I’ve been home for a little over twenty-four hours and I still feel like I’m on the ocean. Just sitting at the table, I experience a rolling sensation, almost a force, pushing me side to side. I haven’t eaten much, can’t stomach the thought. When my flight arrived into Melbourne, it was pouring rain. By the time the taxi brought me home, the sun was out. I feel weird.
Let me back up for a moment. Where was I? I was on a cruise for the Digital Parents Conference (I can tick ‘Speak on a boat’ off my list of life’s ambitions). Three nights and two full days of blogging tips and chatter with a truly lovely group of women. Unfortunately, I can pretty much divide my time spent up into two places: conference room and bed. I was not a happy sailor. I would wake up feeling fine, but as the day progressed, I would feel steadily worse and worse. By evenings, I was in bed, without (much) to eat. One night, I was flicking through the channels and came across the Through the Wormhole episode on time, narrated by Morgan Freeman.
‘What time is it?’ is his opening question, and I found myself asking myself that as well. Thanks to seasickness drugs, I would fall asleep quickly, but then wake up again, confused. I experienced a similar disconnect when I walked into the house yesterday, seeing everything, normal but not normal. My household routine, in several areas, had been completely abandoned. Not that this bothers me at all, yet it was just another thing to add on top of everything else. I went to bed last night in the hopes I would ‘sleep off’ this extra sensory information. Alas, not.
I get why some people love cruises. The handover of control, the ease of just showing up to select your meals at a buffet. The beautiful views, both at sea and in port. Look at that sky! Look at the Museum of Contemporary Art!
Look at the opulence!
We sailed as far south as Gabo Island (I didn’t even know it existed) off the Victoria coast before turning around and heading home again.
Shannon Ponton, of The Biggest Loser fame, was onboard in his capacity as Carnival Cruise ambassador and I got a creep shot of his legs. (I like nice legs, what can I say? I’m shallow.)
Above all, it was a perfect opportunity to sit down and reacquaint myself with a lot of the fundamental questions about what I want this blog to reflect and aspire to. Kelly did a wonderful talk about how she found the centre – her well – for blog by addressing the ‘why’ she does it. My why has more or less always been the same – to find and celebrate the meaning of everyday life, by telling stories and helping people tell theirs. I have not been telling as many stories in recent months (gosh, maybe even years) and I think that needs to change.
So I’m going to ask you to help me keep accountable to that wish. I’m going to share with you a secret – I came *this close* to changing my blog tagline ‘Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday’ because only a small percentage of people (fellow literary theory or writerly types) even know what ‘objective correlative’ means. I wondered what was the point of having a tagline hardly anyone understood? Well, perhaps the answer is to put it into practise.
Because there is always time for stories.
