Sorting through Wild Betty's clothes

Mom's clothes smelt like a strange detergent and urine. It's the smell of nursing homes, not my mother. I wasn't there to bury my nose in her neck before she died, but I know what she would have smelt like — hospital. I didn't have the luxury of one last whiff of Betty. I found a great vest (we shared a love of vests), and it escaped the communal washing machine. There was still food dribbled down the front. I put it on, over a black turtleneck and wore it while I worked.

I cleaned out the van — it hasn't even been a month yet, because I bought groceries the other night and I barely had room for them. So I decided to sort through Wild Betty's clothes and start the process of unpacking the van. The overcrowding, and the fact that today was wonderfully warm and sunny got me out of the office. She had lots of red hats, purple boas and the clothing I'd given her 40 years ago. It amazes me that she held onto it for so long.

I kept about half of it, sorted out some things to send to her sister Fran, and the took two boxes to Goodwill. The stuff I gave away was mostly mom jeans, polyester she never would have bought, and tired old sweat pants and tops.

I took it to the local Goodwill. The man there said, "Spring cleaning?" in a friendly way, and I said, "No, my mother died and I'm sorting through her things." He was so kind. He'd been through the same thing recently with his parents. As I started to leave he said, "It's better to do it as soon as you're able. The longer you hold on, the more it hurts." I think he's right.

I can see the water from here

Marina 

Downstairs, from my bedroom at Candice's, I can see the lights of the marina. I am surrounded by water, boats, and the possibilities of life on the water this year. By day, from the main floor, there's the deck and the stairs to the water — muddied here from three days and nights of hard rain, but water none-the-less.

I'm watching the view, and typing. My phone has been ringing every hour and I'm ignoring it. I used to believe if it rang I had to answer it. I no longer believe that. Now I have more important stuff to do - like watch muddy water flow by. Or the woodpeckers at the bird feeder, or the dog chasing squirrels.

Grief is odd. It comes and goes and nothing else matters when it's in the room. Not phones. Not bills. Not clients. Not jobs. Not anything.

Where do I go from here?

I found a sailing class. 4 days and 3 nights onboard a keel boat. It's months away, but I'm pretty psyched. Now to join a gym and get fit. Sailing is going to be physically demanding and I need to get in shape.

The Cost of Healing

Grief is suffocating. One minute I'm fine, then with the next breath I'm crying. It makes it hard to find, buy and learn to sail a boat when you're feeling like you're five years old and helpless. I'm sure God had some divine reason for this complex hierarchy of parent, child, grandparent thing. He hasn't yet shared it all with me. All I know is that relationships are complex, and explaining myself and my plans to sail the TN-TOM with my mother's ashes to doubting friends and curious strangers is difficult. I'm beginning to thing the "coming of age" and the "journey to self-discovery" book era has died, but maybe not.

The last thing I want to do right now is make decisions. I want to lie in bed and weep and sleep and eat fudgesicles.  I want to hug my cats and peel string cheese and eat junk food and argue with strangers on the Internet and play video games and do whatever it takes to ignore how I'm feeling.

The more I learn about what I'm about to do, the more it intimidates and scares me. It reminds me of the Wildland Fire Fighting course I took - the training I needed to have to get certified and insured so I could go fight forest fires back in the 80s. After I spent 40 hours in training to "fight fires," my editor at the time, Tom Dekle, asked me what I'd learned. "Mostly how to stay alive, not a lot about how to fight fires," I said. It's true. About 10% of the training was in learning how to use a Pulaski (see below), and our fire tent - the thing you crawl into and hope you survive in when a fire passes over. They were called "Shake and bake bags" because mostly people cook inside them, like human baked potatoes. All you have to know to fight fires (at the basic entry level) is how to use a shovel, a Pulaski and assorted digging and scraping tools. The other stuff you learn is how to avoid snags (dead branches hanging in trees waiting to fall on your head and kill you), holes (usually filled with fire, coals and stuff that would burn you if you stepped in them, and a lot of escape techniques. Fire fighting is less about fires and more about survival. I'm beginning to think that the same is true of sailing, that it's more about being prepared for the worst day you can have on the water, than on the sailing.

