My room is full of fading sunlight and I lay in bed attempting to sleep. I just finished cooking dinner for the crew after a 4 hour watch and I will be on watch again at 1am till 5am. My sleep schedule is off and yet so onto the circadian rhythm that it won't allow me to sleep with this light. We drag ourselves up and down the stairs in opposing schedules and shifts in two's to sit in the bridge for 4 hours at a time to watch out for other boats, check the radar, and keep each other awake. Passing the crew mate whom I am replacing, I nod and take their seat as they update me on what they have seen and I sit in their spot to continue to babysit the darkness.
It may not seem like a lot of work but it messes up a sleep pattern something fierce coupled with the boats' rocking and constant motion. An insatiable hunger and desire to snack is always there as my body is constantly expelling energy overcompensating to maintain balance in the sway of the boat. Thankfully this is just moving the boat from one country to another and not another 2 week trip at sea with 12 guests and 17 hour work days. We arrive to the U.S.A finally after 9 of the busiest months I have yet experienced on a yacht and I think I may cry when the immigration agent says, "Welcome home." I have been looking out my window to this day like a dog awaiting the rain to stop. As much knowledge and priceless education I have received from provisioning as a chef in remote parts of jungles and small Central American towns, I can't help but have a sigh of relief at the convenience that lie ahead.
There is no doubt I live a privileged life and that I am experiencing things that I don't have to look back and appreciate…I DO already. Just today a humpback whale almost ran into our bow, I suppose thinking we were another whale. It dove down just before running into us, its large tale swatting the side of our bow as it submerged below. My crew mate and I nearly shit ourselves screaming "Oh my God, we're going to run into it!" We hugged each other, hands running through hair nervously, laughing and gasping at our near miss and the amazing site we just witnessed. Each day we are out at sea some new phenomenon happens that I am pinching myself over from watching lazy sea lions floating on their backs in the currents waving a flipper up at us to marlin leaping out of the water, elegant and majestic. In the evenings, the breezes we have missed for so long whisper through our hair as we put on dusty forgotten jackets in our approach north. Millions of stars dotted a black, moonless sky last night as we quietly sloshed through calm seas up the Mexican coast. I smile through puffy tired eyes as I sip my tea and marvel at how beautiful this world is. No lack of sleep can take the wonder from my eyes, regardless how tired they may be.
And so our schedule will continue but a little easier for me and I will take it! After a couple days we will suit up for another 2 week trip packed with A-listers, dive exploration, shark experts, and scientists. I will get to cook for a culinary icon, a musical idol, and a ridiculously accomplished film producer. Breathe in…breathe out. You can do this, I tell myself. But I have to be honest…even with the wealth, privilege, and ease of the U.S…I am exhausted. Exhausted in a way that is soul deep and brings longings and sadnesses up in dreams of things that I left behind to forget when I began this journey. I return with a question of where those things are now and where they will go. At the end of it all, I want to crawl to my mother's door. lay in her lap, fall asleep, and not wake up for a very long time. To have a night of un-tossed sleep, to inhale fully the love and acceptance that I know lies there. To somehow know I am in the arms of someone who doesn't' judge me by my looks, bank account, my age, my weight, how many calories I eat, or if the food I cook tastes good. Just to be loved regardless and to rest in that. To be home. It is in this return again that I miss my family so much, even though I just saw them a month ago. It wasn't enough. I miss my dog Tilly still. We didn't have enough time either and I am still not over that. I want to rest and I want to be home. I want to rewind time and I want to fast forward it. Maybe that's what all this travel was meant to teach me the importance of…the importance of home. The importance of letting go as well.
