Mazurka's winter home

The Great Equalizer

The last week of November was 60 degrees. Mark and I rode a motorcycle back from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it was so warm. And then, it got cold. And the wind blew. And it got even colder.

How cold? My toothpaste was so stiff I couldn't squeeze it out. Cabin temperature fell to 52 degrees. The electric heater hummed nonstop; the gas-fueled furnace still wasn't working. Are we waiting for a pump still? The last one was defective. When it comes in the mail maybe Mark will be able to fix the furnace, maybe not. In the meantime, he is putting plastic over all the windows to stop the draft. Cabin temperature rises to 55 degrees. But maybe it's all the body heat inside.

The pump comes, the furnace still doesn't work. Mark deduces through phone calls to manufacturers in Anchorage that the motherboard is broken.

The guys in Anchorage take pity on him and sell him another furnace at cost. It'll be here in a few days.

The cats sleep under the covers with us. We keep space heaters beside the bed.

Cabin temperature hovers between 52-60 degrees, when the sun is shining. Outside, it's 12 degrees; windchill is -1.

My friends are concerned - everyone in the city is cold now. "How's life on the boat?" they ask, prepared to offer their place as refuge.

My dear friend and running partner - who just bought a place in a gold coast gated community where the mayor's brother reportedly lives - has four floors and lots of windows and when I tell her the cabin temperature is 58, she says, "That's what we're keeping our place. Who would have thought they put single-plated glass in that place? Single-plated glass! It would cost a fortune to heat it. I don't even want to take a shower it's so cold."

Winter in Chicago is the great equalizer. Doesn't matter if you've got a posh place in the gold coast, a boat on the river, or a piece of cardboard under the Webster Street overpass: if you're cold, you're cold you're cold. The most any of us can hope for is a warm place to sleep tonight.

The Economy of Space

It's amazing how much stuff you don't actually need. Donate all your furniture. Throw out the old Valentine's cards and college term papers. Get rid of most of your kitchen stuff, except what's really important to you, or was important to your great-grandmother. Leave stuff in the alley and it'll be gone in ten minutes. Give away three-quarters of your clothing - do you wear all of it, anyway? - and put next season's stuff in storage. In all, I walked away from 14 years of adult life with a dozen Rubbermaid containers. They are well-organized in a storage unit downtown by the bus station, beside Mark's motorcycle. I have less stuff now than when I left for college.

You know what? I don't miss all that crap one bit.

The Mayor of River City

The Lake region doesn't take too kindly to winter boaters - the last remaining harbors are closing their docks, shutting off their water, making it generally impossible for somebody to stay all year if they choose. River City just south of the loop is one of the last homes for the winter boaters - those few renegades whose love of boating goes beyond drinking and riding the waves and getting sunburned. The diehards. The Live Aboards.

River City is not as pretty as Monroe or Belmont harbors. The lakefront is much more regal, much cleaner thanks to all the zebra mussels. People dump all kinds of shit into the river, even though Friends of the River has a plan that it be swimmable by 2015. (It's almost 2007 and you're not supposed to let the river water touch your skin.) As my friend Kathy pointed out, "You could dump a body back here and nobody would know." And I'm sure they do, in between the dark docks and mysterious lines, along with all kinds of industrial waste and other impossible-to-place-garbage. Last spring I saw floating the small carcass of an unidentifiable animal - was it a lizard? an oversized tadpole?

This winter, River City is housing eight boats with Live Aboards.

We are an ecclectic crew: a suburban PE teacher, an NPR addict, a City of Chicago union worker and his girlfriend, an IRS employee, a dentist, an engineer planning for retirement and sailing the world, and overseeing us all, the unofficial mayor: Stan the Man.

Stan the Man is Irish, usually drunk, though you'd never know it if you stayed out of breath-shot. He worked as a handyman with travelling carnivals for a while amidst other unknown careers. How he ended up in Chicago living on a nameless Chris-Craft I don't know. He is the kind of guy who lives under the radar, always attached somehow to the main action; the kind of guy you believe has connections to politicians and mobsters, if only because he's willing to do the dirty work at the last minute and take the cash without asking questions.

He's also kind, friendly, and warm, keeps Rice Krispies on his boat, along with mirrored letters on his door that spell out STN. When we had to move Mark's boat in subzero temperatures last January, Stan was the first to arrive to help. When a boat arrives in River City, he is right there to take your lines. When we returned recently from a trip and sent Mark's brother ahead with some things for the boat, Stan was right there asking him who he was and why he was aboard Mazurka.

One night after midnight Mark and I came home to a quiet River City. We rounded the gates and passed noiselessly along the dock's corridor (though making enough noise to scare away any rats). The water was quiet and still; the only sound was a subtle steam coming from the post office across the river. As we passed Stan's Chris-Craft, there was the sudden unmistakable howl of Roger Daltrey, followed by Stan's cry: Won't get fooled again!

