate money to work on my own personal projects while getting paid. I don’t need to have too much fun, I don’t need to fall in love or get laid or make friends. I’m here to make money, create art and build muscle. That’s it. And considering the state of the world, I am LUCKY for it.

    I’m in New York so seldom these last few years it barely feels like mine anymore. Being at my apartment feels like being on vacation. It’s weird. It’s shaking up my sense of self. Am I still a New Yorker? My home is there and some of my most chosen people, the gigs and venues where I cut my teeth and became the performer I am, my cat… But my work isn’t there, and for the most part neither is my body or my mind. So where do I live? Is this the beginning of the transition out? If so where am I going? That’s my question for the ages. I’m always wondering where I’m going and I’ve never known the answer. This can be an uncomfortable way to live, but I’ve acquiesced to this too. I can never see the path in front of me because I am the path. The path stretches out behind me, not in front.

    I was supposed to spend all of August back in Vegas, but that show decided to take a hiatus for the summer months so I’m suddenly out of a job and homeless as my apartment is sublet until September. I’m attending a wedding in Greece as soon as I debark in July so I’ve decided to just stay in Europe. One of my best friends lives in Geneva and spends the summer with her family at their chateau in the French alps (insert laughing emoji here because I know how that sounds). My beloved Charlie is directing a show at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, an event I’ve always wanted to attend and hope to perform in next year, so I’ll be bopping off to Edinburgh for a bit. I’ll go visit Arthur at his new apartment in Manchester. There’s a producer in Germany I’d like to meet in person. I wrote a parody of “Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps” in five languages for the polyglots that I can pitch to cabarets in different countries. I’m really trying to make some fucking lemonade out of these lemons. I’ve always been the type of person to chose adventure over comfort. So here we go.

    Thank you for hanging on with me and this journey. It is looking very likely that I will do another full contract next year. The ship I have my eye on starts on a sexy Caribbean itinerary out of San Juan and then crosses the Atlantic to hang out in Spain and Italy for the summer before going into “dry dock” in Palermo. America is pushing me out like a splinter and I can’t fight the universe forever. I will keep my roots in NYC for as long as I can and will continue carrying you along with me in my Sicilian leather backpack for as long as you’ll have me. If you’re looking for more juicy ship gossip, stick around.

  • Adrift again

    I didn’t see It coming but I tripped and fell and now I’m back on the ship. Not the same ship but the same job. See, the person who was hired to do my same job here was fired just three weeks into her contract for having “inappropriate relations with a passenger” and the company asked me to come onboard to cover. They wanted me to stay for the remainder of the contract which I politely declined because I have other obligations, but I was able to cancel some gigs snd jump onboard for six weeks. Honestly my dream is a six week contract, if I could do it this way all the time I would do it a lot more often.

    I’m about halfway through that six weeks as I write this today while docked in the Bahamas. This ship has a very different itinerary from my last one. I’ve traded the beautiful ancient ports of the Med for the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. A downgrade for several reasons but still way better than the endless winter we are enduring in NYC. This ship is currently doing what is referred to as the dreaded 5/5/4. Meaning we do two five day cruises followed by a four day cruise and then do it all again. Our home port is Miami and we hit the same four or five ports over and over. Miami, Key West, Puerto Plata, Cozumel, Bimini, Repeat. I’m doing more work for the same amount of money, but let me tell you, it’s a better deal than I was getting back home.

    I told myself I wouldn’t do this again. I really thought I was done. When I first joined the ship two years ago, on my very first day I saw a crew member sitting in the mess hall wearing a t-shirt that said “It’s my last contract I swear” and I thought “Oh no, what have I gotten myself into?” One of my biggest concerns when initially leaving NYC for that long was that my regular gigs would learn to live without me, that I would be replaced. Everyone assured me that wouldn’t happen, but guess what? That is exactly what happened. Of course it did. Out of sight out of mind. If you love New York City you will miss her fiercely when you’re away, but she won’t even notice you’re gone. NYC goes on with or without you. When I got home from my last contract I was shocked to find how hard it was to get work. I spoke about it briefly in my last post, the situation is dire. I didn’t feel the love from my city or my industry. So I made the decision to let go of my self imposed narrative that it’s New York or nowhere. I had to open my mind to other options. Suddenly I was offered some short contracts hosting a show in Vegas. Then like a fog horn out of the darkness the ship called and I, a poor unsuspecting showbiz sailor, was pulled back in… hopefully not to my death.

