How we differ from the rocks

Location: Blacksburg, VA
Date: 08 Jan, 2007
Current position: Rapidly approaching "laid back"

One of Mark's favorite sci-fi stories from his adolescence is "The Chrysalids," by John Wyndham, later named "Rebirth". It's one of those post-apocalyptic stories in which several kids with special abilities escape the Puritanical establishment bent on destroying them for being different. (J:"hmm this explains a lot!!")

Years later a band called The Jefferson Airplane came out with an album named "Crown of Creation". This was a pretty radical and rather incendiary album and for some reason, Mark really liked it (J: "no comment"). However, Mark was truly shocked (M: "Shocked I tell you!!") to find that most of the lyrics in the title song "Crown of Creation" had been lifted almost verbatim from "Rebirth" w/ no credit to the author (M: "Freakin' hippies...."). This was the beginning of his long slide toward disillusionment.

His favorite line from this story has always been "Life is change. How we differ from the rocks."

You: "What the heck does this have to do with you guys and Rachel?"

Us: "Life is change."

We just gave 3 months notice that we'll be leaving our jobs!!

Yep. Really. We're not so much calling it retiring: we're billing it more as "a change of lifestyle", and (at least for us) it's a pretty darned big change. We're renting the house and moving aboard Rachel. We don't have any particular 'set-in-stone' plans just yet, other than take off, have a good time, maybe head north for the summer and then south for the winter - but not as far as Cape Horn - not this winter anyway.

We don't know how far we'll go or how long we'll be gone, we just know we'll be heading where the wind takes us and hopefully finding a more relaxed and fulfilling way of life along the way.

We've really been quite lucky. Working with friends and having the freedom to work from Rachel for the past several years has been awesome. Not too many people have one, let alone both of these in their work lives, and we continue to be pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in this situation. It's going to be sad saying goodbye to our friends, workmates, and partners at JPI.

On one hand, we're really looking forward to cruising full time. Going new places, meeting new people, not worrying about Internet connectivity or weather windows conflicting with our work schedule. Actually, not even worrying about a fixed work schedule - wow - hard to grasp that concept after all these years.

On the other hand, we're also a bit nervous. We'll be trading steady incomes, health insurance, our day-to-day shore side routine, and a modicum of stability and security for something we're not even certain we'll want to continue for long. We've always paid attention to those that say "you won't regret the things you've done nearly as much as the things you wish you had done, but didn't".

We're trusting that they are right - "how we differ from the rocks."

Stay tuned,

Mark & Julie
s/v Rachel