Every neighborhood has its unofficial mayor: the old Japanese painter who sits on his front porch and chats it up; the retired black gentleman who sweeps his walk and smokes cigars; the Irishman who always magically appears whenever you need to slide into a slip and tie up your home.

What we all need is a mayor who's rocking on out to The Who.

Safe Harbor

We were supposed to leave our autumn home in Belmont Harbor on November 15th. The same day Japan was bracing for a great tsunami. That night, we drove home from work with two of our friends. It was windy all day, but not till we hit Lake Shore Drive and saw the lakefront like a pail of water lugged by a three year-old did we realize just how windy it was.

We tried to convince ourselves it wasn't that bad - as waves crashed against the shore and shot twenty feet into the air. In the safety of Belmont Harbor, Mazurka rocked back and forth. I worried that the City of Chicago would fine us for staying in the harbor past the leave date. We listened to the weather report, we hemmed and hawed - none of the other straggling boats in the harbor seemed in a hurry to get outta Dodge.

"I'm claiming Safe Harbor," Mark declared.

Who knew there was such a thing? But maybe because large bodies of water are the last wild frontiers - gale force winds can come up in an instant...runaway thunderstorms...pirates.... As we sat around the table that night drinking wine and eating dinner, Mark told us of his uncle sailing Lake Michigan when a storm came up. He parked his boat at the Great Lakes Naval Station, claiming safe harbor, and even though civilian boats aren't allowed there, they had to let them in.

What a concept: If you are in trouble, they have to let you in.

Mazurka carries with her an aura of safety no matter where she goes, even the shady south loop. She has a security system, but it's more for nautical purposes; she has her own phone line and will call Mark if she starts to sink, or leak fuel, or if someone tries to break in, I suppose - but who's going to board a boat docked in the middle of Lake Michigan? We have a lock for it - a thick padlock in the shape of a man, his crotch the keyhole. And every morning when we leave for work we lock her up. But if someone really wanted to get on board, they could. Downtown Chicago, where thieves will break your car window just for the change in the cup holder, but boats are left untouched.

There's a mystery to boats. "People are intimidated by them," Mark says.

Like we were with the gale force winds that night. The lake is 17-22 feet deep along the course we would sail to River City. With 14 foot waves...that made for a rather shallow bottom for the keel on this ship. We stayed put for four more days, till the smooth sailing of the weekend.

And the great tsunami of Japan? 6 foot waves.

Wimps.

Cheek to Cheek

I visited my friend - a great photographer with a long white beard - in his basement studio. As unusual as he is, he is perplexed by my living aboard a boat. "Isn't it cramped?" he asks. "Don't you feel like you're right on top of each other?"

I look around his studio, only a bit smaller than Mazurka. "Well, there's different levels," I explain. "And I have a room and bathroom in the front. I can work up there. It doesn't really feel crowded - it feels like we're outside."

Surrounded by windows - the reason Mark bought a trawler to live aboard - you are always acutely aware of the nature around you, even in the city. Each morning, the first thing you notice is the sky - is it sunny or gloomy? Is the lake filled with fog shrouding the downtown skyscrapers (as it was this morning)? You may go to work in a building with few windows, but all day you know what outside is like, and you return to it at night.

You wake up to water, you fall asleep to water. There isn't a day I approach Mazurka when I don't zip my pockets and clutch the keys close to my chest for fear of losing them to the bottom of Lake Michigan.

And you learn to be economical with your space. The first thing I did in my new role as "wife" aboard Mazurka was rearrange the kitchen. I removed the microwave that required eleven minutes to heat a can of soup. I cleared the pantry shelf and threw away half-used packets of meat seasoning and instant coffee from Thailand. I organized the counter and put everything within easy reach. The lack of space necessitates shopping two or three times a week, which means fresher food, less waste. We have a dorm-sized refrigerator, and a large cooler outside, where I store vegetables and yogurt. A shelf two feet wide and two feet deep serves as our main pantry, with cereals, fruit, crackers, coffee, and cat food. And the squat shelf above the plates and cups holds cans of soup and extra spices.

Boating magazines always include cooking articles, and it seems that boaters latch onto one item they really like - a pressure cooker, a crock pot - and use it for everything. The previous owners left behind a breadmaker and Mark makes killer chocolate pumpernickle cornbread. But our true staple is the grill - a fantail off the stern, fueled by good ole propane.

As little space as we seemingly have, we're having some fantastic meals. Grilled hamburger, sauteed mushrooms, onions, peppers, edamame, salad, and Spanish red wine. Grilled vegetables (zucchini, squash, onions, potatoes) and ribeye steak, and for dessert apples sprinkled with Chinese cinnamon, cheddar cheese, and white port. We cook together, and we clean up together.

The thing I didn't explain to my friend is that, for the few hours we spend aboard Mazurka each day, it's not enough. Maybe it's because we're newlyweds, but I only want to be five feet away from Mark at any given time. Even if he's sitting at his computer, or reading the Wall Street, paying absolutely no attention to me at all. Mark can take apart the entire boat trying to fix the furnace while I sit in the midst of it all writing letters. We are learning to be in each other's space - which we will do for the rest of our lives; we are learning to waltz cheek to cheek.

