There is so much I want to say, so much going on in my head. But I never have time to write lately. I will soon, though.

I post on social sites only the good stuff. I appear to be happy and excited.

Note to self:
-Lonely vs Alone, the growth of being independent
-Yard work and learning curve challenges (ie: fears (heights, failure, judgement and *gasp* commitment)
-Monogamy... What's that? A view into today's dating.
-Big Bad Ocean- the ultimate in dangerous and beautiful
-Deliveries: From fat checks to boat hitch hiking, we all sail for the same reason. Exploring! (Or was it freedom?)
-(non)Communication Nation - struggling for connection

Quick story.

I'm in Key West craving NY pizza but I can't get much further away without leaving the country. So I stop by Mr Z's pizza. Decent but a far cry from NY. I walk in and get served immediately at a counter that does have a New York feel to it- complete with loud noises and a fast pace. I fall right into it and throw out my order to a short Italian guy. I love Italians. Anyway, dude next to me was like, "oh City of Bones (I'd italicize but my stupid phone won't let me)" indicating to my big book. Oh, I say, you've read them? "Yeah, they're great!" Oh, cool, yeah it's an interesting read (it's stupid brain candy). "Oh, yeah, I haven't actually read the book haha" then he tries a couple other things and I just look at him. Fail.

I really should go back to the whole goth death stare. Works out way better for me, I think.

And start running cause I'm a fat ass.

It is almost nine in the morning. I've been up a while but moving slow. I'm ready to walk out the door but not ready to move... I've been taking some pole dancing classes, and am supposed to be at one in an hour, but it's an upper level class that I'm sorta crashing but I've grown scared and decided not to go. I want someone from the studio to call me and assure me that I will be fine, but it's not happened and grown almost past the time where if I left now I could make it. Fear, what an interesting concept and feeling. So much fear is based off of nothing. Fear of judgement. I face that one a lot. Fear of failure... fear of sexuality... The studio, called S Factor, is equal parts workout, dance and sex therapy. You are guided to touch your body, to freely move without fear or consequence. There are no mirrors, it is dark, and no men are allowed in the studio at all. 

Through this and not smoking anymore, taking a break from drinking, living a life sailing... I'm completely separate from this other life I was living just months ago. I feel so good about myself and what I'm doing, yet I am completely alone. There are so many people I wish to know better, who I miss, who I wish to love and love me. 

Update

So. The boat Appledore didn't exactly work out so well for me. So I've moved onto another boat called the Grace Bailey, who goes out on long multiple day/night trips (3-5 days). I'll be on a five day trip, as a volunteer and photographer. Pretty neat and I'm looking forward to it. I have my own little cabin with a fairly big bed, which is pretty sweet. We return on Friday and then Saturday I'll be flying out to NYC to get on a catamaran to crew on it up to Chicago via the Hudson, which I hear is a great trip and also, I am very much looking forward to learning how to navigate. Transits are the best, and it'll land me in Chicago in three weeks. It would seem it's all fit together better this way, anyway, and I'm looking forward to it all. I've been taking a lot of photos with my medium format because there's something wrong with my Olympus, which sucks, but thankfully I have more than one camera and currently much more 120 film than 35. Whatever, I am happy to be on boats and have film, period.

I am getting a great tan.... on about half of my body. Good thing I don't plan to model anytime soon cause it's a little ridiculous.

merp. this is a boring update.

people sometimes ask me where I want to be, if I were to settle down for a while. I have no answer. I want to be away from everything I know, everyone I know. I want to have no history, no future, no dreams. I want to live in today, in the now, and I want that to be the only thing that matters. People accuse me of running away. I say, I'm running to. Searching something, even if I'm not entirely sure what it is. I feel like I've started to lose my words. I don't want to talk to many people because I don't want to be misunderstood by one more person... 

Ugh

I hate that feeling of not feeling good enough. Sitting there thinking what you could do differently, who you could be to be more wanted company. I feel extremely alone.

I'm losing my mind.

Bravery

Many people have called me brave. But I never feel brave. I am comfortable roaming from place to place doing what I've been doing. I know I have something and someone to rely on on the other side of  that plane or train ride. I have someone picking me up, a place to stay, a job to take.

What I'm about to do is in the face of all that. I'm scared. I'm alone. And that's what bravery is about. Facing your fears.

All I know is that I'm tired of traveling on the backs of modeling and men who want to photograph me naked. I want something more. Not that I hate modeling, I just don't want to do it for a living anymore. I want to find something else...

Wel, I've found something else. I have found sailing.

First things first: Find my way to the ocean...

Musings on Musing

I guess I understand why a number of my friends have spoken up against the desire to be a muse. What a thing full of pressure, Musing. It is love, it is desire, it is pain and suffering. Ultimately a muse is inspiring because she is ever elusive, taunting you further than you were before- a mirage, a handful of water, a side glanced ghost. I, who have always aspired to being a muse, may have found myself among those who step away from such a title. Do not chase me, do not want me... For I am unavailable, and I am cruel. I will leave. I will always leave.

Sailing

I'm in Chicago. There is a festival nearby here in Lincoln Park, I hear music and the dull din of a crowd. People drinking, dancing. Having fun. A part of me wishes to be a part of it, but then I realize that I never have fun at those things. I don't care about music enough to go to loud festivals and I don't like people enough to carry on a conversation with strangers. I realize that drinking is dulling me, is making me less capable. 

I say this even as I'm about to dip into my bottle of whiskey.  