It's not that sailing is dangerous. It can be, but it's the safest sport (so I've read) that old people and idiots can engage in. You're almost always within eyesight of the shore, you're wearing flotation, keeled boats rarely flip over. They can...but it's not usual. File the times they do under "preparing for the worst day you can have."

At worst I can keep the sails rolled up and use the engine to motor my way down the river. I had considered a houseboat, but learned that to navigate certain portions of the trip I need an "ocean worthy" boat and that, as a rule, this does not include houseboats within my price range. The sailboat has a couple of things going for it. You can use the sails, or the engine, to get places. It's the cheapest form of boat if you're going to spend a lot of time on the water, and not so much in port. It's stable, affordable and there are a lot of models to choose from. Get the right kind and you can take it on the ocean. The cons, there's not as much room on a sailboat as there is on a houseboat. It takes longer to get places because you're sailing, not power boating. You have to furl and unfurl sails, hoist jibs and do a lot of sailboat stuff I haven't learned to do yet. It's physical. You steer while sitting in the rain and wind, not from inside a protected, and dry cabin house.  House and powerboats burn a lot of fuel, and at $6 to $9 a gallon (and a gallon an hour), it can get pretty expensive to power up and down a river. Sailboats make about 50 miles max on any given day. Powerboats can do double that or more.

The romantic notion of "sailing wild Betty's ashes to the sea" sounds great, but the reality is pretty sobering in terms of "funeral costs." Consider this:

Buy a boat = $3,000 to $15,000.
Make sure boat is water worthy, painted, outfitted etc =$2,000 to $5,000
Insure boat =$500 to $2,000
Supply boat = $1,000 +  for water, fuel, food, bedding, radio, emergency gear, maps, etc.
Learn to sail = $800 plus cost of practice

I also have to take and pass a class to get my powerboat license. Then there's the driving to and from the marina every weekend, additional classes, books, and so on.

I'm essentially devoting at least 6 months to a year to do this. It's not like I've always sailed. I haven't. I could kayak the whole trip, but it would take me a year to go 400 miles.

So why bother? It's like I tell my clients, the ones who want to write a book - you don't do it so you have a book. you do it so you heal. If you have a book at the end of the writing, that's great. What's more important is that you're a different, and hopefully better person, at the end. And that's why I'm doing this. It's for me. Yes, I'll scatter my mother's ashes at the end, but this is all for me - to come to terms with what I know, what I don't know, and my relationship with both Wild Betty and Mommy Dearest, because she was both.

Driving Wild Betty

 Me and Wild Betty and my Dodge Caravan crammed to the roof with all of her stuff. Now the task is to sort through it all. Many people take years to do this, but I don't have a place to put it all, so I will spend the next month doing that.

Wild Betty rode in the back seat - not her usual place, but the front was piled with boxes of photos and notebooks. There was just no room. Tennessee had tornadoes, and the winds hit the house before I left. I passed tractor trailer trucks blown over by the winds, and I pulled off the road for an hour to escape the gusts myself. I had to wait for a lull to get the van door open, and the car rocked side-to-side as I sat there. No way I was driving in that. I was super glad for the added weight with those kinds of gales. Even now, at home, the wind is hammering the outside of my apartment.

I got home okay, and am now looking at boats, reconnecting with clients and feeling overwhelmed with all that has to be done. I have learned that:

• The perfect boat would have an unrestricted height above water of less than 15'6" to get under all the bridges on the trip.
• It will have a full load (water, gas, food,  people and stuff) of no more than 5 feet and preferably 4 feet.
• The beam (width) of the book will be at least 13 feet
• It will have a cruise range of at least 500 miles without refueling because of the distance between marinas.
• It should be an "ocean capable" vessel so when I cross the Gulf and Great Lakes I don't sink in even moderate (11 knots creates 4 foot waves that send 4+ tons per square yard of water crashing down on your boat) winds. 
• The Loop is 5,800 miles long, but there are 24,000 miles of navigable detours and side trips. Fuel is $6 to $9 a gallon. So, you want something economical as well.

