A supposedly fun thing I'm about to do

It's a cruise. I'm going on a cruise.

Think of this post as a “before” picture — a picture of me, about to go on a cruise to Alaska with my mom. Today.

She and my dad were planning to go on an Alaska cruise back in June 2020—it was booked and everything. But they never had the chance because, well, my dad died. (Although even if he hadn’t died at that particular juncture, the cruise would have been canceled anyway on account of it being June 2020.)

An Alaska trip has remained on my mother’s wish list ever since, and I am her traveling companion of choice, so, off we go!

Let me preface what’s to come by saying that I am very excited for the trip, as Alaska is on my wish list, too. (I don’t much like the phrase “bucket list.”) Plus, I’ll take pretty much any chance I can get to travel. I am also incredibly grateful to my mother (and late father) for paying for the better portion of the trip.

But here’s the “but” part: Going on a cruise has never, ever been on my wish list. Correction: going on a cruise on the ocean in a giant, Love Boat-style cruise ship has never been on my list. (In spite of how much I enjoyed watching The Love Boat as a kid, and wanted to be Vicki Stubing. Or at least have her haircut.) I do not love boats, nor do I love travel of the uber-commercial, uber-touristy variety. Buffets, lounge acts, motorcoaches—not my jam. I’m a more of a two-star-pensiones, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, public transportation and wandering aimlessly for hours traveler.

I am not a complete cruising virgin, mind you. Our family did a river cruise in central Europe last summer, and it was phenomenal. But that was a very small boat. (No, not boat; ship. They were very insistent on that.) It was not a skyscraper laid down sideways on the water. There were only around 200 passengers on board instead of 2000, and zero slot machines, med-spas (did you know you can get botox on cruises??), indoor pools, dance parties, or fitness centers. I think there might have been a stationary bicycle and some free weights somewhere, but I never sought them out. Thousands of steps walking around various European cities and calisthetics on the deck with Milosz the frightening Serbian fitness coach were good enough for me.

On the river boat ship, land was always visible and very close by, which my psyche appreciated, and walking on and off the boat while it was in port was as easy as walking in and out of a CVS, complete with automatic sliding doors. And while we were, regrettably, burning fossil fuel as we chortled up the Danube, this somehow felt less….unsavory…than what Holland America’s MS Noordam will be doing while we’re aboard: burning much larger quanities of fossil fuel while cruising past glaciers that are retreating as a result of climate change, and spewing fumes into / disturbing the habitats of the whales and seals and other wildlife we will be ooohing and ahhhing at from the deck.

If it were up to me, I’d have chosen a cruise on a smaller ship, with a smaller carbon footprint, responsibly sourced local food, and other such things that would allow me to delude myself into think I’m not part of the problem as I watch endangered sea otters frolic in microplastic-polluted waters. However, those kinds of cruises are much, MUCH more expensive. Shocking.

The other thing that’s making me apprehensive about this adventure, I confess, is the fact that it is going to take me out of The Bubble. As in, the bubble of mostly liberal (or at least liberal-ish) people among whom I live and work here in the Greater Boston area. Not that there aren’t any Trumpers around. Some live on our street, in fact. But I don’t have to be up close and personal and trapped on a vessel at sea with them for eleven days. I do not to have to inadvertently overhear them talking about illegals in the line for waffles or chuckling at the other end of the bar about blue-haired they/thems.

Am I completely fabricating these scenarios? Yes, yes I am. They are, I’m sure, very unlikely. MAGA hats and “I stand for the national anthem” T-shirts aboard are probably unlikely too.

The truth is, it’s not even so much the chance of hearing or seeing overt evidence of Trumpism among my fellow passengers that makes me feel grumpy; it’s just knowing it’s there—that many of my fellow glacier-gawkers (all of whom will no doubt look and act like perfectly nice people) will have voted for the felon.

This assumes, of course, that the passenger population—which I’m guessing will mostly be white, middle- to upper-middle class people in their fifties and older—is representative of that voting population in the United States writ large. We could do a little bit of fiddling and futzing here with assumptions about who chooses to take a cruise to Alaska, and what their political persuasions might be. But, bottom line, this trip will probably be the longest time I will ever spend in an enclosed space with so many people who voted for fascism.

As I write this, I’m feeling better about being on a very large ship.

To folks reading this who live and work among a politically diverse population, you probably think that mine are the rantings of a crazy person. But I assure you, I am not crazy. I’m just a coddled, liberal coastal elite who enjoys not having to spend extended periods of time with people who are OK with masked, plain-clothes thugs snatching brown people off the streets. Or who think it’s reasonable to accuse qualified women and people of color of being “DEI hires” while installing some of the least competent people on the planet to run the government. Or who think it’s totally cool to cut funding for scientific research and humanitarian aid, or to strongarm universities. Or who think trans and nonbinary people like my own child are a threat to…anything or anyone whatsoever. Or who aren’t even fucking paying attention, and/or don’t care.

I just don’t want to go on vacation with those people, you know?

I hate that this is the reality of living (and cruising) in America today—the constant, just-beneath-the-surface awareness of political division. The constant wondering: which side are you on?

It didn't used to be this way. Oh sure, I hated Dubya and the Tea Party. I’ve always been an ardent liberal, with strong political opinions. And yet I think I could have put politics aside to bond with a family of Bush voters on a whale watch or at a night of 80s music trivia on the Lido deck.

I don’t know if I’m capable of doing the same with known Trump voters. The moral differences are too stark and the stakes of what is happening are too high. Civility may be the best I can muster. And even that may be a stretch.

But maybe my apprehension about all this—the cruise life, the fossil fuels, my fellow passengers—is overblown. Maybe I will be so enraptured by the scenery and so transported by the endless food and alcohol that I won’t feel stressed out about the fumes being spewed or the food being wasted, or angry about the retirees watching Fox News in the stateroom next door.

Maybe.

What I know for sure is that I’m grateful for the adventure, and for the time with my mom.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

All posts on my Substack are free, but writing is my profession. If you like what you read, please consider leaving me a one-time tip or upgrading to a paid subscription (As little as $4.16666 a month! Cheap!) to support my work. Thank you as always for reading!

P. S. Give yourself three points for literary coolness if you caught the reference in this title.

P.P.S. I will proably be posting some pretty kickass Alaska pictures on Instagram over the next couple of weeks if you feel like following me there.