A Sea Change 7 Groupies, Crowing About Whatever

 During our long sea days the crew frequently dined with the passengers, especially on formal evenings. Our captain was well-known by many of the Americans. They were like groupies, each one vying for his attion and crowing about whatever crumbs of attion fell their way. The captain’s table, with its flowers and premium wine, was an eagerly sought after delight. Six lucky passengers were able to sashay into the dining room escorted by the ship’s social director to be seated by their place cards while they awaited the captain’s formal entrance. Our handsome Scandinavian host, somewhat red of face, was a bon vivant who thrived on the fawning attion from his passengers. One evening the lottery selected us to share his repast, Glenn on the right and me on his left. I trotted out my best outfit which was low cut but covered by a light shawl. The captain, somewhat worse for wear, took a great interest in the shawl and worried about its arrangement. He kept turning in my direction and I could see in his eyes that he was concerned.

Judith Works (to be continued)

A Sea Change 6 Self-Help Guru

 Each day started with a wake-up call from the captain: the weather report, the port schedule if we were due to dock and then reading of ghastly doggerel writ in the 1920s by the “poet,” Don Blanding. This was the signal for breakfast on deck under the spreading sun umbrellas. The days at sea were filled with Indian cooking tutorials interspersed with lectures from an over-the-hill political commentator and a self-help guru – a flashy painted woman who wore wide brimmed hats and heavy jewelry that clanked when she moved her arms. Eschewing their educational efforts, we lounged on deck watching the thousands of silvery flying fish trying to escape the bow wake. They went leaping and bouncing along like pebbles tossed in a game to see how many touch-downs could be made before finally disappearing under the water.

Judith Works (to be continued)

A Sea Change 5 Big Girl Small Bikini

 The casual Americans were a mixed lot: an elderly man in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and his harried wife, permanent cruisers who told us about shipwrecks and a society formed to tell tall tales of survival (not a group we aspired to join), fat cats with fat cigars and right-wing views, and a woman celebrating her 90^th birthday with her family. Also making a splash was a nasty tempered but well-dressed travel writer and her friend, equally rude and well dressed but obviously along only to fetch and carry for her aggressive boss. Completing the roster was a mother and daughter from Oklahoma. They caught our attion by spending their daylight hours lounging near the pool in the burning sun. Mother, overweight with skin like leather tanned in a pattern that included large cancer-like moles liberally scattered over the exposed parts, wore a pareo that didn’t cover enough when she left the pool. The daughter, as wide as she was tall, unfortunately favored a small bikini. She was like an upside-down pear and it was amazing that she didn’t fall over when standing.

Judith Works (to be continued)

A Sea Change 4 Ritzy Clothes

 The ship was not luxurious except for the food and wine. Our floating world contained about 200 passengers, mostly Americans with some seasoning of wealthy and well-dressed Europeans. Aside from the countess and an English lord living in South Africa who always dominated the scene whenever he appeared at 11:00 a.m. at an outdoor bar to sip his bouillon, the Europeans weren’t at all interesting except for their ritzy clothes. Every evening they dressed in “smokings,” tuxedos to us, and beautiful cocktail dresses in contrast to our dresswear mostly bought at Macys. We felt distinctly lower class, which in their eyes we no doubt were. One dress-up night, however, Glenn felt a lot better about the European competition. He had reluctantly brought his own Italian tuxedo along. We were on the dance floor when he felt someone tugging at his jacket. A German was fingering the fabric. “Nice,” the man said.

Judith Works (to be continued)

A Sea Change 3 Hindu Island

 A Hindu island floating in a Moslem world, it was filled with smiling people, soft gamelan music, fringed silk umbrellas, textiles woven in ikat designs, paintings and carvings. Rituals ruled the island with statues of gods draped in black and white checkered cloth symbolizing the polarity of positive and negative forces. Swastika designs on buildings and fences encouraged cosmic energy and harmony.

Slender, graceful women in sarongs balanced towering offerings of fruit and rice cakes toward the split gates of the intricately carved temples. Hens and chicks pecked while fighting cocks were cooped up in upside down baskets. Rice paddies glised green on the terraced hillsides. Tall bamboo poles leaning with the weight of small offerings decorated village streets. Small shrines stood in the fields.

The soft scenes defined our vision of paradise with the gods and people in harmony even though we knew that the island had a violent history. We were tempted to stay forever like many expatriates whose villas are featured in design magazines but we could see our ship moored in the harbor awaiting us. A complete fugue from reality was not on our itinerary.

Judith Works (to be continued)

A Sea Change 2 Malaysia, Thailand, the Maldives ...

 We had boarded the small cruise ship in Bali and were headed towards Oman, a passage that would take nearly a month. Along the way our itinerary would take us to Java, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Maldives and India. The cruise was to be the formal transition to our retirement although it also became an interval in the unexpected consultancy in Rome. I was still mourning the loss of my mother and our departure from Rome, the sunny Italian lifestyle, our many friends and the travel for work and pleasure. It was time for a break before we gathered our wits to really understand a new way of living.

The trans-Pacific flight was interminable: Seattle to San Francisco; San Francisco to Hong Kong across the date line; then Hong Kong to Bali, another five hours. We landed in what must be the most beautiful island in the world, an oriental version of la dolce vita.

Judith Works (to be continued)

A Sea Change 1 How I floated into retirement.

 The countess was drunk again, floating motionless on her back in the warm water of the ship’s swimming pool. Wrinkled, thin and heavy with jewelry, she seemed to have an ability to remain afloat instead of sinking as the weight of her jewels would dictate. We watched her while awaiting the crew members who would haul her out on a nightly basis. 

During her more sober day the poor countess, who had recently suffered the theft of other jewelry from her chateau, was comforted by an Indian woman who lived in Florida. She was on board to give cooking lessons. In between dishing up curry and dal, she told us about her Irish husband who sold upscale plumbing to sheiks in the Gulf and showed us how to tie saris. She flashed around in her own bright saris encouraging us to donate money or condolences to her new best friend, the countess. We demurred.

Judith Works (to be continued)