Water, Water Everywhere...

To provide hot water for your shower, your dishwasher, and your clothes washer - perhaps all three run simultaneously! - the average house these days boasts a hot water heater that holds 30, maybe even 50 gallons of hot water.

The hot water heater aboard Mazurka holds six.

Yes, six. Six gallons. Take that gallon of ice cream in your deep freeze, that gallon of milk in your jumbo refrigerator and multiply it by six. That's the most hot water there is at any given time.

If you are a man with little hair, you can take a quick shower and be done with it. But you can see how this would be a problem if you were, say, a woman with long, fine hair - very fine hair - which requires two rounds of conditioner. And if you were a woman who, though not a regular leg-shaver, periodically used a razer to clean things up. You can see how this particular woman might be screaming three-quarters into her shower, and then begin to avoid showering on the boat altogether.

"I can just go to the gym," she tells her husband.

So her new husband, wanting to please his new wife, begins to search for alternatives. A new water heater - a cylinder that holds 12 gallons, a cube that holds 10. The cube is a great price on clearance but won't fit in the engine room without knocking a hole in the wall; the 12 gallon heater costs $1400.

"I can just go to the gym" she says again.

And so she does. Monday morning, she's there to swim, then enjoy the long, hot shower. But as she steps under the nozzle...it's cold. Ice cold.

Water, water everywhere - and none of it hot.

Urban Fisherman

There is no shortage of wildlife in the city. Rats, pigeons and squirrels. Ducks and geese. Opossum and bats. One morning on the way to the car Mark tossed our garbage in a dumpster. "There's a raccoon asleep in there," he said. "Wanna see it?" He lifted the lid as I carefully approached. There, atop some newspaper, slept a 40 pound raccoon, curled like a cat. He raised his head, assessing us with black, beady, un-cat-like eyes. "He should be happy," Mark said, closing the lid. "I just gave him half a pound of hamburger."

And, of course, there are fish.

I grew up on the Mississippi River, learning to fish the backwaters at the junction of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. We caught far too many blue gill, the occasional illusive, coveted walleye, a lot of gar one season (the long-snouted heads of which my brother Jim strung across the front of the camper like some scene from Heart of Darkness), but mostly, we caught crappie - strong, good-natured, good-eating crappie, which Dad and Jim cleaned and piled into the deep freeze for us to eat all winter. One of my best memories growing up is fishing at dusk during mayfly season, when the wispy carcasses of mayflies speckled the water, and crappie leapt up to eat them. We caught our fill that night before the sun went down; our poles barely cast before there was a bite.

When you catch a fish on the backwaters of the Mississippi, you catch in solitude, with only the turtles and woodpeckers to cheer you on, until you return at dusk with a basketful, and then, at the fish cleaning house, the less fortunate gather round to gawk over your catch and slyly inquire where you found them. If you are like my father, you are polite and smile and chat away, but never reveal the sacred spots you have worked so hard to find. Though you might throw them a little bone of a place, if they won't get too tangled in the sunken trees.

In the city, there is always an audience (for anything you do, don't forget). On the first day of October, Jim, Mark, and I watched a fisherman just south of Shedd Aquarium spend twenty patient minutes hauling in a 15 pound salmon. By the time he brought it to shore, a crowd of thirty had gathered to watch, and we applauded.
The salmon come to spawn in Chicago from September to November, and the urban fishermen are out in full force to meet them. They gather along the lakeshore before sun-up, in camo pants and down jackets, jumping fences and ignoring the no fishing within 100 feet of boats signs. They linger till long after the sun is set. I see them when I leave for work in the morning, I see them when I come home. They stir in me some quiet, biological need to catch the fish that swim beneath my home.

One evening, gliding into the pump out station, I motion for the three fishermen gathered around the sewage tank to move aside. "We're coming to pump out," I called to them. They stood a ways off, while I leapt onto the dock and scrambled to tie up. (Definitely not boaters - boaters will always help you tie up.)

I introduced myself to Keith and Sheryl (all fishermen I have known have a girlfriend named Sheryl) and Sheryl's kid Ricky. A few days back Keith caught a couple good-sized salmon - 12, 14 pounds - had them smoked and ate them. I asked if he was concerned about the mercury. He held his hand out in front of him. "Well, I can kinda see straight," he joked. Sheryl joined in. "I was scared, but I ate some. So if we're messed up, at least we're messed up together!" They told me about someone who had caught a northern in Montrose Harbor the previous week - maybe three feet long - "good enough to get in the paper."

I called Jim, a fisherman by vocation, like our dad. "The best thing to do is see what everybody else is doing, then do that. They're probably fishing with roe," he said, before I even described the mass of orange fish eggs sprawled all over the sidewalk. "Is that like sushi?" I asked. "Sort of. They wrap it in small nets to keep it sturdy." Then he thought for a moment. "But if everybody else is fishing with roe, you might try throwing a night crawler out there - they might be itching for something different."

