Campfyre Stories

I learned a lot on this trip, and I’m not only talking about science-related things.  I actually learned a lot about myself on this trip.

First, I learned that I don’t give myself enough credit.

When I found myself sitting at a table with two of the conference speakers – a well-renowned archaeologist and a professional skeptic, as well as the well-renowned in her own right archaeologist wife of the speaker, I said to people “I lucked into this amazing table”.  The truth was actually quite different.  I created that situation in a lot of ways.  Jerry was having technical difficulties and I offered my expertise.  It took me less than 5 minutes to fix his problem, so when he saw me at dinner, he saw me as “My Hero” and joined me.  Michael joined us, partly because he came late to dinner and partly because he recognized Jerry.  I created that situation and it was the mother/daughter couple sitting with us who actually “lucked into” sitting at my table.  They also had no problem talking about how amazing their table was, but I don’t think either of them realized that I created the situation.

I further realized that I do this a lot.  I set things up so that they will work in my favor, and then give the credit to “luck” or “chance” or even “coincidence”, but I put a lot of time and effort into setting things up so that they will work in my favor.  I really need to work on giving myself credit for the work I do and the results it brings.

Second, I realized that I really love where I live. I may periodically be discontent with the number of friends I have or the lack of people who enjoy [activity], but I love my friends and I love having my family close and I love the various communities that I sort of belong to.

The biggest problem I face is that I don’t feel fully accepted into any community and I never really have until this cruise.  I need to find a way to better entrench myself with like-minded people and I need to figure out where to draw the lines in terms of what I can or won’t deal with.  I keep finding individuals from communities that I want to hold on to, but the overall group dynamics either reject me or turn me off.  Either way, I’m not looking to join.

I’m not sure if all the people I met on the conference fit into that or if they’ve found their own communities at their home bases.  All I know is that I need to work harder and look a little closer and try to figure out where I’m missing the mark, because I am, and I think I always have, my entirely life.

All I know is that this is where I want to live and this is where I want to find my community.  It just seems fleeting…

So now I know that some folks are thinking, ‘really, Fyre?  Two things?  That’s all you learned on your science conference?“  And my answer is that I may have learned other things, but these are the things I learned about myself.  And for having taken only 9 days off from my “real life”, I think two revelations is pretty damn good.  Who are you to tell me it’s not?

};^P

I was a little worried that I’d be out of my depth, but I needn’t have been.  While the demographic ran a good bit older than I expected, it was mostly an accepting and inclusive group.  I’ve been telling people that I fell in with “the cool kids”, but the truth is that people mostly fell into one of two categories – those who looked to get to know the people in our group and those who mostly kept to themselves.  Go ahead and guess which category I fell into.

So the outgoing and friendly people found each other.  We joined each other for breakfasts and lunches, we sang karaoke in the bar, we danced until midnight or later, we engaged each other and sought each other out.  Of course I fell in with them.

I made a point to sit with different people every night at dinner.  I was unwilling to sit with the same people twice and only broke that rule after I bowed out of dinner because of the gyroscopic motion of the ship.  I wanted to have dinned with C&J, so I sat with them 2 nights in a row, although only one of those nights included dinner (for me).  One of my favorite dinners had me sitting with two of the presenters – Jerry Milanich and Michael Shermer.  I also befriended Jim Blascovich and his wife, Brenda Major.  They were all very accessible and made a point to enjoy the cruise as much as anyone else.

I befriended doctors and lawyers and writers and people from all different occupations.  There were people who work(ed) in the sciences as well as those of us who only read Scientific American.  One of the stand-out people I met is a woman who embodies who I want to be when I get older.  She is everything I hope to still be – vibrant, outgoing, active, fun…  This is a woman I can see starting up a wheelchair motorcycle gang.  The best part was that, as folks got to know us both, they agreed that this was my future, right in front of me.

What’s unfortunate is that everyone I bonded with lives far away.  Also that few of them are on Facebook.  They all have email addresses, but who knows if we’ll actually keep in touch, and most of them are far enough away that it will probably take another cruise for me to reconnect with them.

Now that I’m home, I feel a sense of loss.  Never before have I felt so at home within a community.  These are my people and this is where I belong, but now I’m faced with the daunting task of trying to find or create a similar community here at home.  I’ve been looking for a while, but now that I know what I’m missing, does that make me more likely to find it or just more aware of that missing piece?

