Some things I see on the boat, especially at night, are impossible to describe or photograph. Night plankton is one of those things. Here is my rudimentary attempt at showing what it is like to activate night plankton:

When I decided to move onto a very small boat, I was going after a certain thing. I did want to travel, I did want to divest myself of clutter, and I did feel the need to make a major change even if it meant sacrificing the relative comfort of life on land. But none of these were the main thing.

I wanted to need much less [money] to live. There was a lot going on there – mostly stemming from cost of living going through the roof where I had been living for so long– but I knew I could live much more simply, and I suspected that I should.

For many months after switching off the hustle, my brain still churned. I was focused on getting the boat ready, getting out of the winter, getting through an extended refit, saving, saving, saving. Still treading water, but at least there was a plan for increased independence taking shape.

Recently, finally, I have had the experience of passing days in a row not spending any money. Even typing that, from the back of my mind I hear the jerk reminding me to pro-rate our few monthly bills like mail service and phone plan, and never, NEVER, stop feeling those pennies falling from my pockets, but then I tell that guy to shut up because this is as close as it gets and we’ve worked hard to carve out this time and its ok to go ahead and experience the thing.

[deep breath]

So what happens once I have renounced all that I can, and become essentially an island? One thing is I fall behind on this blog, but hey. Here are a few other things that happen:

– waking up without an alarm, sometimes very early
– experimenting with solar panel/battery/device voltage
– sewing and then re-sewing things
– listening to politics on the radio, then turning that crap off, then turning it back on
– “planktoneering”
– composing letters and conversations for future reference
– reading books that smell pretty musty
– rowing the dinghy; walking long distances
– making soup for husband
– selecting something new from giant hoard of Sephora samples for “spa” time
– wielding mudras, mantras, asana and pranayama
– praying
– believing personal peace contributes to peace in the world
– looking up and seeing an osprey with a fish in its talons!
– hearing the *puff!* of a dolphin breathing
– making and drinking coffee
– sweeping up cat fur, crumbs, and what ever else flakes off our boat constantly
– having business ideas, book ideas, other schemes
– noting the phase of the moon, tide, or wind direction
– watching Battlestar Galactica
– “tinsmithing” – will remove quotes when I make something useful
– hanging things out to dry; discovering damp things

And in the midst of all this, there is what Liz Lemon would describe “a loose feeling in my shoulders”. Moments cycle between pure attention and pure gratitude.

I don’t know how long we get this time, but we have it for today. Just for now I am ok with not knowing what comes next, and that is the gift.

This is going to be a post about my cat/s, and it will be quite long. [TRIGGER WARNING]

I met Beta around the same time I met my husband. He (the cat) was born in Greenpoint, USA, near the home of my friend Jane, who sort of tricked me into adopting him. Which is to say, she invited me over and plopped him into my lap. He was one-handful old.

At that time I already had a calico cat named Kitten, who was more needy than I ever imagined any cat could be. I was constantly harassed by Kitten every time I left the apartment, and her punishment would resume as soon as she heard my returning footsteps in the building. My stern landlord, who lived on the ground floor, maintained silence in the building. As the top-floor tenant who worked irregular hours and had to clip-clop up and down the linoleum central stair a million times a day, schlepping Godknowswhat and with the cat howling… our relationship was tense. So I would sneak in like a ninja, scaling the walls, to stave off Kitten’s racket out of fear that she would get us kicked out of this below-market-rate apartment – aka the holy grail. I know that’s a lot to put on a cat.

So Beta came home at 8 weeks old, to be my second cat – hence the name – as playmate for Kitten. This is how it starts with cats and cat ladies.

Beta fit in perfectly. Kitten stopped guilt tripping me, and bossed the new guy around instead. But Beta didn’t pay no mind, because this dude was CHILL. If he wanted food, he headbutted you. If he wanted to play, there was some string. No drama. One time he got really and suddenly sick, the way cats like to do right before you are about to leave for vacation. Nursing him back to health was the only time I think he really made eye contact with me. “Thanks”, he said, with his big golden eyeballs. He put his paw on my paw.

When I half-moved onto the boat, the cats stayed put with my cat-friendly friend and subletter – lets call her Joski. When it later became clear that I was going all in, I struggled to find new homes for both cats. I always feel a twinge of something about this part of the story, that I couldn’t be a “furever home” for Beta and Kitten, and that I leaned so much on Joski to place them. Bad human.

Come to think of it, I’ve never written about what it was like to leave New York. This part with the apartment and the cats was something quite difficult. When you chip out a little secret sanctuary for yourself over the course of many years, pulling the nest apart makes an utter mess.

Beta and Kitten were ultimately separated, and Joski took over the lease. My last towhold in the city was a storage locker with a duffle bag of journals in it overlooking Newtown Creek.

But wait, there’s more!

Just when I thought the dust had settled, Beta was returned by his new humans because they were getting evicted! Drama! That was it, I couldn’t bear this catragedy any longer. By this time, we had sailed all the way down the coast. So I got on what we call “the Midnight Train From Georgia”, which is actually the Amtrak leaving from Jesup at 7pm, arriving Penn Station at 11am. Who takes an overnight train from the rural Deep South to NYC? Ponder that one awhile, but at least one answer is: Cat Ladies.

I collected my bag of journals and my Beta, and we road tripped down I-95 back to the boat. Imagine Thelma and Louise, except his paw was on my paw and no one died or was hurt in any way.

The Little Island is a book by Margaret Wise Brown, which tells the tale of a little black cat that goes on a sail with his humans and explores a small island and the sea around it. I imagined Beta’s life aboard would be like this, and I sometimes tried to see our adventures through his eyes. We attempted to give him enough freedom to still be an animal, but keep him reliant enough on us that he would always come home for dinner and let us protect him.

When he hopped off the boat one week ago, I expected him to walk the dock and be right back for string time. We have replayed it so many times.

Right now we are in a boatyard on the GA/FL border, doing heavy work in some major swamp heat. Looking for Beta has brought us into contact with a growing spiral of neighbors, as the days pass and we widen our search. In a certain part of Camden County, Beta has better name recognition than most presidential candidates. Let’s just say clipboards are involved.

We have moments of deep missing, despair for all the potential dangers Beta may have already encountered, and also regret for what we failed to do.

But I also try to imagine this adventure through his eyes, the one where he ditches out on this rough patch of yard time and opts for some squirrel hunting in the moss-draped oaks of Point Peter instead. I imagine him grazing on pond frogs and tuning his satellite dish-ears on barred owl calls. Further down the bluff there is a stalled subdivision with an expanse of forest symmetrically fragmented with pristine asphalt roads. Perhaps he’s doing some survey work down there and will report back to me soon with some land use recommendations.

Is this is The Revenge of Kitten, wherein Beta is her Manchurian Candidate, performing the ultimate manipulation of human hearts?

We will need to leave this place in a week or maybe two, and Beta will either saunter back onto the boat like NBD, or we will need to accept that he’s really gone all in. Wish us all luck.