I don’t know of many better places than a ship if you want to be reminded that we humans are essentially intellectualized rats. Like occupants of some supercrafty 3-D maze, we spend our days wandering through passageways of our own construction. Back and forth, up and down, around we go, day by day.  

When you first arrive on board, you’re a newcomer and everything kind of looks the same. The ship is large and modular—perhaps even a bit intimidating if it’s your first time aboard. You might wonder how long it will take—or how lost you will get—before things start to feel familiar. The living quarters are cramped, and life aboard is built more for purpose rather than for pleasure. As creatures who are trainable and routine, a ship becomes a simple puzzle to solve in short order.

As you proceed up and forward on the starboard side, then half-jog down ladderwells in order to reach various workspaces, you can feel your brain becoming imprinted with new maps and operating patterns in real time. And each data point will serve you well for as long as you operate aboard. I have found that it takes less than a day’s worth of moving about a new ship before everything feels routine and as though this life was always resident in your blood. Just another thing you do.

Deployment life, however, does not last forever. Everyone eventually leaves, and what I have found is that the finer details you picked up so quickly in the beginning are frequently the first ones to grow fuzzy again.  Sure I can remember my way to the bridge (hint: keep going up), but I have no recollection of what the combination was for my stateroom door or to access CIC. 

Life on deployment is filled with all kinds of quirks that no one else except those serving alongside you will understand. Like that the first carafe of breakfast coffee is prepared too early and is always tepid, so you should wait until other greedy suckers drain it and another is prepared.  But what I more find valuable is the idea that living and working within a confined space brings you back to the essential elements of living. As a captive audience on deployment, you are tethered to the rhythms of meetings, operations and, most importantly, the coffee and sleep. I suppose food falls in there too if the getting is good. 

The other thing about this kind of existence is that this granular perspective provides you \with an enhanced appreciation for the details that make life enjoyable. The toilets are reliable. Someone has access to a private Nespresso machine and they’re willing to share. Someone else on board who owes you absolutely nothing in terms of their direct duties does something unexpectedly kind. Life is at its best when it conjures up a completely unanticipated smile. 

These minor acts are probably enough to make you roll your eyes—especially if you enjoy regular enjoy access to such things. But when you inhabit a place with such strict operating parameters where all the external garbage of amusement is stripped away, then you see the true value of what the little things actually mean. If you don’t believe me, tell me how excited you will be when the announcement is made that all toilets on the port side are now functioning again.  

I know, I’m a regular walking advertisement for Navy recruiting.

But being on a ship, it also reminds of why it’s important to treat each other well. I mean, yes of course you should be a good person anyway as it contributes to the universal hum—but on a mere selfish level, it makes for a more satisfying existence. If you can manage to go about your routines while ensuring that a bit of unscheduled kindness is included every now and then, then some stupid vegetarian staff officer will feel like she’s just been handed the world’s best plate of sautéed vegetable kindness while she’s been sent to work aboard a rather carnivorous ship. 

Now of course I am not always one to exude 24-hour altruism. That morning when I drew my coffee from that first carafe was a prime example—but I definitely try my best to spend more time occupying the kinder end of the scale. During a deployment, for better or for worse you are looking at the same individuals every day. Together you make your way through a routine that somehow serves to propel the entire structure forward. You get the apparatus through the water, or simply through another calendar day. 

So shower shoes and cold coffee might not be the thing that gets a person to join the forces, but I will say that it was truly comforting to be back aboard a ship. Of course the Mediterranean Sea, the sunsets, and the ridiculous humor and professional pride of my comrades all made for memories that could not be replicated here—but also it helped to remind me of the value that flows from appreciating the basics of life. And it might sound even more ridiculous, but getting underway again also assured my ego that I was, after so many years behind a desk, still a bit of a sailor. I’d be full of jamón if I told you that this wasn’t equally important. I find it’s a constant toil to balance a life between staying true to yourself while also serving others. 

But it’s one worth doing.