Regardless, I’ve learned that the community I truly belong to is out there, and they have accepted and embraced me.  I’ll see them again, no question.  Now it’s just a matter of how and when I can afford to do it again.

Well from here I can’t really blog chronologically.  I don’t think about this vacation in that sense, anyway.  There was too much that happened, too many people that I met, too much information to absorb.  Instead, I’ll tell you about different pieces.

I loved being on a cruise ship, with the notable exception of the day I was sea sick (the day we left Bermuda to come back home).  I spent a lot of my young life on the water, often on boats, and I’ve always loved it.  As an adult I often miss being on the water, so this was an excellent choice for me.  I also cheaped out on my stateroom, which put me really close to the sea itself.  This proved to be an excellent thing when I got sea sick, since the motion is much less the lower you are.

It reminded me quite a bit of my folk festival.  You see the same people and start up conversations in various lines or while waiting.  I had interesting conversations with people while waiting for dinner, playing trivia, and pretty much whatever I did.  There was no lack of conversation to be had, even if no one I knew was anywhere around.

The food was excellent.  I wen to the buffet for breakfast and lunch, but it was the dining room for me every dinner.  I didn’t bother to try the other restaurants, but I did make a point to be more food adventurous than usual, within limits (no land-based animals, allergic to peppers) and I wound up liking a few things that I thought I loathed.  We’ll see if I continue that adventurousness back in my land-based life.

If I had to complain about anything it would be the older skew of the demographic.  I shouldn’t have been surprised by it, but I was.  For some reason I thought there would be, you know, any people around my age, but they were few and far between.  That said, I’m a Free School kid.  I can make friends with anyone, regardless of age, religion, race, whatever, and I did.

But there was enough to do to make me want to take another cruise at some point, one that doesn’t have a conference attached so that I can enjoy what the ship has to offer.  Spawn has decided that his graduation trip (I promised that when he graduates high school I’d take him anywhere in the world) will be a cruise, so some time next year I’ll be able to do just that.

When I went down to the lobby there were quite a few people hanging around, but no indication of the group.  As usual, I was early enough to sit down and wait, so I played with my phone while I kept my eyes and ears open for any hint that these folks might be part of my group.  It was maybe 5-10 minutes before I heard “Are you here for Bright Horizons?” and beelined over in that direction.

The first three people I met were C&J, a couple from California and D, a woman from Israel.  C was very friendly and (happily) also a plus sized gal, which alleviated some of my concerns and insecurity .  She also proved to be one of only 2-3 people in our group (of 60-ish) who was close to my age (within 5 years).  She was really an excellent first contact.  D was there with her husband, but had made her own way to the lobby – he would meet up with us.

People started to trickle downstairs and the folks who knew each other started to connect.  I felt pretty awkward in that moment, to be completely honest.  I mean, I couldn’t figure out how to approach anyone.  I really withdrew into myself, knowing that as the day progressed, I’d come out of my shell more and more.

When we were all together and some introductions had begun, we all got on a tour bus.  I have to say, seeing NYC from a tour bus is something I never thought I’d do, and it’s quite a different experience from seeing it on foot or (ha!) from the subway.  It was Mother’s Day weekend, so the hansom cabs were out in force and there were flowers *everywhere*.  We were also in and around Central Park, so that certainly helped.

We arrived before our tour guide (the head of the astrophysics department) arrived, so we had a few minutes to wander around.  Having been in New York plenty of times before, I didn’t wander too far and, instead, found myself taking pictures of the nearby flowers.  I think I was missing Tulip Fest on an unconscious level.  I chatted with a few people before we went in and laid the groundwork for further conversations.

The tour was incredible.  To have an expert take us around the Hayden Planetarium (“This is not your grandmother’s planetarium,” he said, to a group of largely senior citizens) and the Rose Science Center, then, over lunch, to talk to us about his hobby – Einstein.  After all of that, we were given passes to get into all the areas that usually require a separate fee and given a few hours to just explore.  Some of the cool things we saw with Michael Shara were the world’s most expensive Sea Monkey tank (at $50 million) and the oldest known meteorite.  I could spend DAYS exploring the museum, but I feel like I got to see the things that most interested me, so I don’t feel slighted at all.