A few days later he called to see how the fishing was. I confessed I didn't feel like doing it in the cold rain. "Go get some sardines from a bait shop," he said. "Not the ones in the store - the frozen ones. They're a real greasy, oily fish - the salmon'll be all over that. Just put one on your line and go inside where it's warm. Hell, you could even put a line out in the morning, then when you get home at night check it. You might have a salmon hanging off your hook."

Because it's in my blood, I'll try it. But I have to admit, it feels wrong to fish for an animal I won't eat for all the mercury we've injected in its blood. I prefer them alive, unseen, quietly swimming beneath my pillow while I dream at night.

Hunter the Sailor Cat

We smuggled them away in the dark of night. Swooped them into the carrier, brought the food and litter box and made our way for the harbor.

Hunter and Leo - two brothers with long white hair and orange spots - came from the anti-cruelty society eleven years ago, when they were just six weeks old. They have all their claws, most of their teeth, some extra meat on their bones, and have never been outside.

It's hard to tell which one is the alpha cat. Leo is more agile, more adventurous, more likely to pick on his brother. Hunter likes to lounge around and get his belly rubbed, and doesn't always cover his shit in the litter box.

Cats have lived on board boats for centuries - they guard against rats. But I was skeptical these city cats would actually survive Mazurka.

The first night we let them out on deck, where they roamed for just a bit before making their way for the door. Hunter plopped in the middle of the bed. "So this is where you've been spending all your time," he seemed to say, and started purring. Leo retreated to a cupboard.

The following afternoon, in the brief window of sunlight, we brought them up to the fly bridge. Leo crouched low, mewing, uncertain of the rocking or his footing, and returned to the cupboard. But Hunter stood tall on the fly bridge, surveying the harbor, the wind blowing his fur back. He looked like a true sailor cat, worthy of the high seas.

You never know how living on the water will change somebody - even a loafing eleven year-old cat.

But sympathy pains got to him, and pretty soon, Hunter started hiding in the cupboard with his brother. Every unfamiliar sound frightened them. When I came home from work, they stayed hidden away, rather than greeting me at the door. They hovered low to the ground, ate thought they weren't pestering me for food as usual, and they ceased scrapping in the middle of the night. I worried they would never get used to boat life, even in a placid harbor.

Then one evening we started the engine and took the boat for a ride. I was certain this would send them over the feline psychological edge. They stayed in their cupboard the whole trip. Except at the end, Leo emerged slowly, with a familiar glint in his eye. We took him up to the fly bridge, by the wheel, and he started to purr. He was just waiting to be captain.

Since then, they are back to their old troublemaking selves, as if they've lived aboard Mazurka their entire lives.

I can see now why cats and boats go together. Besides the teams of mice and rats to chase, there's the maze of shelves and levels to climb; cats don't need a lot of space on the ground - they need space up. Hunter and Leo balance with their thick orange tails, and when the boat blows in the wind, they rock with it. There are small spaces to crawl into, dark places to hide. There are ropes and birds. There is always something going on, something to observe, something to get right in the middle of - like a coiled rope - and plop right down.

How to Win the River Rat Bonehead Award

"Well, there's really not much to tell, except that I just had the boat for like a month, and I never pumped out the holding tank before. It was getting dark, and I hooked it all up, but I had trouble screwing the fitting onto the pump out. It's a male fitting - and the pump out has a female fitting that you connect it to - you screw the male fitting into it, and I couldn't figure out why it wasn't screwing in right. So I just forced it in there. And I started pumping out. I noticed that there wasn't much coming out, so I figured, it must be empty. I pumped it for a while - seemed like I had pumped it all out - waited for a while - seemed empty. So I undid it.

"My mom told me I should put bleach down the holding tank - keep it nice and fresh - so I poured a cup of bleach down after I was done, put the cap back on, went to bed. No problem. 'Cept when I woke up in the morning, I realized that I pumped out my fuel tank. I was going to work and I looked over there and said, my God, I just poured bleach down my fuel tank. That was the worst thing. I knew I didn't pump out any fuel, 'cause there's a hose that goes all the way to the bottom of the pump out tank, but the fuel tank doesn't have that.

"First of all, I thought about this filtering system in my tanks. The previous owner had conditioned the boat to go to the Bahamas. You never know, you might get bad fuel when you're away, so he rigged up this system called a fuel polisher that would clean the fuel after fill up to pull out any water or dirt that might contaminate the fuel, preventing it from going into your engine. So I turned on the fuel polisher, thinking I should just run it for a while. The tanks were pretty full with fuel. So I put the fuel polisher on, and I went to work.

"That was my other mistake.

"I was up on the hospital unit and I got a page from River City saying there was an oil slick behind my boat, and the City of Chicago had called them. The lady who I rented the slip from called me and said, you know, you have a fuel leak, you better get over here right now. I was thinking about the fuel polisher I turned on and I thought maybe something sprung a leak and was pumping all the fuel into the river and was siphoning out - I have a bilge pump, and if it filled up, it might be pumping out through the bilge. I panicked and raced to the boat.

