Tableaus of Life at Sea

No Land

Land does not exist anymore. Not to me. I know it must be there. I see grassy pixels behind my boyfriend’s face on video calls. A blurry brown dog occasionally comes into focus, happily chewing on a ball or a succulent he just found. From the ship deck windows, I see stretches of Portsmouth parking lots holding steady. A naval base in Belgium, dotted with sleek, white windmills and tiny cars, appears solid through the portholes.

But I no longer go on land. My home is the ocean now. I sleep two decks above the fish. I move to the whims of the sea. My body compensates for long, rolling swells, sudden tilts to the side, and tunnels of sea foam that buffet the walls and shake the furniture. I bend my knees to keep steady on the dance floor. I pull on the stair railings and lean on wall columns. I walk against the tilt in my nude stilettos. Twerk with my core engaged. My inner ear listens for swells and adjusts my stance.

As ship crew, we do not have shore leave. We might in the future. We might not. We dream of English pubs and Portuguese cafes. We pray to step off in Barcelona or Ibiza. I will never take grass for granted again, I think, although there are plenty of textures and views to explore on our giant Virgin vessel. Breezy pool decks. A bright blue and bouncy sports court. Swings, daybeds and private karaoke dens.

Still, we look longingly at the land.

I remember the old days, pre-pandemic. We would find the gangway, check the all-aboard time, scan our crew cards and skip off into the sun. We would get drunk and sunburnt in Cabo, bike around castles in Tallinn, order poutine in Quebec City. Smoke hookah on the Panama pier. Now, even though we’re triple-vaxxed, swab tested every few days, rocking fresh KN95 masks and chapped hands from all the washing and sanitizing, we are shut in by Omicron. Kept from land by a cocktail of company policies and port rules. If the COVID angels align, and we are virus-free for a certain number of days, we’ll be crowned a “Green Ship,” and the gangway to land will be ours.

But for now, we dream.

Heartbeat

I am spreading my wings.

They are white and glowing with rainbow light.

They flutter and swirl and envelop me.

They sparkle in the reflection of my iridescent bra.

They are “Heartbeat” wings.

Heartbeat is a House of Yes party on late nights in Brooklyn, commandeered by this ship for the onboard night club. It is a circus of light and motion. Dancers with bejeweled faces flaunt red feather fans and LED glow props. We go-go on corner boxes and pull wide, white fabrics over the partygoers that fluff and fly to the beat. For two of the go-go sections, I am assigned the LED wings. They are technically just sheer fabric dotted with LED lights, attached to a velcro collar. I hide the battery pack with my hair and grip the little wands tucked into the sides of the wings, taking care not to poke anyone in the eye or smash a stage bulb. It feels good to have a wing span. It feels good to bring magic to a mystery party. At 230 am, I feel flirty and alive.

Is it strange that I’ve always had more fun at work? Maybe it’s the people pleaser or the spendthrift in me, but I tend to have the best time orchestrating joy for others, and reaping the side benefits (the paycheck and the backstage pass to the magic). Purchasing my own ticket to happiness comes with too much expectation. Too much hesitation. Why not get paid to be part of the scene? Sure, it’s a late ass night and I have a shake weight workout in the morning. I probably would never pay to experience such a party myself. But maybe that's the point. In this moment I’m having a blast in my silvery two-piece and wings. A blast I wouldn't think to arrange on my own. I’m enjoying the music and camaraderie. I don’t need any drinks or pills or weed. I am the party. I am your ticket to let loose. I bring the vibe. The shiny beaded fringe and wonder. I pull in sailors and company bigwigs with my sweaty moves…and then hang up my wings and tiptoe through the back corridors for a water chug and a good night's sleep. Easy joy.

VHS

I am squatting repeatedly. My arms rainbow up into jazz hands, crossed at the wrists above my head, right at the trough of the squat. Beads of sweat flutter off the tips of my bangs and onto the stage floor. I squeeze my abs. High pitched “WOO!”s and “YES!”s launch from my diaphragm into my headset microphone and over the crowd. "White bread with a drizzle of cocaine" was the creative note we were given for the vibe of this 80’s themed jazz dance workout in the club venue. We are bolts of neon. We are head-bobbing and pelvic-thrusting in pink sweatbands and two-tone leg warmers. Backed by 80’s-washed videos and colorful lights, we pump and bounce and shake, with actual shake weights. We lunge into poses and name them for the crowd:

“This one is called ‘Feed the Baby,’” a two-hander bobbing in front of the mouth.

“I call this one the ‘Fire Hydrant,’” a one-hand shake with a bent leg lifted.

“The ‘Cabin Party.’ Oh yeah!” a long stroke of the shake weight, wrist up.

For my section, we take shake weight poses on the floor to ACDC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.” We get funky and sweat it out to Janet’s “Nasty.” We go full Flashdance to “What a Feeling,” and finish with high heart rates to the Beastie Boys’ “Tricky.” I whip my pony tail to the beat and guzzle water off stage during the breaks. 90 participants bounce and bob along with us.

