Angry Boater? You don’t seem angry to me. Pt 1

I like my privacy and I like things to be quiet.

I’m typing this on my boat in Little Venice at 00.15 am on Saturday night. I don’t have the TV on or any music in the background. That’s how my boat usually is. Until 50 minutes ago,  I could hear some music coming from the floating restaurant across from me and - quiet as it was - I’m definitely happier now that the restaurant has closed. When it comes to external noise, I am very intolerant. However, I understand that part of the price of getting to stay in my beloved London is that I will sometimes have to endure the noise of others. It’s a fair trade.

Some boaters can be difficult - more than most, perhaps. I am one of those. Often, we have pushed ourselves (or been pushed) beyond our comfort zones. The decision to move onto the water in the first place can sometimes be traced back to a time when coping with life seemed almost unendurable. Often, it’s a personal struggle; sometimes a disconnect with society. Whatever is deep at the root of our “escape” though - wildly different as each boater’s story will be - probably isn’t a time of happiness. However, we’re all different and, ultimately, I can only speak for myself.

The boat, for me, was about finding a cure for what troubled me. It was partly an escape from that which I could not tolerate.

When I lived in a flat, for about 18 months, there was a large gang of youths who used to meet outside a shop on the opposite side of the street. They were loud, anti-social, usually drunk, and were typically there from late afternoon ‘til well gone 1am.  All of the windows in my flat looked onto this shop so - whatever room I was in - I could hear them.  In my own home, I felt like a hostage. I often called the police to disperse them but - once they had left - the gang would re-assemble.  On another occasion,  I opened my windows and played loud classical at them. They went home and returned twenty minutes later with their grandparents.

At around the same time, I was a secondary school English teacher and had been allocated a classroom that looked out onto a section of the playground where PE lessons often took place. I was trying to deliver my life enhancing lessons about oxymorons & conjunctions and they were being ruined by a guy with a whistle who wanted to shout and teach football outside my window.

I would often abandon my class to complain or ask them to play elsewhere. On other occasions, I marched my class to the empty canteen and taught them there instead. 

My need for quiet and control was being challenged at home and at work.

What you resist, persists.

Everywhere I went I was doing everything I could to control my environment and it wasn’t working - a stressful way to live and one of the causes (or perhaps effects) of my hypertension.

In time, the gang found a new hangout and I got a new classroom. My life was manageable again but  - like a Pavlov dog - I now had a subconscious conditioned response. Even today, I experience disproportionate stress if exposed to the stimulus of an ongoing, external noise that is out of my control.

My stressy nature eventually brought me to a point where something snapped inside and I needed to find an antidote. Living on a boat - for all the bullshit  and hardships that goes along with it - is my antidote. It’s reconnected me to the universe, albeit via the back door. I am alive again, still stressy at times but everything feels manageable. I can still snap though. It’s always under the surface.

Nowadays, if I am uncomfortable with the noise level in my immediate environment,  I can untie my ropes and move. I like that a lot. It doesn’t mean that I will necessarily move but the knowledge that I can is hugely empowering. I can take my home with me wherever I choose to go. I am a tortoise. 

Paradoxically, I love live music and see tons of gigs. This kind of noise does not stress me because I have chosen to be exposed to it. Unlike noisy neighbours etc, watching my favourite bands play is a choice and I am in control of my choices.

The thing is that I have been at the front for enough loud gigs now that my hearing has been permanently affected. I don’t want to go completely deaf but I really wouldn’t mind losing a further 15 to 20 percent. That should block out just enough everyday background noise to drop my blood pressure a few extra points. I already say “pardon” and “I didn’t quite catch that” far more often than most people but that really isn’t my problem. That is only a stress for whoever is talking to me.

Whilst my issue with noise  is an important reason why living on a boat works for me, it wasn’t the key reason why I bought one. Major lifestyle changes often need a traumatic event to act as a trigger and, luckily for me, I had a crazy one of those in 2009. 

To be continued.

Joel 

Jan 27th , 2014