I remember during the Summer of 1991 that I spent my last summer of college living with Grams Cooper at the Cottage on beautiful Lake Charlevoix and doing my summer mix of teaching swimming lessons for Boyne City Swim School, waiting tables at a local restaurant (that summer it was Grey Gables in Charlevoix), and enjoying lots of summertime activities like sailing, golfing, and swimming. I even trained for a triathlon! On the surface things were fine; however, below, I was getting restless.

One Sunday, I went to a church service at Grams’ Lutheran Church where our family attended throughout my childhood and Pastor Bernthal’s sermon was about the ‘doldrums’. Obviously this resonated with me because I still remember the topic all of these years later. The doldrums–known more formally as the Intertropical Convergence Zone–is a popular nautical term that refers to the belt around the Earth near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters. Being stuck is one thing, but the kind of “stuckness” that can happen when the Intertropical Convergence Zone hovers over your sailboat (or your island or coral reef) can go on long enough to be very dangerous, especially if you don’t have a working engine (which would help propel you out of the still waters) or your communication technology is broken (which would help you to get you rescued by another boat). I was trying to plan for my future after my December 1991 graduation and there were lots of unknowns. Would my wanderlust take me off on adventures or would I play it safe, staying in Michigan? And if I stayed in Michigan, would I return to my hometown in the Detroit suburbs or would I try to find a teaching job near the Cottage or in the Upper Peninsula? I had been living in a safe cocoon of family and school and friends, but that wanderlust at my core was really calling my name and I was feeling stuck. What was my direction? When would the winds pick up and where would I go?

Full disclosure if you missed this in previous posts: wanderlust and my search for EMWA (expand my world ability) won out. I spent the winter of 1992 ski bumming and working at Keystone Ski Resort in Dillon, Colorado and joined the Peace Corps in July, heading to the Eastern Caribbean island nation of Antigua.

33 years later, I’ve spent another summer in a rough place, waiting for the winds to pick up and move me out of this convergence zone. However, this period has been much more intense and scary. Here is a basic overview:

At the end of April, I was in a car accident going back to visit my family in Southeastern Michigan, where a driver didn’t see me and crashed into my car at such an angle, that his Jeep barely had a dent, but my car was totaled. Our dog, Bleu, and I walked away unharmed physically, but the emotional impact was intense–and I had to get a new (used) car. Unfortunately, the new (used) car has turned into a lemon and has now been in the shop to get fixed for 7 weeks. SEVEN weeks. Seven. I only bought the silly thing June 4th. It has now spent more time in the shop for repairs than with me.

After Labor Day weekend last year, my mom wasn’t feeling well and ended up in the hospital. It was her first of quite a few trips to the hospital this past year for stays and procedures. I will get into the details in later posts, but we found out the Wednesday after Memorial Day that she has pancreatic cancer.

Throughout the school year, I was in the crosshairs of the administration of my school where I have taught the past 5 years, throughout some very tumultuous times. I found out the Friday after Memorial Day, the same week we found out about my mom’s cancer, that I would not have a position for the 2024-25 school year. Chicago Public Schools restructured its budget this year and many schools lost positions. 7 of us lost our positions from my school, so I wasn’t alone; however, I didn’t have tenure which has left me very vulnerable.

The same week we found out about my mom’s cancer and my job loss, my husband also went into the doctor. I am not ready to go into details here at this point, but just know that it is serious.

Each of these situations could be stand alone challenging, but all together?

The car situation, is in a league all of its own, however. It has stripped me of my independence and agility. It has also isolated me in a way that COVID Lockdown did not. For those who don’t quite get the significance of cars to many of us here in the US, my post Vroom! Vroom! from 8 years ago when I bought my first Crosstrek, sums it up. We do have good public transportation in Chicago and I can use Terry’s truck, but the life that I have been living is built around my having a vehicle that I can lean into. Simple errands become complicated. Time is sucked up dealing with the stress of contacting the repair shop and warranty company, as well as seeking the advice of friends and allies who might have insight on how to proceed. I can’t just drive back to Michigan to visit my family and be there for my mom as she navigates her cancer journey. Last summer, I spent the month of July driving the mile and a half stretch to the beach each morning to walk along the Lake and swim with Bleu. It was my happy place. A few summers ago, we could have walked down to the Lake, but our nearly 13 year old Bleu no longer has that stamina, and so I’ve spent 7 weeks much closer to home for our walks, disconnected from a place that gives me solace during a time when I desperately need it to cope. Even the search for a new job became ten times harder. I tried to avoid the job loss in the first place. Last summer I interviewed and tried to find something else, but new opportunities were not in the cards. So this summer, my summer vacation has been spent with a full time job of finding a new job and it has been really, really, really hard. And because I spent the summer so isolated without my car, I haven’t been physically networking or out and about or going to ROW practice like I might have in the past, where I could have socialized, networked, and lightened the load. Instead, I’ve disappeared from people’s radars.

I’ve definitely been stuck in the doldrums since my car went in the shop 7 weeks ago.

The true challenge with dealing with the doldrums if you are on a sailboat that has lost motor power and your communication system is down or no one is in your area to rescue you, is keeping it together until the winds pick up. It hasn’t been pretty, but I’ve been keeping it together. Sometimes the ‘keeping it together’ is barely or just enough, but it is getting the job done. Writing, binge watching favorite shows, my walks with Bleu, long phone and text conversations with my awesome friends, and a trip up to the UP last month with Terry, are some of the most ways I’ve been pushing through and riding out this experience in the Intertropical Convergence Zone. But it has been brutal y’all!

Let’s hope the warranty company’s promise on Thursday that they were putting my case as a priority will result in true progress this next week. It’s time for the wind to pick up!

In the meantime, here’s a flashback to the summer of 1984 when we were rehabbing my first car. Read all about it in Vroom! Vroom!