Waking up

The end of every research cruise is disorienting. For weeks, I have seen the same finite group of people,  and we spontaneously formed a miniature society. Then all of a sudden, I am back where I started - in this case, home in Woods Hole - and surrounded by an entirely different group of people. It feels almost like waking up from a really good dream. 

I took some time off after the Heroic Age cruise. In fact, the day after I stepped off the ship, my husband and I flew to the Midwest for a long weekend with my family. My experience at sea slipped entirely out of my mind as I played in a water park with my 6-year-old nephew. The Labrador Sea was nowhere in my thoughts as I cheered with my sister-in-law at a kitschy dinner theater. If the expedition was a dream, that long weekend was the delightful delirium that comes in the early light of dawn. 

So here I am friends, back at home. By day, I write my dreams on paper, asking the funding powers-that-be to grant me more oceanic adventures. I promise discoveries in exchange for cash, selling a scientific story to sustain myself and my family. It is a grind. By night, I pull weeds in the garden and pet my dog. My life is high-stakes exploration and low-key restoration, public media outreach and private sofa snuggles, powerful mountaintop moments and a quiet island home. 

By itself, the simple life has never been enough for me. But now, as I wake up from my incredible expedition dream, it might be just what I need.