Sailing Positive Waves

We have a little less than two weeks left on St. Croix so we've been packing our days to make sure we see and do all the fun stuff on the island. We've also had two birthdays and Easter, Hans has worked some shifts on island, daily homeschool, and lots of playtime (for kids and adults!) with the neighbors, boaters, and cruising friends from over 10 years ago. Both Hans and I have our full covid vaccines and with the outdoor eating and activities, it feels like we're in a post-pandemic world. I no longer open the news with dread every every morning, but, rather, feel something akin to hope when I see how many doses have been administered in the US. News from Europe is a little bleak, with more lockdowns and a slow vaccine delivery. We'll see how it looks and feels when we go back in May.  Freja turned 10! She requested a massive fruit salad for breakfast, parasailing, and sushi. The sushi and parasailing fell through, but an epic water fight in and out of the pool with...

 These few months away from Positive Waves and from our new normal life are strange. They are good-- we're having fun, we're exploring, we're meeting new people--but we all seem to have a background current of unease, of feeling unsettled. It's resulting in poor sleep for myself and Hans and to more moody behavior for the kids. Matilda is missing her stuffed animals and Legos; Freja is missing predictability and routine. We're all happy and healthy, but we're not where we are meant to be, which leaves everyone feeling a little untethered. Regardless, we're embracing our good fortune at being in a beautiful place where the pandemic is not as front and center as it is in crowded, busy, winter-weather cities and towns. Hans has started working at the hospital here, bringing in some funds to keep the bank account in the positive after needing to buy extra plane tickets, housing, and a rental car. We gave the kids this week off from school because w...

  About ten years ago when Hans was at medical school in Philadelphia, we thought long and hard about what we wanted our life to look like. In five years, ten, twenty. Even though we were living on a poorly insulated, old, small boat in winter in the northeast/mid-Atlantic, we knew that we'd always find ourselves on the water, one way or another. We also knew that it was unlikely that we'd ever land in a "home town." For better or worse, we're both travelers and nomads; we are always looking toward what is around the next bend in the road. (Or over the horizon in our case.) It was clear that the best specialty for Hans would be the one that provided the most flexibility, which is how he landed in Emergency Medicine. (And likely for a host of other professional and personal career reasons that he can explain better than I can.) Choosing flexibility has certainly paid off over the past five weeks. A big consideration when we had to leave Sweden was how the emergency...