Beaufort NC – Looking at homelessness

I’ve got a home (my boat) for a little while, perhaps for another two or three weeks and then I’ll be homeless. I never imagined I’d ever be a homeless person but here it comes. I’m in a good place for this experience and I’m actually looking forward to it. That may sound odd but it’s true. I sold my house and got rid of most of my possessions in order to go cruising and that in itself proved to be one of the most powerful experiences of the whole journey. By that act of reduction I came to understand that “things” own you just as much as you own them. There is freedom to be gained by reducing one’s possessions. The declaration that “less is more” has never seemed truer to me.

I plan to move my stuff into my mini van, visit some friends in New England and then hit the road in search of a new home. But before I settle down I want to fully explore and experience the place called “homeless”. I sense that this might be a unique and powerful growth opportunity for me and I hope to make the most of it.

In the mean time I’m enjoying this transitory place I’m currently in: a dry storage marina in Beaufort NC. It’s beautiful here. The above photo was taken of the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) from my back yard, just 200’ from were Gypsy is parked. And there are wild ponies on Carrot Island, just across the creek from downtown Beaufort. The folks around here are wonderfully warm and friendly. I hope I can pick up some of that southern charm to warm up my native yankee coolness.

Things have calmed down with Susan and that’s a much-welcomed improvement. She’s been a pretty harsh lately, carrying on like a scorned woman. The relationship is over, I fully accept at least half for the responsibility for its demise. I’m not interested in deciding who was right, who was wrong and picking the moral winner. Last week we talked and agreed that it’s to our mutual benefit to separate and go our different ways. That’s good enough for me but still it seems that Susan had some anger to work out. Yesterday I’d had enough. We had a hart-to-hert. I reminded her that we weren’t in high school. I told her that if she couldn’t stop punishing me I was going to leave immediately. That we could have the yard finish the work that needs to be done on Gypsy. She thought about it and decided to try to work with me in a civil way. So far she’s doing a good job of it.  It’s hard living and working with a hostile person. I hope we can keep this up till we're done, it will be a lot easer for both of us if we can. I think that endings are just as important as beginnings and want ours to be as good as possible. In fact there is no reason, given the right prospective, that it couldn't be beautiful except for out own limitations.