Motion of the Ocean (Esarey)

The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, and a Woman's Search for the Meaning of Wife
Janna Cawrse Esarey, 2009
Simon & Schuster
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416589082

Summary
Choosing a mate is like picking house paint from one of those tiny color squares: You never know how it will look across a large expanse, or how it will change in different light.

Meet Janna and Graeme. After a decade-long tango (together, apart, together, apart), they're back in love—but the stress of nine-to-five is seriously hampering their happiness. So they quit their jobs, tie the knot, and untie the lines on a beat-up old sailboat for a most unusual honeymoon: a two-year voyage across the Pacific. But passage from first date to first mate is anything but smooth sailing. From the rugged Pacific Northwest coast to the blue lagoons of Polynesia to bustling Asian ports, Janna and Graeme find themselves at the mercy of poachers, under the spell of crossdressers, and under the gun of a less-than-sober tattooist. And they encounter do-or-die moments that threaten their safety, their sanity, and their marriage.

Join Janna and Graeme's 17,000-mile journey and their quest to resolve the uncertainties so many couples face: How do you know if you've really found the One? How do you balance duty to others while preserving space for yourself? And, when the waters get rough, do you jump ship, or do you learn to navigate the world...together?. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—1971
• Where—San Diego, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Whitman College
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington

Janna Cawrse Esarey was born in 1971 in San Diego, California. When she was just an ankle biter, her family relocated to Yokosuka, Japan, where her dad was a dentist in the Navy. When Janna was four, her parents went ocean sailing with friends. They capsized (twice) in a typhoon off the coast of Japan.

The family moved back to Ohio for a brief time, and then to Seattle where Janna grew up. In high school, Janna fell in love with Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s song “Southern Cross” and swore she would one day sail the world. Janna’s mom, recalling her own typhoon experience, didn’t know if this was an idle threat or a cruel joke.

Janna attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where she fell in love with a fisherman and fellow philosophy major. He dumped her. Janna studied in France for a year and became fluent in French the best way she knew how: from a French beau. Upon her return to the States, Janna graduated from Whitman cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, receiving the William Soper Prize in Philosophy.

Eager to put her philosophy major to good use, Janna worked on a dude ranch in Wyoming, baked pretzels in Bavaria, and ski bummed in Utah. When she grew tired of the phrase “knee-deep pow-pow, dude,” Janna became a Writing Center Fellow at Georgetown University. She earned an MA in English with an emphasis in teaching writing. During this time, that fisherman Janna had dated in college came crawling back. They enjoyed a six-month e-romance. She dumped him.

From 1997 to 1999, Janna taught middle school in New Orleans with Teach For America, a program committed to ending educational inequity. She received the New Orleans New Teacher of the Year Award in 1998. Janna moved home to Seattle where she taught high school English and met, yet again, that fisherman she’d dated in college. This time, instead of dumping each other, they tied the knot and set out across the Pacific on a 35-foot sailboat.

During the two years that Janna spent sailing from Seattle to Hong Kong, she wrote for sailing magazines, including Sail and Cruising World, and anthologies, including More Sand in My Bra and Sweat & The City. It wasn’t until she moved back to the States in 2006 that she began serious work on her relationship memoir, The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, and a Woman’s Search for the Meaning of Wife. Janna blogs about relationships for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer at “Happily Even After.” (From the author's website.)

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Book Reviews
Unconventional twists on love and family. When Janna Cawrse Esarey and her on-again, off-again boyfriend hit a roadblock in their relationship, they decided to quit their jobs, get married, and sail around the world. The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers and a Woman’s Search for the Meaning of Wife is Esarey’s account of her experience as a novice sailor and new bride, cash-strapped but rich in love and convinced that life should be an adventure.
Parade

This highly entertaining debut memoir follows thirty-something journalist Esarey and her new husband, Graeme, on a 17,000-mile journey around the Pacific Ocean in their small sailboat. Before they leave, countless married friends tell them, "If your relationship can survive this, it can survive anything." It doesn’t take the nautically challenged Esarey long to realize just how true the warning is. A well-written, rollicking high-seas adventure, this will appeal to anyone who enjoys a good love story. —Elizabeth Brinkley
Library Journal