It's going to take some time!

Took Wild Betty's Ashes to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

Mom loved hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Since the funeral home was right across from Krispy Kreme and the hot doughnuts sign was on, I took her inside. She would have laughed until she peed herself at this and definitely would have approved. I'm not so sure Krispy Kreme would have liked it, but no one said anything and there were no signs banning photos of dead mothers anywhere I could see.

Wild Betty wasn't just a cute nickname. She loved the irreverent, the crazy, the outrageous. She worried about what people thought, but she hated the fact she did. She would have gotten a kick out this...and the fact she got to ride in a Miyati, even if it was in the trunk because there was no room in the front seat.
 Roses Mortuary is pretty solemn looking. We actually went through the Cremation Society of East Tennessee (www.cremationset.com). When I asked about the difference in cost in cremation from the cremation society vs. Roses, the guy at Rose's told me they had a million dollar building and "nice environment" to pay for. The Cremation Society was "just a nice office in a strip mall." So, for all of the 3 minutes it took to walk in, sign a paper and leave, it's just another marketing ploy where someone makes money off of the dead. Obituaries are obscenely expensive. And they shouldn't be.

 The Krispy Kreme across from Rose Mortuary. The Hot Doughnut sign was on. It just made sense to go by. Mom got to ride in the trunk of Candice's Miyati. She would have loved to know she got to ride in a hot car (even if the top wasn't down) to Krispy Kreme.

The Rose Mortuary gal preparing the certificate I had to sign to pick up the ashes.

We got a "shopping" type bag with the Cremation Society of East Tennessee on the bag. Since they want to advertise, I obliged. Here you go Krispy Kreme and CSET. Mom on the counter.

LOVE me a chocolate glazed doughnut. Mom loved glazed, then chocolate glazed, and a hot, black cup of coffee. We NEVER passed a hot doughnut sign when it was on and we were together.

 The funeral home had a brochure..."Fifty States of Gray." They handed us a copy as we were leaving with Wild Betty's ashes. She would have approved. Rather than an expensive urn, a $5 Krispy Kreme tin seemed fitting. Don't worry. I'll find something more solemn.

Surrounded by Wild Betty

I am surrounded by Wild Betty. The van is literally packed, wall-to-wall, with her clothes, her knick-knacks, shoes, plastic flowers, the detritus of lives that end in nursing homes. Her favorite onyx ring is missing. Nursing homes, even the good ones, are infamous for theft. It is the one ring I asked her guardian, and the nursing home director to lock away after it went missing the first time. The first time everyone claimed there was "little to no chance of getting it back." I had to get ugly, threaten a lawsuit and go crazy lady on everyone, but the rings reappeared. Sarah Malia, her guardian, has still not produced it. And I think she never will. It will be the one ring that matters most, that Sarah will keep. And that angers me most. My grandfather's pocket watch, is missing. There is a small gold watch, a woman's pocket watch, in its stead. They are not worth money, but the emotional value is priceless.

What I do have are mom's sheets, her bedding, her clothes, and jackets. I weep when I realize at least a third of what she has are the things I bought or gave her, or that we shopped for together. I almost forget to make room for her ashes in the front seat with me. It will be a long ride back to Virginia.  I got everything but a small filing cabinet and a tub of books and assorted other items I may need to return for. The van is overloaded. I worry whether it will make it back to Virginia.

I am angry.