    After being here for about a week the company asked me if I could come back in June and July and finish out this contract. Once again I had to decide if I wanted to cancel all my gigs back home. I told them I would only do it if they gave me a raise (bluffing) and It fucking worked. They said yes. So now I have to come back for seven weeks in June and July. I was feeling so defeated and heartbroken by all the professional rejection I was experiencing in the city and my therapist told me to listen to the “yeses” and ignore the “nos”. Good advice.

    I’m already suffering from the same frustrations that plagued me in the past. I’m hungry all the time and I’m sick of all the food. The days are endlessly repetitive. The pillows suck. Did I mention the food thing? Cause that one is really bugging me today. The biggest difference is I’m only here for six weeks! It’s almost over! Because of that nothing feels too serious. Additionally I could not give two fucks about making friends. I am madly in love with my cast mate TJ. He has also done two contracts so he knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s a sweetheart who is currently in school to be an anesthesiologist so he’s got his own shit going on. We share meals and gossip and hugs and my friendship needs are met. There are quite a few people onboard I know from my last two contracts, far more than I expected, so the day I arrived I heard a lot of “welcome back!”. I did feel welcome. I’m also so excited I get to leave soon.

    My year is basically booked at this point. I’m here until April 6th, on April 7th I turn 40, then Vegas for three weeks, NYC in May to workshop a show I’m writing, on the ship June and July and then back to Vegas for all of August. I might bop around to visit some friends to celebrate my 40th year at some point. Greece, Mexico, Switzerland, etc. But then what? There are some circus companies in Germany that could use a great emcee, I just have to learn German. No problem! I like language! It’s time for me to think way outside the box if I want survive the devastating economic recession that is doubtlessly hurtling towards me at a million miles an hour. People much younger than I am have much stronger plans for their futures and it might finally be freaking me out a little bit. Time to finish that undergraduate degree bitch.

    Today in Bimini I went to the beach with some friends. I burned that spot on my back where I couldn’t reach with the sunscreen while floating in the crystal water. Later we rented a golf cart and drove around the island sampling all the different conch dishes. Tropical conch salad, raw conch with citrus and scotch bonnet hot sauce, conch fritters, crack conch, etc. Then I enjoyed an Aperol spritz at the back of the ship while we sailed away. My neck hurts from doing squats on the smith machine last week or maybe from the shitty pillows or maybe because I’m almost 40 and I probably have arthritis like my mom. Life is an endless swirling melange of the good, the bad, the messy and the unknown and I’m equally excited and terrified about tomorrow.

  • where is my deus ex machina?

    I kept thinking I would be able to wrap this contract up in a tidy bow once I got back to land. That I would step off the ship and go on a solo adventure to Scotland, and then somehow process my year long seafaring experience into a digestible nugget of insight about life. But damn if that hasn’t happened. I should know by now that nothing ever gets tied up in a tidy bow. This is when the greeks would send down Helios on a chariot to carry me away so that I never have to face the consequences of my actions.

    The “Senioritis” post may have had a few of you worried that I might jump ship before the end, but I held on. I was deep in some feelings in August, feelings of comparison and inadequacy and frustration. That month was rough. The charter was annoying to say the least, and my feelings at the time were valid, but it’s amazing how, just a few months later, looking back at that post I feel very little relation to where I was then. I had to let it all go in an instant and move back to who I am on my own. We did stop at some excellent ports while we crossed from Athens to the UK. My favorites were Catania, Barcelona, Palma, Lisbon and Bilbao. Once the charter ended, our cast replacements arrived and we spent one more week onboard for “handover” where we did our final show and watched the new cast do their first. I visited Amsterdam for the first time, a humiliating thing to do on a ship because the dutch DO NOT want cruise ships in their harbor. A protest group chained themselves to a lock in the river and nearly kept us from the port. I remember wishing I’d been standing with them.

