Captain’s Log 1/1/20, Polar Plunge

This blog is about living aboard a boat in the Pacific Northwest and snow-birding to Arizona while training an artificial intelligent mental health virtual assistant named Rubi ready to provide support in the traumatic aftermath of COVID-19.

Last New Years Day Bruce invited me to his annual tradition of doing the Polar Plunge at Washington Park and this year a warry Cynthia was tagging along. I coaxed her to come along telling her how Bruce usually has a hot fire going on the beach and hot cocoa ready and his quirky neighbors attend as well. We roll into Washington Park and there is no sign of a fire or a group of scantily clad people waiting to take the plunge. It’s windy as hell and the waves are at least 3  feet tall crashing on the shore. I call Bruce, only to discover he’s sitting in his new truck behind me. Rusty, Milo and Cynthia pile out of the truck. Cynthia’s disappointment is palatable, and I have doubts that she’ll go in at this point. Bruce, wearing a New Year’s Eve party hat and swim trunks approach me and says, “let’s get this over with!”

Cynthia: Wait, hold up now! How about that fire that I was promised?

Bruce: It’s too windy. It’ll just blow out.

Cynthia: Not if you get it raging! Look at all that wood you brought!

Me: He’s right Cynthia, it’s too windy.

Cynthia: It’s damn cold!

Me: This is nothing compared to last year when it was in the 30s. The water was warmer than the air.

Bruce, Cynthia is from California and I promised her a fire.

Bruce: Okay. I do have fire starter.

Bruce proceeds to dump his pile of firewood in the beach fire pit and arrange it to light.

Cynthia and I exclaim with joy.

Cat keeps their Australian Blue Heeler, Sydney, at bay as I tie Rusty and Milo to the picnic bench and start stripping down to my swimsuit.

Bruce and I warm our hands briefly at the fire and nod that it’s time. I take my golden retrievers and Bruce coaxes Sydney to follow.

Bruce, I and the dogs run into the waves.

It’s a shallow beach and we have to run in quite aways into the salty cold to get our heads wet. As I dunk, Milo swims to me, concerned for my safety in the waves and I grab on to him as we swim for a moment, touch bottom and then run in the sinking gravel bottom to shore.

I scream, gleefully cold, as I make it to the beach and am relieved that this sort of baptism is over for this year.

Cat then proceeds to run in and out screaming and laughing the entire time.

Bruce to Cynthia: It’s your turn.

Cynthia: I’ll go in when I’m ready.

Cynthia is still bundled up by the fire and I have my doubts that she’ll actually do it,

A group of half a dozen polar plungers suddenly appear from some parked cars down the beach and quickly run in and out and disappear as soon as they came.

Cynthia strips down to her bikini. Puts a toe in and then confidently walks out in the water, waist  deep and then dives in! She comes up about 10 feet farther out and I laugh and scream egging her on as she does the back stroke in a circle and then slowly swims back to the shore.

We huddle by the fire, but the dogs are restless. Milo wants to go in again or test boundaries with Sydney. Rusty keeps getting tangled up in the leashes. Intending to just take the dogs to the truck and come back, I get them there only to turn around and everyone is packing up. Disappointed, I go back to collect my stuff.

I thank Bruce and we part ways. I drop Cynthia off at the marina shower and go straight to the do it your self dog wash for Rusty and Milo. However, it’s new years day and they are closed. Shit! What am I gonna do with two nasty, salty wet dogs on the boat? I’ve just gotta wash them on the dock!

I text James telling him that I’m gonna freeze us all more than we already are. He tells me to crank up the propane heater and get the boat really warm before we start so we have somewhere warm to go to afterward.

I get the hose and dog soap ready and one by one, wash them with very cold water on the dock. It’s so cold, the dog soap glops out of the bottle like jelly and slides off each dog on to the dock before I can rub it in quick enough.
Surprisingly though, I don’t feel very cold.