Like most people, when I am scared I get angry. I am afraid the van will break down. I am afraid I will cry. I am afraid I won't cry.  I am afraid that Sarah has my mother's ring and will never return it. Sarah Malia is, in my opinion, demon spawn. I am afraid my anger will eclipse my grief. It is a half-dozen hot doughnut day. I am emotionally eating — three chocolate iced glazed doughnuts and three regular glazed. I pick up an iced coffee instead of 2% milk by mistake and I feel the world is ending. Every little thing, every forgotten thing is the end of the world. This must be grief — to cry because the toilet paper in the gas station bathroom is installed under, not over — a running argument Wild Betty and I had. I would go to her condo and flip her toilet paper over, she would come to mine and flip mine under. It was a thing we did...until it became a joke. So I turned the paper in the gas station restroom over...one last time.

And with each bite of every doughnut, I remember how much she loved hot doughnuts, black coffee, Egg McMuffins with grape jelly and the McRib sandwich. I wonder if anyone at the home knew that.  Does anyone ever care? Or remember those things about us? I have, and it makes me all the angrier that the onyx ring is gone, that her guardian did not protect her, and that she is gone.

I don't know if I can do this

 

I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I should have driven down to see my mother before she died. I don't know if I can get through this. I don't know if I can go through all her clothes and all the photos. I don't know if I can pick up her ashes. I don't know if I can get the few meager pieces of furniture into my van. I don't know if I can cry. I don't know if I can stop crying. I don't know if she loved me, truly loved me, or if the times she told me she wished I was dead and had never been born were how she really felt. I don't know if I can decide which side of her to believe. 

When I took this photo this morning I thought, what will I find at the end of the dock? What will I find at the end of the journey? Am I going to want to learn what I'll find out about myself, and her? Or will I find out anything at all?

I don't know if I can do this.

Looking at Sailboats

Fog. Rain. Drizzle. Cold. And sailboats. It's Sunday and what better way to ignore what I'm feeling than to go to the marinas and look at sailboats? At the first stop there were two Herons...huge birds, distrustful of me...nervously pacing and watching, ready to take flight into the fog at the first thought I might be stalking them.

Last night I got to Candice's house and after dinner I settled into sorting through a box of old photos, mom's jewelry and odds and ends from the nursing home. I find personal letters from her court appointed attorney, Sarah Malia, calling her "Betty Boop," and a birthday my mother never sent telling me everything Sarah and/or the doctors are saying about her are all lies.  It's emotional. I can feel the panic in her letter, the fear, the knowing she's going to lose everything. The guardian and the courts are going to come in, take everything and sell it. And they did.

It's bad enough to lose a parent to dementia, but losing one to a court appointed attorney she tells me she does not trust, and that her best friend does not trust, is all the worse because it's after her death I'm reading these letters. What would I have done differently had I known?

I pick up her ashes tomorrow and I am feeling waves of grief. They come and go. Candice drives me around Knoxville and the University of Tennessee. The student union has been leveled, nothing is the same. Building are gone, memories are just that - since the buildings and places I knew so well in college are gone. There is no permanence. Photos, letters....everything changes. Everything.

Talk About Your Project

 I started following Seth Godin years ago. He has a knack of making every reader think he's shadowing you, watching your life, and then writing about YOU. He's really writing about, and to, ALL of us. This morning (Friday, Feb 19, 2016) he wrote:

How to talk about your project

Not in a marketing sense, but strategically, to yourself, your partners, your coaches, your investors:
What is it for? When someone hires your product or service, what are they hiring it to do?
Who (or what) are you trying to change by doing this work? From what to what?
How will you know if it's working?
What does it remind me of? Are there parallels, similar projects, things like this that have come before?
What's the difficult part?
How much of your time and focus are you spending on the difficult part?
What part that isn't under your control has to happen for this to work? (Do you need to be lucky?)
How much (time and money) is it going to take to find out if you've got a shot at this working out?
What assets do you already own that you'll be able to leverage?
What assets do you need to acquire?
After the project launches, what new assets will you now own?
From which people will you need help? Do they have a track record of helping people like you?
Is it worth it?
Successful project organizers are delighted to engage in a conversation about all of these questions. If you're hiding from them, it's time to find out why.


