Where is Home?

…Finding Stillness in Constant Movement

I’m currently sitting on anchor in the beautiful Barred Islands, a place that’s become a favorite of mine these past few weeks cruising in Maine. Its isolation—especially when we’re the only boat here, as we have been the past two times—is calming. Being here makes me feel as though the rest of the world can wait, that I can allot this pocket of time to sit and enjoy its simple beauty. This also might be because, at the moment, I can in fact do just that. Most of my admin/logistical work (boat shows, haul-out project lists, next year planning) is done, nothing on the boat is breaking or requiring my immediate attention, and it’s not yet time to make dinner. Yet here I am writing. I think that counts as being still…maybe?

As we make this final loop of the season around Penobscot Bay, I’m saying little goodbyes to each place. Or rather, see you laters, I hope.

Sailing is funny in that you have dozens of homes in a single year. Each little bay is a new backyard. And each place comes with a slightly different daily routine. Some places are for hiking, some are for paddling, some are for going ashore to get a proper barista coffee, and some are for staying aboard to knock out boat chores or bake cookies on a foggy afternoon. The variety is unimaginable to people living on land.

Visiting a place just twice makes it feel like home!

The classic ah, we’re back! feeling of knowing exactly which rock to tie off the dinghy to and climb ashore for a hike, which road offers a good 5k run, and what brand of vegan yogurt the grocery store has. Sometimes, I catch myself saying things like, “we usually do…” when, in reality, we’ve only done that something once before!

The same goes for anchorages. Having visited Barred Islands twice already, we most certainly have “our spot” in the small bay, which was determined to be so after only our first visit. Luckily for us, we had the whole place to ourselves the following two visits, leaving plenty of room to drop the hook in “our spot!” That repetition, tiny as it may seem, is its own kind of anchor.

It’s amazing how adaptable you become living on a boat. How accustomed to change and constant movement. How quickly you latch onto tiny bits of “routine” whenever you find yourself in one place longer than a couple days.

I feel like sailing puts you in a sort of in-between state. You’re not on vacation, but you’re also not at home. You’re not a tourist (at least not in the normal sense of the term—I don’t think tourists typically get excited over waterfront dumpsters or spend their days in laundromats and grocery stores…), but you’re also not a local. You’re a cruiser. It’s an entirely different category.

I stumble when people ask where I’m visiting from. Do I say Michigan? I haven’t been there in nearly a year…Wilmington was also home for many years…so were the Virgin Islands…and even the Bahamas for several months (which, in boat time = years). So, I often say simply, “a boat!” Which, of course, prompts many follow-up questions.

I have a feeling that I’ll struggle with this question for a long time to come. I have many more boat-life years left in me, as well as a desire to travel, to live abroad.

Home, in its physical sense, will always be Michigan for me. It’s the place I crave when I’m feeling exhausted, the place I return to when I have nowhere else to go, the place where life feels easy. But I am so rarely there that I find it hard to say truthfully that it is, in fact, home.

I’ve learned, slowly, that in order to find peace in a lifestyle as dynamic as the one I live, I need to cultivate a different type of “home.” One that moves with me. Will I still long for the safe, cozy feeling of a house I call my own every once in a while? Sure. But there are other attributes to a home besides four walls.

For me, it’s the little things—making matcha in the mornings, rolling out my yoga mat for a workout, throwing a batch of granola together or making a loaf of sourdough…these sorts of things can make almost any place feel like home. I’ve also found that doing “normal people” things like sitting in a cafe with my laptop can make any foreign city feel a bit homier. That simple act brings a moment of stillness to my travels, in which I can pretend I really do live there…

Anchored here in this isolated yet familiar place, it’s now time to cook dinner, another small ritual that invokes a sense of home. The only thing missing is a neighbor or two, a sense of community, but more on that later…

I’ve also realized that tonight is the farthest north we’ll be for the rest of the year. It’s all south from here! Onwards to new places I’ll learn to call home :)