By this point I was starting to get to know names, if nothing else, and found that the group was really friendly and that there was a strong community feeling that I wasn’t quite able to tap into yet.  That was completely okay, just knowing that there was that community feeling was enough to put me completely at ease.  Having started to get to know people was enough to make me comfortable in the knowledge that I wasn’t actually out of my depth and that I was already being accepted.  From lunch at the museum for the rest of the trip, I was able to get over my hangups and just enjoy myself.

Next, we re-boarded the bus and headed out to the Scientific American offices.  I”m really not sure what I expected, or even if I had expectations.  Regardless, we were escorted to the offices and into the break room, where a lovely buffet was set up for us.  We were introduced to a handful of staffers, given a private tour of the offices, which included a look at an upcoming issue, all laid out in progress on the wall,  and then given swag bags that were customized for each of us.  Customized how?  Well, we all got a nice heavy canvas tote bag, a blank lined book with Scientific American stamped on the cover (this became my journal, my notes and soon will wind up as my scrapbook for this trip) a button that reads “I am a Scientific American”, a current issue of Scientific American and a copy of Scientific American from the month and year we were born.  We were all thrilled and completely surprised.

Dinner was largely uneventful, but allowed me to get to know several of the people in my group.  By now I had realized that age really didn’t matter in this group and that I’d be interacting with people from all different places and backgrounds.  I knew then that the stories I could hear would likely be amazing.  I also knew that I wanted to hear those stories and get to know as many of the people as I possibly could.

We returned to the hotel (well, most of us, a few people jumped off the bus early to go see shows), where I repacked my things and went to bed.  This time, however, I fell right to sleep, feeling completely comfortable in the choices I’d made.

Well, there’s some small part of me that wants to leave “went on a cruise never came back” as a final post on this blog, however, this is way too useful a tool (journal) for me to abandon it.  I also have this thing in my head about how owning the domain makes the handle truly mine.  In an attempt to get back into the whole blogging bit, I need to start talking about my trip.

But before I talk about my trip, I need to talk about the last things that happened before I left and as I arrived in NYC.

I didn’t allow myself to get excited or nervous about my cruise until after my second job was finished.  That meant I had a week to freak out and jump up and down and deal with all the stuff going on.  I’m really glad I didn’t allow myself more time to dwell on it, since I think things might have been even worse.

I packed early.  I was fully packed on Sunday with only the last minute things left out.  That meant that for 5 days I had to look at my packed suitcase and count the days, the hours even.  Mentally I departed a few days before my physical departure.  I used the week to get all my ducks in a row back home.  While I wasn’t actually worried about disappearing at sea, there were a lot of things that just needed to be done.  I updated my emergency file that contains all the phone numbers for key people to notify in the event of an emergency.  That was a good thing to do, regardless of when it happened.

So I took care of all that stuff.  Friday was ridiculous.  I got next to nothing done and spent the entire day twitching, waiting for 4:30, when my train left.  Eventually I got there, the train was on time, I stood in a ridiculously long line to get a taxi to my hotel, but I got there.  And by the time I settled into my very expensive hotel room, I was exhausted.

I ordered (very expensive) room service, took a bath, put on pajamas and attempted to sleep.  That didn’t happen.  I couldn’t sleep no matter what I did.  I tried the television, but there was no distraction to be had.  I couldn’t concentrate on books or magazines, so I wrote, in a notebook and as I did, I completely fell apart.

All of the anxiety that I didn’t really let myself feel, all the insecurities that have built up over the past I don’t even know how long, all of my worries, it all came out.  I wrote, and cried, for over an hour.  And then I slept.  It was late by the time I slept, but I had a wake up call in and woke up plenty on time.  I was trepidatious and feeling shy, but I pulled myself together, looked in the mirror and reminded myself who I really am.

Hi, I’m [Fyre], it’s nice to meet you!

Some years ago, KP and I were consumed with six-word epitaphs.  We both wrote several stories, epitaphs, memoirs.  It was a thing and she got her ultimate epitaph out of it.

Fast forward a few years.  I’m going, by myself, on a cruise.  It’s a science conference and I won’t know anyone there.  We will be entering the Bermuda triangle and not emerging until (I kid you not) Friday the 13th.