Oddly enough, I'd been thinking about just these things. As I set up my "Go Fund Me" and my "Kickstarter" funds I've thought about, "Why would anyone want to support me? What's in it for them?" Even the people I tell about it ask that. "What's the reward for a backer?"  It's obvious to me, but then I like to support every cause I can simply because I believe in people. Then Seth posts this, so, for those of you who are interested, here's my answer:

What are you *hiring* me to do? I like to think you're hiring me to do the thing you would do if you could. I like to think you're investing in a vicarious experience. You're wanting to see if I can do it. It's entertainment, enlightenment, curiosity and more. If you had the time, the courage, the chance you too would do this, but for whatever reason you can't. But you'd like to see if I can.

What does it remind me of? It reminds me that I did something equally as stupid 10 years ago when my dad died. I bought a van, quit my job and struck out thinking I could survive on my freelancing. And I did, only I did it living in a van with my Rottweiler and my cat! I failed, but ultimately succeeded, ending up at TED GLOBAL, speaking at Oxford. It didn't make me rich, but wow. What an experience!

What's the difficult part? Courage. I'm old. I stumble. I don't have the physical strength. I see ads from people selling their boats on Craigslist that say, "I'm getting too old for this shit" and they're my age and I wonder, "Am I too old?" Then there's the money. In my heart I KNOW I will do this once I raise the money. If I don't, then Wild Betty will simply be strapped into the front seat of my van and I will drive half of her ashes to NC to scatter them in the river there, and FedEX the other half to my brother in Florida to scatter in the ocean there.  Seems like an anti-climatic end for her.

How much of your time and focus are you spending on the difficult part? Right now, about an hour a day. Some days more, some less. I have bills to pay. And I'm just getting ramped up. This spring and summer I'm sure I'll be consumed by it all. There will be classes, studying, and being on the water practicing.

What part that isn't under your control has to happen for this to work? (Do you need to be lucky?) The fundraising. Do I need to be lucky? I don't know. I'm not a believer in luck. I need to work hard enough and prepare long enough that when luck comes along she's enamored with what I've accomplished without her, and intrigued enough to join forces with me!

How much (time and money) is it going to take to find out if you've got a shot at this working out? Wow. At least a year or more of my life and $25,000. Just the classes alone will cost $1,000. Then there's the boat, the safety equipment, driving to and from the coast to practice every week thereafter in the Chesapeake Bay, food, gas....bills while I'm gone. Yeah. It's going to get expensive even if I do it on the cheap.

What assets do you already own that you'll be able to leverage? I'm actually cleaning out my storage unit and selling all I can to put towards the project. I'm thinking I'll be able to throw $3,000 towards it if I can land a new client.

What assets do you need to acquire? At this point I don't even know what I don't know. I know boat, safety equipment, depth finders, gauges, small engine know-how (another class). I'll be acquiring stuff, but knowledge. I need to know how to fix a small engine if mine dies. I need to know how to fix broken stuff and how to maintain working stuff. I'll be on my own out there. I'll need a radio, maybe a satellite phone, a way to reach the Coast Guard. It seems like a lot of what I'll need are the tools and skills for failing, not succeeding. Funny. Success does take care of itself. I mean, who prepares for succeeding? Something to think about.

After the project launches, what new assets will you now own? Wow. The project has launched and already, in the first 24 hours, I've had 53 visitors. I tend to think in terms of people. After the project launches the assets I will own will be fans - I hope. Ultimately I want a book that profiles what it takes, what it means to try, fail and overcome. I want people to read my thoughts and think, "I can do this" whenever they're facing hard times - simply because they saw I did. If I can do it, then they can. It's not about the boat or the skills, but is about the boat and the skills. I once told an eighth grader who wrote me about my TED talk that everything that happens to us in life is a lesson. We should embrace every failure and set-back and learn from them. So that's what I'll own - a more developed and engaged sense of my place in the world, among other things.