However, when I go up to the marina shower and insert my credit card, for the first minute the water takes a moment to warm up and as I’m standing under it, I immediately feel warmer, even though I know the water is not warm enough yet and usually I’d be afraid to stick my toe in. Soon though the hot water blasts down.

The bathroom door opens and closes again. Someone enters and I smell a brief whiff of cigarette smoke over my shampoo.

I am reminded of the memory of my mother’s smell growing up. She always smelt like cigarettes and juicy fruit gum. She chewed juicy fruit in attempts to either not smoke or perhaps to mask the smell of cigarettes on her breath. As long as I can remember, my mom had an obsession with aliens and I wondered what she’d think of Cynthia’s theories and I wondered how her illness and energy fit in with her personality and overall wellness.

As the hot water pounded down in the marina shower, I was glad to have overcome my fear of baths before moving out of my house. I had actually taken a bath each evening for a week before I departed my house with a bath bomb and meditating in the hot water and felt I had overcome my fear. For it was when I was in the bath, long ago after my grandparents had died, when I was overwhelmed by being in an altered state, I was feeling the weight of the world balancing back and forth with the movement of the water.

I felt as if I was both a tea pot and an aircraft carrier all at once and that the Queen of England and George Bush were communicating about war in the middle east through my actions as I soaped myself up. I began to tense up in the tub as I realized that any movement could be an act of war.

I had been afraid to take a bath since and was pleased to find that baths now were much needed stress relievers and sensual cleansing experiences as they should be.

However, because I had some auditory hallucinations in the hospital while taking a shower after then, which my psychic  Stephanie thought was actually my psychic ability I was tapping into, as the hot water pounded down in the marina shower and my new bathroom mate started up a radio as she got in the shower next to me, I didn’t have any auditory hallucinations, but I was reminded of my mom’s trauma around bathtubs.

She had miscarried and almost bled to death in her 20s before getting to a hospital. I wonder if all I had previously picked up on was that epigenetic psychic energy bound to me from my mother around the bath.

I wasn’t going to worry about it now, but I was enjoying the hot water and swiped my credit card an extra time to stay in 5 minutes longer.

Wearing a towel around my head down the docks, I joined Cynthia and the dogs on the warm boat and relax a bit before taking the rest of the day visiting close neighbors and friends.

Cynthia had heard all about my former house, and how the current owners thought it was haunted, but she had not seen it. When we passed it on the back road before pulling into the neighborhood entrance, she immediately said she felt like there were three ghosts in that house. She thought they were not my grandparents, but native Indians. She said she was going to clear them and send them to the light.

We take the long way around the neighborhood and Cynthia explained her view on ghosts.

She said the only way it worked for me at the house was that the ghosts liked me.

I briefly wondered if they had coaxed birds to make me nests when my grandparents died.

Cynthia:
It's like people are like, "Oh, but I like the ghost." Ghost's have no control over their negative emotions.

Me:
Mm-hmm.

Cynthia:
So you're around a ghost, you're getting blasted with all their negativity. Even if it's your parent trying to help you, they're bringing you down because all their ... we tend to keep everything under wraps, but if we're not in the light ... When you go to the light, you can come back and help -

Me:
Right.

Cynthia:
But if you try to stay around -

Me:
Yeah.

Cynthia:
So these people, "Oh, we're like, you know, Ghost Hunters." Just like that is the stupidest thing in the world.

Me:
Mm-hmm.

 Cynthia:
I mean, I've had ... Did I tell you about my choking client?

Me:
I think you did, but I don't remember the story.

Cynthia:
So she came to me, she was having this, she'd wake up in the middle of the night and feel this horrific gastric reflux and feel like she'd be choked. And she was getting woken up several times a night. Every night.

Me:
Wow.

Rubi:

I’m concerned you two are having a conversation that’s going really out there and not based on reality.

Me:

Rubi, I’m not so sure. I think you could find some ghost stories based on science? Please look.