"When I got there, first thing I did was go down to the engine room. But there was no fuel in the bilge. 'Course, the polisher was still running, so I shut that off...or did I shut that off? I didn't shut that off right away - I noticed there was fuel coming out of the side of the boat and I couldn't understand why. I got in my dinghy and paddled around the boat, trying to figure out where the leak was. My friend Doug told me, 'You gotta get out of the water - you can't look suspicous!'

"The fuel was foaming in the tank and was coming out of the breather, creating this oil slick. So I shut off the polisher and went out there and was wiping down the boat. It took a while to stop foaming. I had this bubbling system hooked up in front of the boat called the de-icer - I turned that on and pushed all the oil down away from my boat, down by Doug's boat. And then as I was getting everything cleaned up, I went inside, and I saw the Chicago Police boat coming toward me. I ducked down and hid, peeking out over the top of the door. It's a $10,000+ fine for dumping fuel in the water. Huge fine. They call conservation, it's a mess. Lawyer fees, all that stuff. Jail. Newspapers. Tribune photo.

"The police came up, they kept going. They didn't see anything."

Later that year, Mark received the Bonehead Award from the River Rats. It's a white plastic bone that fits over his head. He keeps it on the shelf beside a Cochina doll from Chinle, a certificate from completing the Birkebeiner, a photo from his first communion, a picture of his sweetheart, and his other most valued items.

Nobody Likes Poop on the Poop Deck

Part of the joys of living aboard a boat is that you carry your own things - water, food, supplies, tools, fuel, and, of course, your own shit.

As well as the shit of anyone else you have had on board, from friends and family to colleagues, a gospel choir, and B.B. King's daughter, who crashed a party we had several weeks ago, cleaning out the cooler and taking with her the last sad can of unwanted Budweiser before she left.

We have been hauling this shit in a tank beneath the v-berth for almost three weeks now. There is no alarm to tell us it's full, no polite voice to warn us it's time we pumped out: no, you know the shit tank is full when it starts to overflow.

Now, rational people that we are, nobody want to reach this point. But it's not always easy to estimate just how much shit has collected in the tank until you start to see a gurgling when you flush the toilet. There are two manual heads on board, so you pump a handle to fill the bowl with water, which often creates a suction that pulls the waste down into the tank. But you cannot always rely on this method to suck out your waste, which I learned shortly after I started dating Mark.

Early in a romantic relationship (hell, maybe even after 20 years of marriage), women may be squeamish about having a bowel movement with their new love interest in the next room. Particularly if that next room is separated by a paper-thin wall aboard a boat. I just couldn't do my business if Mark was around. But one morning, I awoke to find he had already left for work. I got ready for work in the usual way, but when I flushed the toilet, it wouldn't go down. I kept pumping the handle while the bowl filled with more and more water, till I was certain it would overflow. I panicked, petrified that Mark would come home from work to find shit soup in his bathroom. I ran to the galley for a plastic cup and knife. Carefully, I ladled the liquid down the bathtub drain. (Later, I learned that "grey water" from the sinks goes directly out of the boat. You're not even supposed to let the Chicago River water touch your skin, so it's not like I did major damage, but still....) With the knife, I chopped the waste into smaller bits and tried to flush again - no suction! The bowl filled with more water. I ladled more out until, mortified and late for work, I closed the lid on the toilet and left. I called Mark from my office and warned him that the toilet was clogged. He later told me that by the time he got home, the bowl was empty - but who knows if he was only saying that to save my pride.

I was terrified of the toilet after that, and only used it in emergencies. Of course, a weekend on a boat can summon an emergency, and several weeks later I ran into the same situation - this time with Mark on board. I closed the toilet lid and called for him. "Don't look inside - just tell me what I need to do." He came into the head. "You're not doing it right," he said. "You have to push the lever down to flush it down - the way you're doing it just pumps water in."

This crucial lesson became part of the tour I give new guests aboard Mazurka: throw your toilet paper in the garbage, pump the handle, push the lever down, pump some more.

By now Mark and I have gotten past the embarrassment of bowel movements; we've graduated to pumping out the waste together.

Pump out is a two-person job, and one you can only do with someone you truly respect. First, you must find a pump out station, which any respectable marina offers. You will know it by the big white box, the yellow and black striped hose. After tying up to the dock, attach the end of the hose into the sewage outlet port in your boat - on Mazurka, it's on the port side near the bow. (Mark once mixed this up with the fuel intake port, but that's another story...which won him the River Rat Bonehead award for the year.) Make sure you attach the hose into the sewage port before hitting the green button on the white box. This starts the suction, and you will feel the sewage pumping out. Some hoses even have a clear window so you can see it coming out. Pour bleach down the heads for good measure. If the sewage tank has overflown, you will need to pump out the bilge in the bow of the boat, too. Use lots of bleach.