From which people will you need help? Do they have a track record of helping people like you?
Is it worth it? I'll need help from all kinds of people. I'll need financial backers, but then again, I'll need people writing me and saying, "You can do this!" and cheering me on. I learned from living in a van that people who help are few and far between, but those who do, will rock your world with their gifts of time, information, help and yes, even money. Most of it is on me to do. Not all help is $$. I'm going to need a lot of mentoring and tutoring as well.

Successful project organizers are delighted to engage in a conversation about all of these questions. If you're hiding from them, it's time to find out why. I'm never one to hide from questions! This is the biggest undertaking I've ever conceived. The scariest thing is I'm thinking, planning and doing it right - not just buying any boat and hoping for the best. I learned from the van. These are short answers to complex questions, but they're a start.

I CAN Do This

I spent hours last night watching YouTube videos of old people sailing ships by themselves. I thought it might be inspiring. It was terrifying. All of the videos I watched were mostly of men in their 70s who seriously looked like they should be on walkers in nursing homes. Yet, there they were, dancing, farting, laughing and cooking themselves meals a dog wouldn't eat. And they were smiling and laughing through it all. Sailing, apparently, either kills you or it doesn't.

I emailed the sailing school and told them I was 60, and while not a fitness freak, I could walk unaided. Would that be a problem, age and all? They wrote back, "Age is not a problem. Keeping your balance is - and we tell everyone of any age that. Crossing Albermarle Sound might be a bit challenging alone."   I looked up sailing Albermarle Sound on Youtube and it looked like a classic, "74 ways to die on the water" compilation.

At this point any sane person would re-evaluate their decision, but fortunately I'm not sane. I'm both terrified and exhilarated. I'm convinced God had run out of common sense by the time he got to me. Well, common sense and boobs, and a knack for numbers. I've done okay for myself. Fortunately sailing doesn't require boobs. Common sense, judging from the Youtube videos I watched, is optional. Highly optional. The lack of a knack for numbers could prove deadly, or simply expensive. There's an app (several in fact), for that.

Blame it On Old Age

You don't a lot of chances to do things like learn to sail and then tackle the open water once you hit 60. Most of my friends would never think of getting in a kayak on a pond, let alone sailing alone for 400 miles. And that's kind of the point.

I'm not a thin, young, blonde that anyone is going to pay attention to because I bought a boat. I'm probably going to be rather invisible. I'm kind of dumpy, old, wrinkled and I sag a lot. Lots of women my age can identify with that. And they can also understand it when I say, if I don't do this it's like saying, my adventures are over. Nothing left but tour buses, 10% off Senior diners at 4 p.m. at Denny's or iHop and maybe a ripping good Square Dance Meetup group. Not for me. Someday maybe, but I want a last hurrah. Maybe one that turns into another 10 years on the water. I don't know. I just know I want to do this, and in releasing my mother, maybe release some of that fear that I can't do it.

Seriously. Age is scary. Your mind thinks you're 30, your body thinks you're your great-grandmother. It's not pretty. There's got to be more to life than sitting around discussing the best hemorrhoid cremes, your latest surgery or what your doctor said about your cholesterol levels at your last visit. I can't go around worrying about my skin being "crepey" or some man leaving me because I have crow's feet and laugh lines. Life is too short to worry about what other people think of me. I wasted too many years doing that. I may move slower and have to make accommodations, but I'm doing this.

Friends of mine, Pete and Betsy Wuebker, of PassingThru.com, sold everything, car, house, furniture and whatever, and took off a few years ago to become *homeless* and travel the world, write a travel blog, and house and dog sit along the way. They're running their online businesses and staying in some of the most beautiful places in the world! They've done well! They're my age, or thereabouts. And they inspired me to step out and take a risk. So I am.