At what point is enough enough? At what point do I wake up and say, it's time. Time to get my shit together and not in any other way but my own. I don't want to be the wild, rebellious, loud, outspoken girl anymore. I feel like that's not really me. Does that mean I've changed or does that mean I've been trying to be someone I'm not? Or is this what growing up feels like?

I do know that sailing is the answer to it all, to all of my dreams. I want to sail around the world. I am not sure how I'll make that happen, but I know it's something that I want. I want it bad. My own boat, eventually. I don't even know how to sail and I want my own boat, like now. 

I guess for now I will press on, looking for a boat to work on for the next month and a half. 

I wish my plans to join the Hawaiian Chieftain hadn't fallen through. Shit, or the following replacement plan, either. I feel like I'm sitting here with the rug yanked out from under me and now I'm scrambling. Quite unpleasant. Especially being nearly dead broke. 

Sigh. 

Wings and Roots

So yesterday I decided to do nothing with my day, and a part of me felt pretty bummed and guilty about it. First of all, I had a model cancel a shoot on me, and another girl who I just met who I am so dying to photograph doesn't have time for me, and my friends are out of town or unmotivated or whatever. These are the same people who tell me how they love my work... How am I supposed to believe it when I can't get anyone to commit to shooting with me? Don't take it personally, Chip says, You'll be fine.

Okay, Okay. So I sorta take the day off. I spent a lot of time thinking about what it is about NYC that is so disenchanting to me this trip (besides all of that). I watched lost and cried over Jack telling Kate about how he deals with fear by letting it wash over him, take over, but only for five seconds. But the problem is, is that I'm afraid of pretty much everything. A part of me is, at least. I took a nap, I watched Silver Linings Playbook and then the Hunger Games while drinking a bottle of wine and then slept great.

But I wake up at noon. I swear the only place I ever wake up at noon is in NYC. Why is this? Why when I love the city so much, and there is so much to do, do I find myself hiding away in apartments here? It's not just this apartment, it's any apartment I've ever stayed in. But then I started thinking and I realized it's not just NYC, although it is worse here.

But it's not like that when I was living on the boat. Why?

I think on freedom and energy and happiness. My singularly and regularly happiest moments are when I'm driving in my car, the sun is out, the windows are down and I'm going somewhere new, or I don't have a destination, or whatever it may be. When I had my car I had a lot of those moments, and in my head I would imagine wings - which were my whole being and self - stretched out and soaring. Underneath me and my car, were my roots, searching out and springing forward, content on just touching the ground but not planting. Searching.

And then it came to me - on the boat I can have both my wings and my roots.

I also have structure, discipline, responsibility. I actually enjoy being told what to do. I'm learning something, I'm a part of something.

We'll find out what I'm actually made of for this boat stuff in June, looks like I'll be there for a good three weeks or more. The coolest part is that I can come and go. But I really want to know what I'm doing. So much to learn.

I really wanted to go to Europe for a couple weeks for my birthday, but traveling with the boat for a month isn't a bad replacement.

Now for my boat wardrobe.... ;)

the Hawaiian Chieftain

Here I sit in the aft cabin, looking at my computer wanting to tell my blog all about my last week and a half and it's hard because there's just so much. Shit, a week and a half ago I didn't know what an aft cabin was.

I've enrolled in a two week program called "two weeks before the mast" in which you are given a bunk and thrown into a trial by fire process of adjusting to this lifestyle. Waking on average at eight am to the voice of Knuckles, the cook, hollering out to us "o-eight-hundred, coffee and breakfast!" and within 15 minutes 11 of us crowd the galley to snatch our portion of breakfast. Me and one other sailor lazily smoke a cigarette first (coffee in hand, naturally) before eating. Afterwards, "muster" is called and we are told what the day looks like. Next, chores.

The Hawaiian Chieftain is owned by a non profit organization who works and sails up and down the northwest coast teaching 4th and 5th graders about sailing, particularly around the Revolutionary war. During the week there are two programs for the kids; "Dockside tours" and "Education sails" (or "ed" sails). Dockside tours are where they are split into groups and in three different station learn about things like trading, navigation and hauling on lines. Ed sails we actually take the kids out sailing and, once again, in three groups are led to helping to actually put the sails up.

 Which, I suppose I should mention, is no small feet. The Chieftain is 103 feet from tip to tip, a square topsail ketch, with something ridiculous like 15 sails she can fly with - though mostly we stick it to about 6. The sails are heavy and solely raised by our dedicated strength. I'm a week into the program and I still barely know what I'm doing on each sail, learning so much every day and still feel like I haven't scratched the surface.

None the less, the weekends are public sails. We take them on two hour "Adventure" sails where the crew sings shanties and tells the passengers anything about sailing that they want to know about, and also encourage them to join in on the hauling of lines when raising the sails or tacking. The more fun sails are the "Battle" sails, where Hawaiian Chieftain and her sister ship, the Lady Washington have an exciting mock battle with cannons with blanks (though no less boom) and a point system to rate hypothetical damage. The fun comes in the jibes and calls back and forth when we get close, and in the hussle of being a deckhand when so much action and dancing of circles around eachother (the boats, not the crew, though in the chaos I find myself running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to figure out where it is I'm supposed to be).

 Now, all of this is the shell of the experience. The meat and bones is living on the boat; making the rest of your crew a second family, the ship a home and the skill of sailing filling your lungs and soul with the essence of adventure and freedom. Every burning muscle is a trophy and everything from food and drink to sleep feels better to me, out here, exploring a whole new way of existing.