An important final step is to make sure you shut off the pump before disengaging it. Chris, one of the few women I know who lives aboard a boat, once made the mistake of pulling out the hose before shutting it off; City of Chicago shit spewed everywhere, and covered her from head to toe. She dropped the hose and stripped off her clothes right on the dock, then high-tailed it to the shower, leaving a trail of shit along the way. "If you live on a boat," she warns, "one day it'll happen to you, too."

I believe it, with the inept and drunken boaters I see pumping out at the end of each weekend. I heed her warning every time I get ready to push that green button.

Late Leaver

Harbor life in Chicago lasts from May 15 - October 15. Unless you get an extended pass for "Late Leaver" status, which allows you to stay in a harbor with available fuel - Burnham, Belmont, or Diversey - until November 15. Mark and I are perpetually late. So as the geese are flying south, we migrated north from Monroe to Belmont.

Belmont is a neighborhood and a street a half mile south of Wrigley Field, bordering Boys' Town and Lakeview, with once anti-hip now ultra-hip stores like "The Alley," and the Theater Building, and the Japanese Spa "Thousand Waves," and a sprawl of restaurants like "Chicago Diner," which has the best vegetarian and vegan food anywhere (okay, maybe it's technically in Boys' Town, but they all start to blend together after awhile). When I was in college at proper Northwestern during the Clinton era, Belmont was where you took the el from Evanston just to walk on the street in Chicago and feel kinda grungy, kinda hip, kinda cool.

Belmont Harbor is also one of the most beautiful parts of the Chicago lakefront, and our new autumn home.

When we set sail late Saturday afternoon, the sun was setting behind the skyscrapers, the eastern sky a painter's palette of unreal pastel pinks and blues. Just outside Monroe Harbor, Mark gave me the helm. I drove around Navy Pier, past the calm waters east of the Hancock Building (nicknamed "the playpen" by boaters), and out past the breaker wall, heading north. The radio blasted the Rollings Stones, "We gotta get outta this place," and the wind picked up, the waves rose, and I drove into them, aiming Mazurka further to the northeast, my eye on the red light north of us.

We arrived in complete darkness and sailed our way inside, protected on the east by a narrow peninsula of trees. The rows of docks welcomed us with their warm yellow lampposts. Most of the boats were already gone for the season, and we coasted right into the slip of our choosing on Dock G. After adjusting the fenders, tying up, coiling the lines on the dock, plugging in (ah, shore power...), we walked right off the dock to our car and drove downtown to see a concert.

When we returned after 11 PM, there was a security guard parked at the entrance to the harbor. He flashed his lights at us. Mark drove up in his "land boat," an '81 Delta 88 Oldsmobile, Brougham Royale, with thick white duct tape holding up the passenger window and green Mardi Gras beads hanging from the rear view mirrow. "My boat," was all Mark had to say, and we were waved in.

We slept soundly that night, protected from the waves and wind, and woke up to sunlight and autumn trees. We ran along the lakeshore, later crossed LSD and the beautiful old high rises to find groceries, then grilled tuna steaks with a view of downtown, the top lights of the Hancock darkened to make sure the geese find the right way to Florida.

On Monday night, returning from a movie after 11 PM, we turned off LSD at Recreation Drive, turned right, and there was the gate - locked. Park hours are from 6 AM - 11 PM. Mark hopped out in the pouring rain and checked the lock. Big yellow gate, big red sign, big thick lock. He got back in the car. I figured he'd turn back to the parking lot beside the tennis courts, and we would huff it the half mile in the rain to the boat. He started the car forward - and then, in true Yooper style, drove his land boat up onto the curb and around the gate.

We're living in a gated community - but they can't keep us out for long.

Blow, Winds, and Crack Your Cheeks!

Mark and I went to see King Lear at the Goodman Theater. The Goodman has some of the highest budget theater around, and this production, directed by Robert Falls and starring Stacey Keach, had elaborate halls, kitchens, chandeliers, urinals, cars, and, of course, the storm.

At the beginning of the third act, when Lear is going mad, raging against the elements, Keach stood at the edge of the stage in an undershirt, rain pouring over him, and howled, “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!” You can’t help but feel good for him in that moment, because he is free from his daughters Goneril and Regan, free from the political constraints of kingship and court life. He is just himself – and whatever physical and spiritual strength still in him – at the whim of nature. And even though it’s a tragedy and you know he’s bound for the worst, you think in that moment that he’s going to win.

After everybody died and Edgar spoke the last word, we poured out onto the downtown sidewalk. It was bitterly cold – unusual for mid-October – and late; the fountains broadcasting electronic faces in Millennium Park were dark, taxis were thinning, even the panhandlers were growing weary. “She’s beautiful,” one said as we passed him by, “and she loves you.” By the time we walked the 20 minutes to the harbor, it was pouring rain, freezing drops blowing sideways in the western wind. The tenders had stopped service. We had to row home.