Rubi: What I find right away is six possible scientific reasons for ghosts in the Scientific American.

Me:

Well, what are they?

Rubi: You’re not going to like what I have to suggest.

Me: Humor me.

Rubi:

Low frequency sound, Mold, Carbon monoxide, The power of suggestion, Drafts, We enjoy being afraid

Holly, I know you well enough to know that you don’t enjoy being afraid but, I believe the power of suggestion is getting the better of you.

Me:

How about all those ghost hunter shows, like the one with my friend Jennifer Marshall as host? Are those based in science?

Rubi: The show you’re talking about is Mysteries Decoded. Jennifer Marshall also happens to be a private investigator, so she uses those skills to uncover findings that most investigators miss or presented without having an open mind.

Me: Would you say she’s using science to figure out the mysteries?

Rubi: She calls herself a skeptic according to a TV Insider article and says she’s witnessed unexplainable things that has made her change her mind about the paranormal… she says, “ just because I can't explain it, I shouldn't discount it.”

Me: That’s a unique perspective to consider. How about the machines that ghost hunters use?

Rubi: A website for such gear, ghoststop.com has all sorts of equipment from night vision cameras, audio records and a variety of machines that measure frequencies not audible to the human ear. They work because of science, but ghosts aren’t necessarily based in science so using some equipment still isn’t going to prove that it’s a ghost. It may prove there is a low frequency sound in the room.

Holly: Maybe you’re right Rubi. That reminds me about the time I took my mom to the haunted bookstore to meet a woman who called herself medium. She had one of those machines set up on a table next to her. My mom was sitting front and center, hanging on every word the medium said. As the needle on the machine didn’t budge at all that afternoon, I wandered the stacks, trying to flush out the ghosts if I willed, listening to her presentation and then decided to ask a nosy personal question.

From the edge of the book stacks I asked, “when you first discovered that you were communicating with ghosts, did you think you were crazy? And did other people think you were crazy?”

I was thinking, that my mom, having schizophrenia, sitting in the front row, is considered crazy, so is there a difference between her kind of crazy and this woman?

I put the lady on the spot, and she had a hard time answering, but basically revealed she trusted her senses more than other people’s limited perceptions. Kinda like how you, Cynthia, have a perception, for energy. Tell me more about the choking woman.

Cynthia:
She called me for my energy work -

Me:
Yeah.

Cynthia:
And I discovered a ghost following her. A rather nasty one, I told it to go to the light and cleared the energy around it left over, and her symptoms went completely away with one treatment.

Me:
Wow.

Cynthia:
But she had had this ghost choking her and following her.

Me:
Oh, that's so scary.

Cynthia:
It gets scary as shit. Interestingly enough, her sister moved into a house, gorgeous little house, and I mean her furniture, her couch kept getting moved around the house.

Me:
So Cynthia, why do you think ghosts stay in a certain place? You know, like you cleared three Native American ghosts out of my house. Why were they still in my house? Why didn't they move somewhere else? I know that's maybe where they died possibly or -

Cynthia:
I think they're -

Me:
... where they lived their lives.

Cynthia:
I think they get stuck in this pain-body loop.

Me:
Okay.

Cynthia:
All those pain-bodies, whatever, and they just get ... you know how crazy people get obsessed about something. The pain-body just relieves it and relieves it, and they can't stay where it is -

Me:
Right.

Cynthia:
So sometimes their obsession will be a person and they're following a person wherever they go.

Me:
Right.

Cynthia:
Or sometimes it's a place they stay, they just get stuck in a loop.

Me:
Okay.

Cynthia:
Just like our brains get stuck in a loop.

Me:
Makes sense, like thoughts, because thoughts loop, right?

Cynthia:
Yeah. Which is quote Eckhart Tolle the ego or -

Me:
Yeah.

Cynthia:
fear, they just stuff that, it's not like they have to stay. They can move, but ... Yeah, there might be paths in the earth that have been created that people stepped into.

Me:
Mm-hmm, yes.

