Travels with Sizzle

Chaos, with no rescue

Nick Fewings, via Unsplash

We’re ready, Debby. Give us the Worsts of your voyage.

—I’ll try to be brief.

—I was always cold. Yes, I had brought layers, and my hipster hat

and I wore them. And part of our swag, along with a sunflower pin, a notebook and a pen, were these cashmere stoles. Mine is wrinkled because I wore it, often, in all kinds of ways.

—I was always tired. It’s enervating, trying to be cheerful in the cold, and also, every night but one, we set the clocks back one hour. Do you remember, Sizzle, how disruptive I find the time changes?

I remember, Debby. Tired. Sad. Grumpy

—That’s me. And the one night when we didn’t set the clock back, I did, so I was sound asleep in the pitch dark of my stateroom when breakfast was delivered.

—I was usually lost. To be fair, I did learn, after a few days, how to get to our classrooms, how to get to dinner in the Britannia Room and how to figure out which aisle my stateroom was on. With great effort, asking directions, I could find the chairs at the windows where I liked to read. 

—But don’t let anyone tell you cruising is relaxing. Getting aboard—embarkation, as they call it—was grueling. Then Cunard changed the site of our first meeting. Twice. We didn’t know where we were, or what time it was.

Soheb Zaedi via Unsplash

Did it matter?

—Supposedly, we had a schedule—classes, workshops. And I like getting up at 5:30 a.m., but not 4:30 a.m. I learned later that I wasn’t the only one who wanted to just turn around and go home that first Sunday.

Neil Mark Thomas via Unsplash

—The only upside to the exhausting embarkation was that I was mentally prepared for the chaos of disembarkation. That doesn’t mean I looked forward to it.

But it led to Joy of Wheelchair. And you got home

—I had a goal.