Travel and relationship memoir from Seattle Post-Intelligencer blogger Esarey. After listening to Crosby, Stills & Nash's "Southern Cross" as a teenager, Esarey fell in love with the sea-but not the "literal, wet...get-a-degree-in-marine-biology sea.... The lyrical sea...the transformative sea," she writes. "To the extent that women-girls have pickup lines, ‘I'm going to sail around the world someday' became mine. Boys eat that shit up." As did Graeme, the college sweetheart she eventually married and convinced to accompany her on her ambitious voyage. Onboard the Dragonfly a fight presented the perfect opportunity to explore the ten hard years that separated the couple's first meeting and this voyage, their honeymoon cruise. As their story unfolds chronologically in a series of small events, the author reflects on their time apart and ultimate reunion. But she glosses over many details, including what Graeme did for a living, and her tendency to substitute "blah blah blah" over dialogue, while occasionally humorous, may cause readers to question the focus of her attention. "The Green Box of Love" makes regular reference to the metaphoric significance of a gift box she's brought on the journey, but the author never reveals the container's actual contents. Throughout, the big question looms—can this couple make it? Fortunately, two years of cruising around the world offered a wealth of intriguing experiences, and Esarey ably brings to life remote isles and customs—particularly those in the South Pacific—most readers will never see. Her ruminations on these experiences, however, are mostly banal. Describing a beauty pageant for transgendered women in Samoa, she writes, "clapping wildly for those ballsy women carved out more space in my brain for words like beautiful and woman and normal." An uneven journey across the chartered waters of a romantic relationship.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions
1. The book opens with the author thinking her husband is an asshole, but after they survive a small calamity together, she says she's never felt so in love. When have you experienced this sort of flip-flop of emotions about a loved one? Throughout the story, how does Janna reveal both the positive and negative aspects of marriage? Of her husband? Of herself?

2. When looking at the mint color of the walls in her foyer, Janna says, "those little color squares are cruel jokes; they trick you into thinking you know what you're getting when really you never can tell." Is this an apt metaphor for choosing a life partner? Why or why not? What can prepare us to make this monumental decision? How does one choose the One?

3. Throughout the book Janna demonstrates that she finds it difficult to be on time or do tasks in a timely manner—she is a "Pokey Person." Graeme, on the other hand, is "one of those super-efficient so-called humans who gets twice as much done in half as much time." What are the pluses and minuses of these approaches to time? What kind of person are you when it comes to time, and how does this affect your relationships?

4. The pink and blue division of labor challenges Janna’s sense of worth aboard Dragonfly and raises questions about her new role as wife. How do the pink and blue play out in your own life? Do these divisions impact your sense of worth as they did Janna’s, or do you instead identify with the attitudes of Janna’s cruising girlfriends? Explain.

5.At the outset of their trip, Janna wonders if marriage is about agreeing to drink only from the relationship’s cup and being satisfied with whatever sustenance it offers. By the end of the voyage, however, she argues for a couple’s need for otherness in order to thrive in their togetherness. Do you agree with this? Why or why not? How does a couple build otherness while staying close and committed?

6. What does Janna mean when she says, “It’s the space between, the getting from point A to point B, that terrifies and teaches us the most”? How is this sentiment borne out in both the actual and figurative crossings that Graeme and Janna experience on their journey? What do they learn about themselves and their relationship in these spaces between? Identify some of your own crossings from one stage of life to another and how you met the challenges of the space between—whether it be between a new and old self, or between you and a loved one.

7. Back at home in Seattle, Janna says that what matters is "not the what but the how"—that one can have an extraordinary existence no matter how ordinary one's life appears. How is this philosophy true or false? What is your own big, hairy, audacious goal? What have you done or might you do to pursue it?

8. On the crossing, when sea and sky are ever constant yet always changing, Janna observes that “there’s also a monotony in marriage that’s equally delightful and dangerous.” What does she mean by this phrase? What were some of the dangerous and delightful moments for Graeme and Janna while at sea? Were they able to make peace with this tension between extremes? Why or why not? How do you think this idea of staying attentive despite—or because of—monotony can help you to re-envision the moments in your own life?

9. Once in French Polynesia, Janna and Graeme "mark the passage" by getting tattoos together. How does this help them make sense of their ocean crossing and their first year as a married couple? Are anniversaries (birthdays, weddings, new years) important to you as a way to reflect on or celebrate the passage of time? Why or why not? What sorts of ceremonies or events help you mark your own passage through life?

10. Graeme and Janna’s reactions to their engagement, approaches to sailing, and experiences along the way reveal that they often hold completely different views of the exact same event. How do these diverging perspectives strain and/or enhance their relationship? When has your experience of an event totally diverged from someone else’s? How did you react when you realized you weren’t on the same wavelength? What did you take away from the interaction?

11. Janna believes that their sailing honeymoon is a test of their boat, their seamanship, and their relationship. Do you think that Graeme would agree with this assessment? Why or why not? How else might Janna have viewed their honeymoon and the challenges they encountered along the way? If their journey is a test, how would you evaluate their success and/or failure?

12. Discuss the pros and cons of Janna’s notion of the One, Graeme’s anti-One thesis, and Frits’s Green Box Theory of Love. Whose idea of love is most in line with your view? Why? Do you have your own personal theory of love? If yes, what is it and how have you developed this theory?
(Questions issued by publishers.)

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