If you have not so recently moved onto a boat and traveled 2,000 miles in the company of your spouse, you may come to find that once commonly understood words and phrases acquire new meanings and implications. Allow me to demonstrate.
“Let’s put on some jazz”
Prior meaning: I wish to listen to jazz music and perhaps shake my butt.
New meaning: I am about to go to the bathroom scant feet from the head of you, my spouse, and I would like to maintain some shred of dignity.
“Intimacy”
Prior meaning: A reflection of the collection of personal preferences, quirks, feelings, and habits of someone very close to you, and the feeling of warmth that comes from the knowledge thereof.
New meaning: The collection of all the things the subject pretends *not* to know about his or her spouse, and that mutual act of pretending – once again for the sake of dignity.
“Dignity”
Prior meaning: A value encompassing respect, acknowledgement of inherent human value and effort, personal privacy, and propriety.
New meaning: A value that despite your best efforts has abandoned you for the foreseeable future.
“Work”
Prior Meaning: That thing you do to make the money.
New Meaning: The perpetual action required to prepare for and sustain continuous travel.
“Injury”
Prior Meaning: Complications arising from past sports injury (farther in the past for some of us than others), clumsy fall, or chronic condition such as inadequate lumbar support from long stretches of computer desk vigil.
New Meaning:
- Leopard spots along shins, thighs, and knees, derived primarily from tripping over stairs, walking into items such as drop board cat doors, graceless stumbles to the deck while riding the Rodeo, or from being the landing zone of heavy blunt items such as locker hatches or anchors.
- Chronic conditions such as sore shoulders and necks from holding a single position for an extended period of time, occasionally under strain, or from maintaining an awkward or extreme pose. Examples of extreme poses include:
- The Skyward Seek, an attempt to divine weather’s intent from the top of the mast or the clouds, or to accommodate star reckoning and skygazing;
- The Straining Serpent, employed to do battle with a weathered wooden stick as together you dodge and ride stampeding bulls the size of trucks; and
- The Human Crane, represented by strained and overstretched biceps and hamstrings employed to control and restrain heavy or wild forces transmitted through levered ropes, fabric, and metal poles over chasms that must be avoided at all costs.
- Bruises that appear on the high impact zones of the subject’s body. Those frequently in motion through and on top of a boat on the ocean may discover that their hips and the crown of their head carry proof of continuous impact with tables, stairs, walls, and countertops, as well as the subsequent thrust of liftoff from previously mentioned surfaces back into space. If you have ever read Ender’s Game, imagine the Battle Room.
“Clean”
Prior Meaning: The subject has showered and shaved within the last 24 hours. All clothes currently being worn have been laundered since their last wearing. Hair is free of accumulated dirt, salt, or oils and can be brushed without snagging. Subject is not embarrassed to be in public.
New Meaning: The subject has showered within the last seven days. All clothes currently worn have been laundered within one to two prior wearings and are free of stains, mostly. Hair is either a) salty, or b) oily, as fresh water is scarce. Subject is still not embarrassed to be in public, so long as he or she does not encounter anyone that he or she knows. The subject’s distinctive olfactory presence is undetectable from a distance of two paces outdoors and about a foot indoors. Occasional dips into personal range are encouraged, as is caution during such expeditions.
“Dirty”
You don’t want to know. This applies both to the depths of its meaning and the proportion of time in the month of December that it applied to certain intrepid voyagers.
“Bad Day”
Prior Meaning: A day characterized by inconvenience or slight misfortune.
New meaning: Sustained discomfort and/or terror caused by any and all of the following factors:
- rolling side to side
- frequent deluges of seawater over one’s head and shoulders
- forceful resistance from the tiller or sails
- engine overheat alarms
- overflowing toilet
- etc
- etc
“Good Day”
New Meaning (provisional):
- It is the middle of a warm night and you are on the ocean fifty miles from land. Suddenly the water all around you begins to glow in flitting graceful swirls as schools of fish streak bioluminescent trails below the surface. They are soon joined by a pod of dolphins that glow in stark detail like ghosts as they chase the schools of fish in a whirling dervish around the boat. It looks like a Van Gogh painting in motion.
- Your boat is anchored in a peaceful bay ringed by white pebbled sand and a small fishing village. That morning you were visited by men in a panga who sold you a kilo of fresh shrimp for 100 pesos. You haven’t left the boat since you arrived the day prior, and you don’t intend to leave today either. The day is dominated by books, cards, and conversation, followed by good shrimp. In other words: nothing of note happens, precisely as you planned.
- You arrive in Cabo San Lucas after three weeks of near continuous travel. It is 80 degrees out and the sun is an hour from setting. The bay is filled with little skiffs as well as triple masted galleons. As soon as the anchor has been set, you put on a swimsuit and dive into the warmish water with a sense of accomplishment. You’ve come a long way, baby.
“Word Unknown”
A feeling of excitement in anticipation of the feeling of having nowhere to go. Also describes feelings of impatience and exhaustion stemming from an endless procession of work, and work ahead, that stands between the utterer and his or her desired goal. Expectation of the promised land. Hope?
Further definitions and revisions will be forthcoming as they occur.