Mettle & Salt
Mettle
I was sailing as Chief Mate for the first time. It was also my first trip on a Heavy Lift Ship. To say I felt overwhelmed might be the understatement of the century. I'd sit down after watch at my desk to calculate stability and I'd just think 'how the hell am I supposed to figure this out?!'.
I was blogging on my personal blog through this time and I'd write about how lost I felt. At one point I think I blogged that I was finally feeling like I was getting it. One of my blog readers (who I now consider a long distance friend) commented 'Way To Find Your Mettle Megan'.
To be honest, I've never found the original blog post or the original comment but, Mettle was a word that really stuck with me. It was the word I went to when I knew it was time to 'dig in'.
I ended up coining a phrase on the blog 'Mettle Maker'. There are things in life that help you find your Mettle. Isn't it logical that if you don't have quite enough Mettle you might need to make some?
The way I personally do this is to find some great quotes, find a kick ass playlist, maybe have a tiny cry, look at another great quote and then I dig my heels in and find my next step.
When they re-flagged and sold my ship it took me awhile to find a new job. I had a 'Mettle Mission'. I posted a Mettle Maker everyday until I found a new ship.
Why are we even talking about this? What about She Sails? Oh wait. I mean, what about SailHER.org? Turns out....SailHER is someone else's brain child that they are working on bringing to fruition!
When I was confronted with having to change the name of She Sails...again...I was so, so, so bummed out. I stewed and ruminated on names for days. I was sitting in the car and I thought, 'You know what I need? I need a Mettle Maker.'. That was closely followed by 'ohmygod...Mettle Make Her...'
What I wanted for She Sails is to get all women together - I wanted to meet women working on the water - I wanted to create a venue for women to have conversation.
What I learned from She Sails is the conversations will happen organically and, those organic conversations are almost more valuable than a led discussion about a topic not of our choosing.
Salt
What about the & Salt? The Salt is what connects us. Don't get me wrong, our Mettle connects us too but, what I always gravitate to is the Salt.
There are so many ways to gravitate to salt. I return to the Sea. I appreciate the struggle - the sweat, blood & tears. I love the people I work with. They're the salt of the earth. I love meeting an Old Salt and brushing up against their years of experience at sea.
We're the Salt.
“I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes and the light changes, and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came.”