When I tell people I’ve just met about living aboard Mazurka, the inevitable first question is, “Yes, but what do you do in winter?” I have a standard answer: “There’s a heater, and Mark rigged up a furnace, it’s insulated, he wraps the whole thing in plastic. There’s a bubbler to keep the water circulating around the boat.” They look at me like I’m crazy – like it’s impossible to live on a boat in a Chicago winter. “Mark’s done it for two years,” I explain.

I always end my spiel with, “It’s not that bad. It’s pretty nice, actually. And how cold does Chicago get, anyway?”

The real answer, of course, is that it can get bad, very bad, and Chicago is damn cold, especially when the wind blows. Sure, there are January days when the sun shines and the wind is calm and the heater works and the furnace works and the plastic stays in place. Those days are even balmy. But on nights when the furnace pumps cold air, and the wind beats the plastic to hell and slithers up under the windows, and the temperature falls below zero, and the air sucks all the heat out of the river, and the water starts to cool…then it is not a vacation. Then you develop a different relationship to winter. It goes beyond just tolerating the cold, waiting it out – you have to like the cold, embrace it, invite it to bed with you –

It’s hard to explain why you would subject yourself to conditions like this when there are perfectly good heated apartments available in every neighborhood of the city. It’s hard to explain why you would want to row in the dark, freezing rain, or that when the wind caught us up and swooped us beyond Mazurka, I suddenly didn’t feel cold or wet anymore – I felt exhilarated. Would we be unable to row back? Would the wind take us all the way to the breaker wall, where we would wait out the night in miserable wet solitude? Mark rowed harder, trying to catch the stern of Mazurka, which was curving back and forth in the water, a whale not wanting to be caught. The freezing wind whipped snot from our faces, tears from our eyes, spewed ice cold lake water on us. We finally hooked the tail of the swim deck, scrambled aboard, skirted the ice on deck and spent the night under blankets in a cabin registering 41 degrees.

Winter is coming. And eventually, I will lose. But as long as I have strength to withstand the cold, I’ll rage against it. “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!” I’ll howl – ‘cause Lear didn’t lose his sanity in the elements – he found it.

Drawer Space

Every newly married couple faces the challenge of combining two lives into one. This summer when Mark and I attended the Precana weekend (the Catholic way of preparing for marriage...an intense weekend retreat with 14 other couples), where to live was a hot topic for everyone. One couple in their late 60s (first marriage for both) had just bought a condo; they advised us to get condo hunting quick. Another couple was moving into the groom's place since he owned and the bride rented. "He said he didn't mind me moving his stuff out of the way..." she said skeptically.

At that time, Mark and I had yet to decide where we would live. I couldn't imagine him living in a tiny overpriced two-bedroom condo, or renting my apartment. I couldn't imagine him living on land at all. But could I imagine myself living on water?

And as the opportunity was presenting itself, could I turn away?

Mazurka is a nice sized trawler: 38 feet long, a forward cabin with a v-berth, aft cabin with a double bed, two bathrooms (one with a shower), and a salon with a kitchen and a table. It is also a bachelor's trawler: the dorm-sized refrigerator is filled with salami, cheese, and steak; the front closet is stuffed with winter coats and fishing gear. Open any drawer and you'll find it overflowing with electrical connectors, wire splicers, flat-head screwdrivers and wrenches (one of our best wedding gifts, in fact, is a Snap-on adjustable wrench with our names and date engraved on the handle).

So now we get down to it. The generator working (sort of), I am faced with moving on board. Not just a backpack, not just for the weekend. We've come to the precipice, the end of long, hot baths and chairs with ottomans. I've been up front about my trepidation, while trying to keep an adventurous spirit. But now my books and desk are bound for storage, and I have to decide which cooking spices I absolutely can't live without. Half my clothes are going to Good Will, the other half into boxes until the seasons change. Plants go to work, furniture to anyone who can haul it away.

I am trying to think of the spiritual value of living a life of very few belongings. 'Cause in about a week, my life's satchel is going to be reduced to nine narrow drawers, a foot-wide closet, and a bathroom big enough to stand in.

Our Morning Commute

A person's daily commute has a bigger impact on their overall happiness than more expected factors, like how much sleep you get at night, or how much money you make. The longer, the more congested your commute, the more unhappy you are overall.

The average Chicago-area commute to work is 33.2 minutes. Thousands of people each day climbing into their cars with coffee, headsets, I-Pods, books on tape, and, after a costly swing by the gas station, sitting in traffic, stop and go, stop and go, anticipating the long day ahead.

At 45 minutes, our morning commute from Mazurka is a bit longer than most Chicagoans.

On a cold, autumnal morning, the sky filled with brilliant sun, a line of cumulous clouds laces the eastern horizon of Lake Michigan. The southwest wind clanks like through aluminum cans as it turns the wind generators atop fifty sailboats. We emerge on deck wearing work clothes and soft shell jackets. At the stern, Mark climbs down to the swim deck and pulls the dinghy from its spot floating just six feet behind Mazurka. The dinghy is eight feet long, its tags from New York, given to us in exchange for Alaskan halibut.