Sometimes it feels good to go full cheese ahead. To squat in neon legwarmers and let some sexual innuendo loose. At least I don't have to go to the gym today.

"You know what time it is... shake it for mama!" I grip my shake weight on my knees and watch the crowd laugh and shake.

VHS stands for Videos, Headbands, and Simmons… as in Richard. #HailSimmons

Old Friend

I’m pushing cold cabbage around on my plate in the crew mess.

A band leader for one of the shows on board sits at the table next to mine. I know his face. I remember him from another ship I’ve done. I just can’t figure out which one. My memory is a maze and I keep cornering dead ends. I’m searching my mind files for clues, trying to place him at a more memorable party or port day. Did he sleep with someone I know? Was he friends with my ex? I can’t be sure. I just know him from the blurrier days in my early-to-mid twenties.

We’ve been crossing paths briefly for a couple of weeks but here on a booth seat in the crew eatery, as we sail away from Portsmouth, we finally have a chance to properly talk. To solve the mystery.

We both live in LA. He got into the Hollywood improv scene and has played for my favorite improv show in Los Angeles: Baby Wants Candy. ("No way!") He knows a few of the people I trained with at Second City. He seems to know everyone I worked with on ships. He did over 21 contracts with the same cruise line after all.

He explains that he hit rock bottom and has been sober for three years.

I tell him I fuck with sober culture. I’m reading Russell Brand’s book about recovery right now. I lean toward the codependent side of the addiction equation… I was married to a sex and pornography addict for a few years. So I respect the program. He tells me he hasn’t been single in decades and isn’t sure how to process that.

I know what he means.

Because ships throw people together without mercy. Cruise ships are bubbles of cultural intrigue, sexy talent, and cheap alcohol. Leggy showgirls and crooning vocalists dine three times a day with engineers, personal trainers and musicians, sporting every accent and eye color imaginable. Casual sex becomes a serious relationship in the span of a single voyage. Connections can’t help but intensify. You see and speak to your lover every day for coffee, at the gym, at work, at the show, in the crew bar, and along the wide crew hallway. You fall for each other hard. You start to wonder what life on land would be like together. And when it ends, you do it all again, with someone new, from somewhere else. That’s ship love. It is unsubtle and illogical. It blows through you like a fucking truck.

The bandleader scrolls through his early Facebook photos, searching for clues about the ship we met on. We originally thought it was the Eurodam in 2014. But it wasn’t.

Bam. Thirteen years into his past photo feed we find the answer we seek. It was 2009 on the fucking Zuiderdam. It was his first ship contract and mine too. I was 22. He was 20. The photos are of a skinny boy-child with a Caribbean beach tan. It’s the exact face I remember.

Memories tumble out of us. Names and ports and people we dated. We talk about everyone we can think of. The last morsels of food on my plate dry into a crust. We pause only briefly to reflect on the tragedies of those we lost track of:

“Yeah, he has late stage colon cancer. He’s not going to make it.”

“Fuck. He was the best. Didn’t he just have a kid?”

“Yeah. It’s crazy.”

“Whoa. Damn.”

"I know."

A few people we mutually know have already passed. His own sister lost a cancer battle. A fellow band member lost his wife. A cast member we both knew died of aids not too long ago. We pause only briefly to imagine the pain and then plow forward into other dramas. Some better, some worse. There have been many divorces, and mine comes as no surprise. We list the happily married ones. Divulge the devious cheating stories and dodgy, drug laced parties of old. We are breathless by the end. A couple of hours have passed, and a couple of cream puffs.

We share a thoughtful lull. The lull of thirty-somethings who have survived a decade of performing and traveling the world. Who've successfully avoided real life until it smacked us in the face. Through trial and exhaustion, we seem to have made peace with our messes, learned about our own mental health, grown in relationships, and settled into where we are.

Right now, where we are is the crew mess of a ship, working on the other side of a pandemic, sailing into the same continent as a literal war. We sit on a cliff over the vast unknown. Our past selves would work or drink or eat or fuck that cliff out of sight and mind. But we just sit there and let it be what it is. We feel our depressing humanness. We validate it. And we connect there. Not in the hungry, provocative way. More like a detached, graceful comprehension. The beauty and purpose of life is more nuanced here, I decide about this phase of existence. The one where I'm 35.

I stand up to leave. He has a rehearsal to lead. I have a pub crawl to host and a pajama party to attend. In a few hours I’ll be busting moves, crawling around and dry humping legs in a full-size dog costume, to the sound of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” at an adult slumber party. The “nostalgic” music of the ship parties will be the hits from my childhood and teen years. I have become the “target audience” for cruise ship entertainment. I have become an adult, despite my objections and workarounds.

At least I get to wear the dog suit. It will be challenging enough to pump my adrenaline and sweat. Silly enough to make me laugh and let go. It will make me appreciate the fresh air on my walk back to the forward costume storage room: dog head, suit, and paws in hand. It is sure to take my mind off the unknown for a while, which is nice.

More cruise ship tableaus in the works.

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Loosh :)