Harbor Pilots and Your Port of Call

I'm going to give everybody half a minute to come on in. Come on in. Join the live if you're on replay. Welcome, welcome. I catch a lot of Cadre speakers on the replay. Some days are just like that. The little notification pops up and I'm driving or babysitting my granddaughter or whatever it is I'm doing as a free spirited retiree. Yeah. Everybody in? I see Jules is here. Hello. So to get our discussion kicked off today, I wonder if you could type in the comments your favorite port of call. Where's your favorite place to go?

Maybe you've been on a cruise and there was a port of call or a destination or a harbor that was especially magical for you and you loved it and you went there and you went, did an excursion or some sort of special tour. Perhaps your port of call geographically is someplace you could go hop in the car right now and be there within 15 minutes or less. Is it a coffee shop? Is it somebody's house? What is your favorite port of call? So I guess I'm going to ask you to put in the comments. Either one, it could be an exotic island that you've either been to or want to go to, or it could be a place that's close by that gives you life and gives you a good reboot.

Where would that be? Jules says beaches in Florida. Absolutely. Hey, Jules. Hey, Anila. Steph, you're here. Good morning. So, yeah, today I want to talk about ports of call. So I want to just give you my visuals because I love visuals. So there's a physical port of call where the boats are safely in harbor. My theme on the Cadre caregiver day is harbor pilots. So I talk about a lot of things having to do with nautical theme, of course. Here's my anchor pillow and I have this wonderful boat. You see that up there?

It's made from barnwood from repurposed barn wood. There's a local fellow here in Erie, Pennsylvania who makes these and it's a sailboat. And then he paints the canvas behind it. Beautiful. Your favorite port of call? Hammock by the beach. Thank you, Steph. Anila, favorite port of call floating in the water. I close my eyes and go back to this one trip to Cayman's, the Cayman Islands for a friend's wedding. I still can smell the sea salt. You bringing that up? I can smell the sea salt in the air, feel the sand between my toesies.

Thank you. So if you're just hopping in, I'm asking for your favorite port of call and the Reason I'm asking is to jiggle up a memory and to remind you that you have access to ports of call throughout your caregiver day, throughout any time of the week. But today, of course, the emphasis is on caregiving. My specific role, if you're just meeting me or I'm not familiar with, with. With my life, is that I go to see my mom. It took me a long time to learn this, but I'm still a caregiver. Even though she's in a skilled nursing home and gets constant care 24 7, I'm still a caregiver because emotionally, I'm there for mom either on the phone or in person.

And I am her advocate as her power of attorney. Medically and legally, I'm her advocate. And so there are so many ways in which we can be caregivers. Doesn't have to be hands on. For me, it was for many years, for about nine years, when mom still lived in her house. And then it became unsafe for her to live independently any longer. So she's been in the nursing home for about one year. Takes me an hour and a half to drive one way, and I usually stay for most of the day and then come back to Erie.

So that's my caregiving situation in a nutshell. So I was thinking of ports of call. Years ago, I went to a Caribbean cruise with my daughter. Would I do it again? Probably not. I was in the throes of grief, you guys. I was not making sound decisions. I discovered that we had enough money to go, so financially we were all set. And I think that fed into my poor decision. I didn't research it enough because I was taking a young kid on an Italian cruise ship. The cruise itself was good. I. I enjoyed it.

But she would have done better with maybe a Disney cruise or something. She was still. I think she was 15 at the time, and there wasn't a lot for her. And in some ways, it felt like a traveling shopping trip because there were a lot of stores which were fun to go in. But it was when I say I wouldn't do it again, I would go on a cruise again, but I'd be more intentional about which one and how many people. There were lots of people on this boat. So many people. So I spent a lot of time as a widowed mom, single mom, looking for my kiddo, making sure she was safe and well, and she was trying hard to find friends there.

And she did. But I had to make sure they were staying out of trouble. Anywho, my favorite trip, my favorite Memory from that trip on that Caribbean Cruise back in 2012, I want to say, was an excursion to an island to go snorkeling. And we did. We went snorkeling. It was amazing. My daughter chickened out. That's another story for another time. But I went by myself when she decided to stay on the beach. And it was fabulous. Just seeing the reef and the, the life under the sea is just amazing, simply amazing.