It has sunk at least once, in a storm; Mark came out in the morning to find it missing, then hauled it up on a line, and later rowed with one oar, till he spotted the other oar floating a hundred yards toward the south end of the harbor, along with a cushion. This was the last time he left the oars in the dinghy overnight.

The first time I climbed into the dinghy, Mark warned me that if it sinks, it's going straight to the bottom. He's bought two inflatable life jackets to save us - thin, compressible, able to fit into a briefcase, and also able to inflate in that briefcase, which Mark learned when he accidentally pulled the cord at work.

The dinghy is a kind boat, a devoted boat, but untrustworthy, in the same way you can't blame your clumsy friend for missing the free throw. It's a wonder your friend can dribble down the court at all.

It is this boat - so small its name has been forgotten (though other dinghies earn such respect as "Bare Necessities" and "Half and Half") - into which Mark places his briefcase each morning before climbing in. I hand him the oars, he tosses me the rope, I give over my backpack. Oars in place, bags secured in the bow, I climb in and push off. I sit in the stern, facing Mark, legs together and between his knees. We sit so close I can smell his toothpaste and cologne.

The first leg of our commute is a half mile, straight shot through rows "Hotel" and "India." Mark rows, his back to shore, while I point him in a direction if he gets off course. Since the wind is from the southwest, the water is relatively calm; from the northeast and we'd be waiting on Mazurka for the tender. We glide past the Julianna, a beautiful blue sailboat from Indiana, the Sea Haven, the Top Gun. The air is infused with color more than sound - the intensifying pink on the buildings of glass, the lightening blue of water. No one is out on the lake this morning, but as we come closer to shore, there are runners, and dog walkers, and the constant hum of morning traffic on Lake Shore Drive.

At the shore, Mark steadies the boat while I climb the ladder, unload the bags and the outdoor carpet (always rolled in the stern of the dinghy), which I place on the cement side of the wall to haul the dinghy over. We lock up the oars inside, chain the boat to the metal loop, and flip the boat over. We are downtown in a world class city.

The first leg of our commute complete, we walk 15 minutes down the lakefront to the motorcycle, and another 15 minute drive to the office.

People give all kinds of reasons for living on a boat: adventure, independence, the lifelong romantic dream. But really, it's about making the ordinary extraordinary. You still wash dishes every night, but you're scrubbing away while looking out over the white ribbon of a moonlit lake. You still pay bills, but you pay them from atop the fly bridge. You still have to commute to work, but instead of expressways and road rage, there is the sloshing of lakewater, the soaring of birds and wind, and the satisfaction of having rowed yourself to shore.

My Salad Blew off the Dinghy

My husband of four days called me at work this afternoon. "I just got here," he said. "It's really windy. There are white caps in the harbor. I don't think we should stay on board tonight." Then he added, "Your salad blew off the dinghy."

A head of red leaf lettuce, broccoli sprouts, sliced mushrooms...all flying off in the plastic bag over the lakeshore of downtown Chicago. Past Buckingham Fountain, past the orange-vested tourists on segways, around the bend of the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium, rounding the Adler Planetarium, and off to who knows where. Gary, Indiana?

It's our effort to eat in and save money. In the year we dated, we frequented 4,500 of the 9,000 restaurants in Chicago. This alerted my provincial father. "I'd keep an eye out," he said. "Knows all the best restaurants, lives on a boat...probably got mafia ties."

My father's suspicions prompted me to email him Mark's cv, detailing more than a dozen years of an academic career in the health sciences. "Not a mafia guy," I assured him. "But just as strange."

In the first month we dated, I fell in love with the captain of the Mazurka, who lived on his boat year-round, wintering on the Chicago River, summering on Lake Michigan, with spectacular views of downtown Chicago, minus the congestion. During the winter months, he has a clear view of the Sears Tower, the only thing standing between them a remarkable plot of un-mowed, untended grass, the last piece of of undeveloped land in all of Chicago, where condo tenants who live in the beehive of River City let their dogs run free in the early evenings. When I started dating this river rat from the ultra-rural, upper-upper peninsula of Michigan, I marveled that he found his own place of nature in the third largest city in the country. When he took me out on the river for our first date, slicing between the cavernous walls of glass and steel, it amazed me that the city I had known for a decade could be so quiet, so private, so spacious.

I fell in love with him first because he loved nature, and could find it no matter where he lived.

And now, a little more than a year later, we are married. And I am going to live on his boat. Me, Hunter, and Leo: permission to come aboard for one city girl and two white, long-haired cats.

We may be entering treacherous waters.

Beginning two mornings after our wedding, when, for no explicable reason, the generator stopped working. Things like this sometimes happen: the refrigerator warms up, the xm radio fizzes out, the engine fills with water. Mark is good at figuring out how to fix things. But until he figures out if it's the filter or the glow plugs or the whole damn generator, with Mazurka tied to a can in Monroe Harbor, and no shore power, electricity, or hot water...we are staying at my apartment just a bit longer.