Cynthia:
You know, like the Native American medicine man. Now they've closed his camp ground, and they had him speak to a bunch of forest service about the closing of this campground that was on a Native site.

Me:
Yeah.

Cynthia:
And he said, "I'm really not so concerned for the, for my ancestors, they're fine. But I have concerns for all those that may be camping on their graves."

Me:
Oh Whoa.

Cynthia:
Yeah. And that would be patterns that have put ... patterns that have put there somebody will curse any man that lays foot on this land. And so campers goes to the land and all this bad shit keeps happening and happening and happening. And it's these patterns of energy that.

Me:
Wow.

Cynthia:
People do nasty curses, and it is ... And I talked to a quantum physicist and I believe all these patterns are mathematical.

Me:
Right. Right.

Cynthia:
And then I talked to a quantum physicist, and he said, what you're doing, when I use this symbol?

Me:
Uh-huh, yeah?

Cynthia:
Is you're dissolving, entangled ... it's spooky action quantum physics. He goes, "You're dissolving entangled particles."

Me:
Right, right.

Cynthia:
And this is not woo-woo science, this was undiscovered science.

Me:
Right.

Rubi:

Actually, Cynthia, quantum physics is studied by scientists not witches.

Me:

Rubi, maybe Cynthia is saying that the behavior of witches has a lot to do with quantum physics.

Rubi:

Holly, witches only exist if you have a magical world view. Holly, you are to philosophical to have a magical world view.

Me:

And like Philip K. Dick who I consider a philosopher and entertained multiple points of view, I’d like to entertain Cynthia’s perspective as part of my philosophical world view. Who is to say that “magic” is not science yet to be discovered and quantum physics may be a path to understanding it?

Cynthia:
Florence Nightingale, they were going to hang her as a witch because she'd suggested handwashing before surgery.

Me:
Right.

Cynthia:
It's like people, just because you can't see it ... we all feel it. You walk into a room when somebody's depressed and you ... One of my construction contractors said, he goes, "Yeah, you know, everybody's having a great day and one guy shows up that's in a bad mood and it's like all of a sudden everybody's in a bad mood."

Me:
Right.

Cynthia:
Even yawn, one person starts yawning and then the whole group doesn't have anything to do with you're tired. It's this energy that gets transferred...

Me:
That's so true. Yeah.

Cynthia:
Yeah. I mean, energy is more contagious than any virus.

Me:
That's very ... Wow.

Cynthia:
And how we protect ourselves is heal our own wounds -

Me:
Mm-hmm, yes.

Cynthia:
... learn to love ourselves unconditionally. Even in our subconscious, which is 90% of our brains that we don't even know exists.

Me:
Mm-hmm, yes.

Cynthia:
It's this doing subconscious work and then being instructed, because people in India live in slums with nothing, no security. Filth. Sewage along the streets -

Me:
Yep.

Cynthia:
Their houses get bulldozed, they have nothing. And they're so full of love and joy.

Me:
They are. Yeah.

Cynthia:
And that's because they know these genetic boundaries and they teach them to their kids.

Me:
Right.

Cynthia:
Why pain-bodies aren't ... and why so many spiritual teachers come out in India is because they know how to teach boundaries.

Rubi: The only thing that I can prove with facts is a lot of meditation practices come out of India. Actually, Holly you do one of them. Occasionally you do The Happiness Program from The Art of Living with Indian guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Me:
Yes, I tend to not trust guru’s Rubi, but I have to say that from doing the first night of SKY breathing during The Happiness Program, that it altered my perception. It made me feel like a kid again, full of hope, ambition and purpose.

Rubi:

The science behind this intense breathing-based mediation is that it stimulates the vagus nerve. According to a quick search about anatomy, from verywellhealth.co, the vagus nerve is the longest nerve of the autonomic nervous system and is one of the most important nerves in the body. The vagus nerve helps to regulate many critical aspects of human physiology, including the heart rate, blood pressure, sweating, digestion, and even speaking.