Wild Betty was independent until the courts forced her into a nursing home. I had thought I'd be able to actually get mom on a boat 10 years ago, but her court appointed guardian, Sarah Malia, made sure that didn't happen. But she can't interfere with Betty's ashes...so better late than never.

Inspiration is Where You Find it

Photo courtesy of Luke Montgomery

Inspiration is where you find it. I found mine, some of it, in 73-year old Tom McClean, who is sailing a steel whale across the Atlantic. It's not too unusual. At age 44 he went across the Atlantic from New York in a boat the shape of a beer bottle. Sponsored, oddly enough, by Typhoo Tea. He's made a life of crossing oceans by himself. But he's 73.  If he can cross the ocean in a beer bottle and a whale, I can float a 400 mile river and then some, right? The 65-ton whale has a blow-hole that spouts water. McClean designed it himself.

He's used to challenges.

"When he set off in his small fishing dory on May 17, 1969, no one at that time had ever successfully rowed alone across an ocean. He had never rowed in open seas and knew almost nothing about ocean navigation. When he first decided to do the crossing, the only rowing experience he had was a couple of afternoons on the Serpentine in Hyde Park." ~ Joe Banks writing about McClean.

Banks, by the way, does a great job of capturing McClean's personality and life. And I feel a kindred spirit in McClean. We're both crazy, but he's crazier. I'm doing this.

I'm not sure how, when or why the idea hit me. But it did. Kind of like the decision to quit a new job 10 years ago, buy the first van I could afford, and then hit the road. Something about parents dying I guess. Anyway, I'm barely scraping by financially. I couldn't even afford to go to Tennessee to see my mother when she was dying.

So now I want to buy a sailboat (I can't sail. I've only been sailing a couple of times and then I was a passenger) and sail 500 miles down a strange river with my dead mother's ashes, reunite with my brother and spend a week arguing and whatever with him before dispatching mom to the waves. At least it's true to the Southern character of bizarre and dramatic. Do you really think Flannery O'Connor would have been famous had she lived in Colorado? No. They've have pegged her as crazy and locked her up.

Here in the South this kind of thinking is normal. I'll be criticized for not having a gun, a dog and a pickup truck in the story. But someone will write a country music song and include those for me I'm sure.  

Here's my wild-ass plan:  

Start a Go-Fund me campaign and depend on the curiosity, generosity and compassion of strangers to help me raise the money for the boat, the trip and the training. Apparently sailing, unlike living in a Walmart parking lot in a 30+ year-old multi-green-hued van named Booger, can kill you pretty fast if you don't know what you're doing. I have no desire to personally deliver my mother's ashes to Davy Jone's locker somewhere along the Tenn-Tom. So I will need my powerboat license, and at least four days of hands-on training and six weeks of practice before I can take the boat anywhere outside of the Chesapeake Bay.

I'll need to find a sailboat, or a decent houseboat that will hold me and my two-cats. What's an adventure without animals right? I'll have to buy maps, plans, safety stuff, an inflatable dinghy thingy to take me from an anchored boat to shore or a dock. There'll be budgets and planning and stuff. Unlike the van I can't just whip into a parking lot, lock the doors and crash for the night. After looking at all I have to do, I figured out if I had enough money I could just throw money at the problem.

But I don't have that kind of money. I still have bills and a life, such as it is, that must stay on track for at least 2-4 weeks while I'm sailing Wild Betty's ashes to the gulf...That's why I started this blog. So you can see what it takes to do something like this, and what comes out of it along the way. In a nutshell: Learn to sail. Buy a boat. Practice. Save, beg, borrow or raise the money to do all I need to do. Get to Memphis, or wherever this river journey starts. It may need to be the Intracostal Waterway. I don't know yet. Set sail. Cry a lot. Arrive. Release. Return to my life. Write a book about it all. After all, I'm a professional writer (meaning I consistently make enough money to keep me off the streets), and that's why I do. Sounds simple doesn't it. We'll see.