I don’t know if having the soul of a gypsy is innate or acquired, but I have admitted on more than one occasion that I’m lucky I found my partner because he is a gypsy, too. Whereas many of our friends and relatives have never left home, we have moved many times and lived in many places (Key West-Pensacola-Gulf Breeze-North Palm Beach, all in Florida; Dothan, Alabama; San Diego, California; Port Aransas, Texas; Washington, DC; Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi; Hopkinsville, Kentucky) in the thirty-four years of being together. We have lived in a house, on a boat (twice), a FEMA trailer, and an RV. We even had a job that kept us on the road for months at a time, a different city every week. Traveling is in our blood.

Looking back, there were so many forks in the road that would have steered us to a different path. But then we wouldn’t have met the people, or had the experiences that have so enriched our lives. As I reluctantly but steadily inch towards what is known as one’s “golden years,” I realize just how blessed I have been to have had a life rich in adventure.

I think I used the word “romantic” in a previous essay to describe how I perceived life on a boat when all it was was just talk. That was absolutely NOT what it was, but it is the memories that are attached to those times that I remember most.

When we lived aboard in San Diego (and this was with children) dockage was horrendously expensive: $10/foot (length of the boat – ours was 42 feet), plus $100/per person. We were paying more than $800 a month for the privilege of tying up to a dock. So we tried living on the hook, as San Diego had several city-owned anchorages. Looking back, we must have been crazy to do it with kids and a dog that needed to pee a few times a day, but we did. Getting to shore involved transport by dinghy. And going back and forth to shore happened several times each day, because he had a job, the kids attended school, and I had to do things like shop for groceries and do laundry ashore (even though our boat had a washer and dryer, those are fairly useless when not connected to water and electricity.)  In retrospect, loading groceries and laundry into a dinghy to then we transported to a boat an anchor was not easy. Plus, the dog needed to be walked from time to time.

Even though the boat had a powerful generator, it was impractical to always keep it running, so even our refrigerator became virtually useless. We operated out of a cooler for the most part, which is alright to do for a weekend or so, but rather impractical for a family of four, 24/7. But we did for awhile.

One day, my knight in shining armor returned from home from work, riding his steed of a dinghy, bearing roses. He was one for flowers and gave them to me often. I should have blushed and thrown my arms around him. But what happened instead? I burst into tears and cried inconsolably. To say he was confused is an understatement.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. This was before cell phones and we had not spoken all day. From the way I was sobbing, he thought that surely something terrible had happened.

“I needed a block of ice!” I shrieked.

If he thought he didn’t understand women before, this confirmed it. We were back in a marina the following weekend. As it turned out, paying $800 a month for dockage was cheaper than getting a divorce.