    On August 30th I handed over my crew ID, stepped off the gangway in Portsmouth UK, hauled my giant suitcases to Heathrow, stored one, and then spent 10 days on a London/Scotland holiday to reacquaint myself with freedom. I stayed with a friend in London for the first three nights and I kept dreaming that I had to go back to the ship. Like maybe I was just having an overnight and I had to be back onboard by 2pm the next day. It wasn’t until I was on the train to Edinburgh that that feeling began to fade. After two nights at an apartment on The Royal Mile, I got behind the wheel of a rental car and drove (ON THE LEFT HAND SIDE) up into the highlands and finally began to feel free. Scotland is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, and for those of us with Scottish heritage, a place of legend. Although, if you are an American with Scottish ancestry, I do not recommend mentioning that to locals at the pub, they don’t like it. I was conceived on the train from London to Edinburgh 40 years ago, which is one reason I decided to take the journey. That particular story went over better for some reason.

    After an overnight in Inverness and a very chilly morning dip in Loch Ness, I came back to Edinburgh for one night and stayed at a 5 star hotel called Prestonfield House which is the fanciest thing I’ve ever done. I felt like I was in Downton Abbey. A few more days of hotels and airports and baggage claims and taxis and then suddenly I found myself standing in front of my brownstone on a perfect sunny September day in Brooklyn. My cat remembered me and my apartment wasn’t in as much disarray as I feared it might be. It took me a few weeks to get everything put away where it belongs. The gigs in NYC are drying up because the economy is shit. Costs are up, profits are down, budgets are being slashed, and as we’ve seen time and again, art always gets cut first. I’m not panicked, I have a little time to figure out how to survive. I’ve actually managed to scrounge up enough work to keep buying groceries without dipping into savings.

    But what’s next? I turned down the offer to go back onboard. After two back to back contracts, I qualified for a raise, but I just couldn’t do it. I’m not saying I never will but definitely not now. They wanted me back in January for a seven month contract. That’s too long and I’m not supposed to be a sailor for life. But what am I supposed to be? I’m back at a crossroads. It’s actually less of a crossroads and more of a pathway that’s hidden from me. I got worried the other day because I thought “Oh no, I can’t see the path!”. But then I remembered that I’ve never been able to see the path, it’s always been hidden. I just keep taking steps and somehow as soon as my foot comes down, the path is beneath it. I don’t know where it’s going, but as long as I’m moving it’s there.

    As the title of this blog may insinuate, I do not know what the ending is. I started this writing experiment to document my time onboard, but I’m not onboard anymore and I don’t really want to stop writing. I’ve given up some of the things that held me down in the past so I could make room for what’s to come. But I don’t know what comes next. As I write this from a cafe in Brooklyn enjoying an oat latte and a plant based BLT, I am languishing in the in between. At 39 years old, I can’t help but feel time slipping away from me. I have never so desperately wished the sky would crack open and a voice filled with authority would boom down and tell me what to do, or at least give me a deadline for that play I’ve been thinking about writing.

    I read a lot of novels about greek myths this year. I’ve always felt compelled by them, as many have. I once did a burlesque act as Persephone and my favorite new musical of the last 10 years is Hadestown. The novels I read this year included Ariadne, Elektra and Atalanta by Jennifer Saint and Circe by Madeline Miller. Of these I found the latter to be the most relatable. In this interpretation, Circe is an immortal sorceress/goddess/nymph who is exiled by her family to live a life of solitude alone on an island. I identified intimately to her descriptions of loneliness. She lives for thousands of years and is never able to master loneliness. When she does find love, she uses magic to transform herself into a mortal so she doesn’t have to watch her love grow old and die. I’ve always been ashamed to admit to being lonely as though it is a weakness of character, and although I haven’t quite lived for thousands of years, I’ve been feeling especially isolated lately. I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow, but today I feel like maybe I would give it all up, all my ambition, all my freedom, all my dreams, and trade it for the comfort of love and partnership.

    But that’s not how it works is it? There is no chariot coming to whisk me away, no booming voice from the sky with directions about what to do next. There’s no one to give me a deadline to finish that creative project that keeps rattling around my brain and there certainly isn’t a man or woman who will fall in love with me and magically make all my insecurities go away. It’s just me and the people I choose to share myself with. That friend who told me to stop wasting the precious time I have, the producer who believes in me and keeps hiring me, the collaborator who wants to work with me no matter what we’re working on, my parents who know me to my core. This community, while sometimes out of sight, is never out of mind, even when I forget they’re there. There may not always be a deus ex machina, but there is always a chorus to fill in the gaps.

    This blog is no longer at sea in a literal sense, but I will keep sailing forward none the less.