I was the last one out of the water because I was having such a lovely time there. Jules says it sounds like we need a Cadre Community trip to the beach. I'm in. Sign me up. Let's all sign up. But we could take a virtual trip to anywhere in our imagination, and that's our port of call. We can also physically, some of us, many of us, hitch a ride or get in the car or walk if the destination is close enough to a coffee shop. A port of call is a place. It can be a person, it can be a hobby. So my question today is, who, what or where is your port of call?

Typically when the big ship pulls up, they need to refuel, they need to get food. So do you. When. Hey, that's my Gracie girl. When you come into Safe Harbor. Here we go. Hey, Gracie. Say hi, Gracie. I think there's a delivery truck in the driveway. Steph says, sign me up for that Cadre community beach trip. Oh, boy, we might be on to something here. So you too, when you pull into Safe harbor, as a person, as a human, as a beautiful soul, giving care to somebody in some capacity, you need to pull up and get food and get refueled, push the reset button, recalibrate.

How can we be intentional about that and realistic? Now we can't just hop over to the Caymans today. I don't know. Unless, I don't know, maybe Anila has something, some kind of Learjet we could get on. But realistically, we probably can't be transported right now to an island somewhere. We can put on the calendar and make a, make a plan for vacation. So what in the realm of possibility today can you do that's a port of call? So let's go to destination. Might be your kitchen, to your coffee machine, something that is just for you, that you've created a little pocket of tranquility?

Is there a moment in time when your kiddo, your loved one is being taken care of by someone else? And during that interval of space, can you go and do something? Can you take a shower, do a little self care pampering, take a Walk. When mom was living in her home. For me as a hands on caregiver in that time, going down the long driveway to her mailbox was my port of call, my destination, my moment to refuel. So we take what we can and we savor it. And I encourage you to do that. We can get lost at sea or we can say, oh, just two more days @ sea and I'll be free and clear.

No, if there's a place where you can dock, you need to. You need it for you. You definitely do. So we've talked about sightseeing and excursions and all the lovely stuff and going exploring. So just kind of to wrap things up today. Who, what or where is your port of call? So we talked about where in geography or in your house or in your imagination is your place for respite. But who? Maybe your spouse, your significant other, your best friend, that can be the person on the other end of the phone.

And thank the Lord I have one. Yeah, she lives in another city. Well, I have two really close, close friends I can call. One is right here in town and another one's in another town in Pennsylvania. And that's a port of call. That's a person on the other end of the phone who says, tell me about it if I need to unwind or process all, or tell me what you need right now. Or maybe I want to hear about their day. Something to just pull you away from what you're doing or how you're administrating your own life or somebody else's and taking that respite.

So who is your port of call? And then what is your port of call? I'm a puzzler, would you believe? I don't have one within reach. But I love real time crossword puzzles, whether they're the newspaper. Oh, here's one. The newspaper. Or I have puzzle books. I just, I love a pen in my hand and a crossword puzzle. Yeah, I do it with ink. Yeah, I'm badass that way. At work, when I was still working, people would say, kathy, why don't you use a pencil with an eraser? Oh, no, no. I level up. I do my crossword puzzles in ink.

So that would be my activity, my place to go. For some people, it might be a book television looking out the window. There was somebody on the codrosphere recently who said, can you go and just tell me what's out your window? And I think we put that in the comments. For me, it was wild birds and the bird feeders gazing out your window can be your port of call. Let's think about who, where or what activity is your place to go to. Refuel, fill your emotional tank, get some nutrition, actual physical food or inspiration.

Something that brings you back into the groove. Some days we're on the struggle bus and that makes us keenly aware that we need to pull in, pull up and take a beat. Other times we're so focused on what's going on that we forget to be intentional about visiting our port of call. So if we can't swim and go snorkeling and smell the salt air, we can certainly find something that will be life giving and helpful. Steph says, stepping out into the sunshine. Anila says, imagination. Anila. So thank you guys.

I'm so glad to see you here in your comments and your feedback and if you're watching on the replay, thank you so much. A lot going on in the CADmosphere this morning. JC did a fabulous interview with Dr. Leslie Dee and she talked about many things. One was the difference between being alone and lonesome or lonely. That was very insightful. If you didn't catch it, I invite you to watch the replay. And also next week here on the Cadre for Harbor Pilots, I'll be talking about making lemonade. That's all I'm going to tell you for now.

So let's go out and be the person in the world that sends ripples and good vibes and healthy influence to the people in our sphere of influence and the people to whom we've been entrusted and actually privileged to take care of. But don't lose yourself at sea. Pull into that port of call, refuel, stock up, be nourished, be inspired, stay curious and let the Cadre be your port of call.