Moving is traumatic. So why have I been traveling for 12 solid years? Granted, I stopped here and there for six to 12 months, but no place has felt like Home.
It may surprise you to learn that I am a nester, given my proclivity for buying mobile abodes: first a tiny house on wheels, towed across the continent and back again; then a sailboat humming along the coast of México for two years.
Moving is a familiar habit, though I am no longer three or four, uprooted by my father’s job; or 13, evicted from the family rental I dubbed Rainbow Flower; or 18, tossed out by my mother for both our benefits.
I am not powerless, but when I hear a metallic clang near Habibi and am told they are moving my tall ladder in 30 minutes, the old feelings arise. “If you need to move my boat,” I ask, because they have been shuffling vessels for days as sailors return to plonk their yachts into the water, “will you tell me?” I don’t like the querulous tone in my voice. I feel very small, even as I tower ten feet over the boatyard owner from my dry-docked deck.
“Yep,” he says, but I don’t believe him. I have been shifted suddenly so many times, once with only six days’ notice. Not to mention living in a car and moving every single day for several months on end. It’s hard to relax in unpredictable environments, and difficult to work, though I have managed it through pure determination and extremely fine organizational skills.
The only kind of moving I really like is dancing, be it on land or in water. Every morning I sway with the fish; and last night I locked the empty cruisers’ loft, donned bluetooth headphones, and pressed play on Marvin Gaye. Because I heard it through the grapevine: the only constant is change. And I am learning to live with that.
words & art by shé 
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