One of my favorite answers to almost any question about cruising is “it depends.” (What boat? It depends. Best place to cruise? It depends. How much does it cost? It depends.)

Two of the skills I think are most important for successful cruising? Being flexible and slowing down. Turns out, these are likely to be pretty important skills for successfully weathering this pandemic. (Not that I have any idea how long this will last - the answer to that question is a resounding IT DEPENDS.)

Flexibility isn’t just about fitness, of course, although that aspect too is important. The flexibility I’m talking about is more in terms of adaptability. The ability to go with the flow, to let go of all of your control.

Cruising: changing plans based on weather. Changing meal choices based on availability of items or on what’s already on hand. Changing an anchorage based on better wind protection. Changing daily plans because you can’t get to shore, or you need to work on the engine, or there is some essential project that requires internet access that’s only available somewhere else. Learning to be a mechanic, fiberglass worker, carpenter, cook, internet technician, sewist.

Pandemic: changing plans based on local restrictions. Changing meal choices based on what’s already on hand, or what you can find at the grocery store. Changing your daily routine to focus inward. Changing daily routine to avoid people, work from home, limit trips out. Learning to be a mechanic, plumber, gardener, cook, zen master.

Slowing down? I don’t just mean adding breaks into your packed schedule. I also mean taking the time to deliberate and BE deliberate. To appreciate and breathe. Lie on your back and watch the clouds spin by. There’s no prize to be won by how exhausted you are at the end of the day.

When you’re cruising, slowing down means finding a rhythm of your own. It means paying attention to yourself and your fellow crew (however many there might be on the boat) and taking the time to tune into and communicate about all you’re feeling and experiencing. It means coffee in the cockpit if that’s your thing, time to appreciate the surroundings. It’s not always sloth or snail slow; being deliberate is another way of slowing down. You can be deliberate at a really fast pace if you need to! It means kicking and screaming about factors out of your control, but dealing with and going along with those factors.

In a pandemic? Slowing down means finding a rhythm of life that’s totally different. It means paying attention to yourself and anyone else in the house, and setting up time to open conversations. It means understanding, even when you kick and scream and cry about it, that there are factors out of your control. You don’t have to like foregoing your normal Friday night party scene, but you do, actually, have to give that up for a while.

One of the hardest things about the first year of cruising is the isolation. Yes, cruising is social. Yes, there are boats all over the place and everyone on board has been through what you’re going through. But we’re a society that’s used to being self-sufficient in many ways, including trying to pretend to everyone else that everything is fine. The social media perfection makes it very easy to think that a) EVERYONE except us has it all under control and b) I’m the only one who feels this way. When you go cruising, you don’t have a support network like you had at home under you anymore. There’s no kid play group with other parents to commiserate with in person, no water cooler chit chat gossip to help you feel connected. Making friends is hard because it takes vulnerability to make friends. We’re not very good at being vulnerable.

This pandemic is isolating in a lot of the same ways. We’re alternately trying to be strong for others and also breaking down about this in private. It’s tempting to try to meet the social media perfection thing, even inside our own family unit. It’s easy to think that everyone but us has this all under control.

Like cruising, this pandemic life is an entire new lifestyle. Unlike cruising, which was likely a hoped-for and dreamed-for new lifestyle, this isn’t anything the vast majority of us wanted or dreamed of. It feels like a lot of control has been wrested from us suddenly.

Like with cruising though, communication (real, vulnerable, raw communication) is what will get us through this. Share the hard parts with those close to you. Invite and allow that communication back.

It takes flexibility, and slowing down. The answer is an often unsatisfying “it depends.”

And you can always, ALWAYS, take the time to appreciate the sunset.

(My friend Jenn has a fabulous blog post on ways to weather this storm. Families come in all sizes and shapes; don’t be put off by the title.)

PS. Stay home if you can. Really.