Is it just me or does that sound like the beginning of a disaster/scifi/adventure movie?

So I’ve decide to not assume that I’m coming back.  I try not to let superstition interfere with my life, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t notice things like Friday the 13th, or broken mirrors.  The combination of all the suspiciously superstitious things, plus the “rational thinking” speaker, plus the potential to be surrounded by scientists who poo poo faith of any sort just sets the whole thing up like a plot line.

I’m making a point to tell people that I might not come back, and I’m saying it as a joke, but there’s that .001% of uncertainty and, frankly, considering the life I lead and the adventures that find me, it wouldn’t be all that surprising for me to be lost at sea or come back from “the dead”.  As much as it is a joke, I”m taking my cue to tell people I love them and to make sure all my affairs are in order.  This is just me being smart, not me being paranoid.  Anyone traveling out of the country should probably make sure someone has access to private and important paperwork and financial information.

And I’m not seriously thinking that I won’t come back or I would probably bring extra survivalist luggage.  That said, I am packing a few odd things that would really only be useful in the event of shipwreck/stranding on an uncharted isle.  I don’t want to feed into my own flights of fantasy, but I also don’t want to be taken completely off-guard if the unexpected happens.

So KP asked me what I wanted my epitaph to be.  And, to me, this is the pinnacle of preparation and ducks in a row.  I came up with three.  The first is the title of the post.  The second is “Is this Lost all over again?”  But the one I actually want, on the off chance that I don’t get back off the boat in NYC is…

Might not be dead.  Bermuda Triangle.

And y’all know that if anyone was going to come back from the dead, it would be me.

Thursday marked the last day of my second job.  I busted my butt to get everything all set and to make sure that my manager and replacement had as much of the information stored in my head as I could give them.  I went (in my own opinion) above and beyond what was expected of me and then severed all ties with that company, without actually burning the bridges.

And then I got excited.  And nervous.  And more nervous.

I finished all my shopping last weekend.  I packed everything last night(!).  I have all the money I need.  My only “have to” left at this point is to finish Spring Cleaning before I leave, and I’m most of the way done with that.  I need to tackle the bathroom and finish the kitchen.  If my bedroom doesn’t get finished, oh well, it’s most of the way done already and “good enough”.

I’m working all week, though.  Or maybe I should say “working”.  My boss wants me to do a few things for him and I don’t want to find myself over my head and leaving things undone for 10  days (or longer, did I mention Bermuda Triangle on Friday the 13th?), so I need to be careful about what I actually do.

This is my week:  Monday – coop shift, Tuesday – movie night, Wednesday – dedicated to finishing the cleaning, Thursday – massage and mani-pedi (have I mentioned that there is great success and I actually have fingernails now?), Friday – work ’til 3, then leave.

That’s it right there.  Maybe my life won’t actually change, but at least I can break out of the monotony that, despite my best efforts, has consumed the past few years of my life.

The flying solo starts when I walk out my door.  No one is available to drive me to the train station, so I’ll be taking a cab.  It’s interesting to me that things worked out in such a way that I’m forced to even start my trip completely on my own.  Despite having Moon come to “help pack”, we didn’t actually get anything done that day.  All my packing was done by me alone.  It seems to be a theme.  One that I hope doesn’t carry through the entire trip.  While I’m okay with going on this cruise without a safety net, it’s my sincere hope that I will make connections and friends and not find myself isolated and alone.  To a certain extent, the idea of “flying solo” for 9 whole days is terrifying, but I’m trying to convince myself that most of it is in my head.

Is it any wonder that I’m starting to feel like it’s getting a little crowded in my head?  I’m not sure that I can hold on to the work-related threads that I need to hold on to.  I’m already prone to daydreaming, this just exacerbates the situation.  Not to mention that the packed luggage is sitting in my living room (the only place there’s room), taunting me, prompting me to count down the days, again.  Also not helping?  All the people asking me “Are you totally excited?”  Yes.  I am.  And terrified.  And thrilled.  And freaking the eff out.

I’d say I can’t wait, but I have no choice in the matter.  All my confirmations are here.  All my documents are in order.  All my stuff is packed and ready to go (leaving me with none of my favorite or most comfortable clothes – heh).  Now all I can do is wait.

I mean, try to get some work done.