By Captain Taylor Mann Barrett | SV Indigo
I kept having people ask about “land sickness” and if we had experienced it yet since returning to Homeport. I thought “yeah I mean, of course it’s an adjustment” until someone older, wiser & more experienced talked to us about how your body will start to actually reject land. Somewhat mimicking sea sickness. But ours? Ours was not physical, it was all mental. Instead of my body rejecting the mindset of no longer swaying and bobbing, my brain rejected the idea of mundane land tasks and conversations.
Out of bread flour? No need to check Navionics for the best dinghy landing, just hop in your car and drive to the nearest convenience store. Boring. Dirty clothes? No need to rinse your swimsuits in the sink, just use your marina’s laundry facility or just throw ‘em in the washer at your land home. Boring and now utterly mundane.
Stupid land. Stupid simplicity. Stupid generic land-lubber conversations. “Did you see how great LSU played this weekend?” “Did you hear we are getting a closer Chick-Fil-A location?” “Did you hear there will be a new roundabout being installed next week on Scenic 98?” I could not care less.
I wanted to ask questions like what dinghy brand you have. What part of your engine is giving you trouble or better yet what isn’t giving you trouble. Which anchorage has the best view & the nearest West Marine. I craved real conversation about REAL things. Authenticity was lacking immensely- but I fixed that quickly. This daily “Welcome back, how are you adjusting?” was no longer answered with “It was
incredible, good to be back, missed you guys!” After a few weeks, I slowly started being abruptly honest. I started answering with “Land sucks. I keep forgetting to put shoes on. I am not adjusting well.” To which people’s eager smiles turned to a contorted semi-smile of confusion. In true Southern fashion, we ask just to be polite not because we want the truth or the real authentic stuff. That is what Church is for.
Everyone prepares you for what happens out there- the good, the bad, the strange. Every sailor old and young, greenhorn and veteran-have their stories that mentally prepare you for what to expect. But no one ever really talks to you about the culture shock of returning from the Grand Adventure. No one explains how every day you slowly slip back into a humdrum routine. Back into traffic jams, meetings and basic chores. Provisioning becomes grocery shopping. Docking becomes parking. Sundowners become Happy Hours. It all changes-and it changes fast.
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