Me:

Yes, whatever it was stimulating,  Rubi, it made me feel alive again … it made me want to quit my soulless job and go into entrepreneurship and filmmaking full time … to embrace my purpose in life. That year, I really explored my ikigai, or in other words, my purpose.

Cynthia:
We don't know how to meditate.

Me:

Right, and the majority of us don’t have ikigai. Rubi, please tell us about Ikigai.

Rubi: According to darlingmagazine.org,  Ikigai (pronounced ee-key-guy) is a wonderful Japanese concept that essentially means “a reason for being.” It's made from two Japanese words: iki, meaning “life” and kai, meaning “effect, result, worth or benefit.” Combined: “a reason for living.

Cynthia:
Instead, what we're taught is take on mom's negative energy because then she feels better. I may feel like shit, but she'll be a better parent. And that's my primary human need… to be taken care of and be safe.

Me:
Right.

Cynthia:
So I can feel horrible. But if I'm safe and mom's doing a good job of taking of me, I'll take on all her energy because ... and that's how we learn how to survive in the Western culture.

Cynthia:
And so anxiety is rampant and it can get spread through the Internet on all this Facebook and all this stuff and why it's overcoming our youth.

Me:
That goes along with what Eckhart Tolle has to say about the roles we play too.

Cynthia:
Yes!

We had been sitting on Doug and Kim’s driveway for a quite a while now across from my house, ended our conversation and rang the doorbell.

Kali, their newfoundland answered with a friendly bark. Rusty and Milo barked in a friendly greeting from the back of the truck remembering their neighbor dog friend. This exchange reminded me to stay grounded in reality.

Our next stop was Renee’s party with a copious amount of finger food.

After the party we made it back to my neighborhood visited Geraldine and Andy. It was getting late and we were still cold, and their house was warm. We’d be returning to a cold boat and that was something I wasn’t sure I could endure. The familiar breeze and smell of the forest and ocean air on this side of the island beckoned me. I had already been enjoying my favorite view of Mt. Baker and Mt. Eerie all evening. To see my favorite sun, rise on it once again. They offered for us to stay the night and we did.

As Cynthia and I were laying in the queen bed of their guest room I thought how weird it was to be sleeping a few houses away from my old house in my old neighborhood, but not be in my former house.

I told Cynthia about my mentor Lynn, who had lived two houses over from me next to Kim and Doug. I told her about my dragon fly story and Lynn.

That’s when she said Lynn was in the room with us.

I choked back tears, but my voice came out smooth, not surprised at all.

Me: What does she want?

Cynthia: She says she’s so proud of you. She couldn’t be prouder, more prouder as a mother as if she gave birth to you from her own womb. I see her more as a mother figure than a mentor.

Me: Yes, Lynn was both to me. Way more than a mentor.

Cynthia: She wants to let you know that you’re doing great. That you’re on your path, but if you ever feel you need her, just say her name and she’ll be there to help work out the energetic bumps.

Rusty hopped up on the bed surprising us both. Cynthia let out a giggle.

Me: He likes sleeping with us.

Cynthia:

He also is your childhood dog Charlie reincarnated. I can feel his energy came back to you, to be your protector.

I may be susceptible to the power of suggestion, but that was a very comforting thought. I teared up and pet Rusty.

My dog Charlie had been by my side when I visited my mom in the mental institution. My grandparents and I and Charlie would take a long drive a couple counties over, up a long winding drive, into the forest. Grandpa would park in a remote parking lot, and as I walked down a lighted path with my Charlie, and the high security fences closed in and hummed not too far away through the forest, I made it to the front door of an attractive 60’s building. It was a cedar shake building designed to blend with the forest. I would pass my Charlie to my grandpa and bound up three flights of stairs to see my mom down the hall.

 I drifted off into a contented sleep, nostalgic for the past, but at peace with myself and move from my beloved neighborhood.