walking into tomorrow

The other night I was sitting in the floor in the doorway of my former cabin and apologized to Joy as she climbed over me. I told her I was just waiting on my friend to come back from tomorrow. What?!?! No I mean I’m waiting for her to come back from yesterday ?!?!? Seriously! I corrected one more time to I am waiting for her to come back from next door. But it got me to thinking, my friends and family at home are going on with their tomorrows and though I too am walking into tomorrow, it is not with those at home. And I felt the loss of that walking together acutely. I know I am where I am supposed to be doing what I am supposed to be doing and that people at home also are where they are supposed to be. I don’t regret that. I just hate that it means that I have to be a half a world away. And missing on the day to day things that are really treasures, not just the big days like birthdays and such. Those times when you sit down to coffee or grab lunch together just to be with those you love. That is what I am missing.

reminders

i know my last post talked about how easy it is to forget i live on a ship. these last couple of weeks i've had several reminders
--a man climbing out of a wall. and not like it was a door in the wall that i just hadn't noticed before but a panel that started about 1 1/2 feet up.
--man overboard drills. since we are at port it wasn't a full crew drill but they did let down the rescue boat to "rescue" the one overboard
--today i was sitting in the midships lounge and watching as mutliple teams of two fully kitted out in fire gear with the head covering on backwards feeling their ways across the ship, up the stairs. that took me back to the slightly panicky i can't catch my breath feeling that i had when we had to do that at gateway. once again i am happy that my being on the medical team prevents my being on the fire team. =)

these just aren't things that you see in normal life at home and although it isn't a day to day occurence here, i certainly don't think it unusual to see this stuff when it happens, it is just part of living here.

908 miles, 1461.284 kilometers

this morning i was awake shivering (yes, shivering, even in africa!) under my duvet when i heard the timbre of the engine (always a background noise) change. most of the time i don't really even notice it. b/c we are in port, it is quite easy to be unaware that i live on a ship and that my "village" isn't just contained in this 499 foot space with 8 levels. however, when things that are out of the norm, i do take a bit more notice. but, no announcement came and nothing seemed different apart from the sound so i went on with my day. it is funny to me how easy it is to forget we are on a ship. although my mind registers the ropes hanging off the deck railings, i don't really notice. or if the ropes are coiled on the deck i step over without thought if they are where i need to walk. the gentle rocking of the ship (have been told not so gentle when we sail) is pretty much unnoticeable. although, one fun thing is to sit on deck 7 when it rains and watch the rain puddle surface move port to starboard as we rock. the deck hands get a bit grimy but no more so than your average car repairman at home. so, easy to go about the day to day without realizing i live on a ship.

now, why 908 miles? we (the crew of the africa mercy) are walking to benin! no, they aren't making us walk from monrovia to benin (we will sail with teh ship) but we are walking, in teams, the miles it would take us to walk from here to there. our team has 5 members so we are "party of 5". if i were to think about how many times up and down the dock (3 = 1 miles) or to the gate and back (1 = 1 mile), it gets a bit overwhelming. instead, i'm aiming for 18-20 miles/week running or walking.