“We survived!” – A rather droll and overused joke shouted by Captain Buckenmaier every time he maneuvers his boat to the dock without breaking anything.
Editor-In-Chief, Chester “Trip” Buckenmaier III, MD, COL (ret.), MC, USA
As 2023 passes into history, I cannot suppress the feeling that I am on a perpetual rollercoaster ride, from which I cannot get off. The planet continues to warm, sea levels keep rising, frequent weather extremes, war in Ukraine and Israel, inflation, COVID, and so on. In the era of instant and constant media, one can be challenged to find a respite from the pressure of modern life. For many federal healthcare professionals, the barrage of world events is compounded by the everyday drama of patient care. Society recognizes the extraordinary daily challenges healthcare providers face, which explains our exulted status within the social fabric. I feel altruism is a common feature of most healthcare workers. This philanthropic lifestyle is perhaps most fully expressed in federal medicine, where the focus is not on remuneration but service to others and the nation. It is entirely appropriate during this holiday season for the warriors of medicine to seek and find a measure of relaxation and self-gratitude for the toils of the past year.
For my wife and I, during our 30+ years of service in healthcare, our happy place was most often found on the water, specifically on a boat. Whether cruising the Chesapeake Bay on our old 33-foot catamaran, Family Knot, or bareboat chartering in the Caribbean, our most cherished family memories seemed to involve boating. The pressures of raising three daughters, work, deployments, and world events could be ameliorated for a time whenever Pam and I were on the water. While dating, Pam and I often discussed a shared dream of cruising full-time on a boat. I remember lazy days in my very young adulthood spent lounging on the ocean beach and watching distance cruisers glide by on their white-winged vessels. There were many hard call nights or complicated patient challenges where those calming images of sailors making passage would soothe my thoughts and relax my turbulent mind. I took much comfort, as did my wife, that someday we might aspire to the full-time sailing lifestyle and a measure of peace. Then, as I luxuriated in these daydreams, the responsibilities of being an Army officer, physician, husband, and father would starkly intrude and bring me back to the tasks at hand.
For too many years, friends and family have been subjected to the repeated (and often boorish) desire of Pam and me to acquire a sailboat capable of going anywhere on the world’s oceans. I am humbled to announce that the dream is a reality, as we closed in September on our dream vessel, a 2023 Lagoon 42 sailing catamaran (used but new to us). Our brief sojourn into the RV lifestyle was just a prelude to sailboat cruising. As mentioned before, interested consumers of this column can follow our adventures at TimBuckTwoBlog.com.
Yesterday evening, we performed the boat re-naming ceremony to beseech Poseidon to record our new vessel name, ‘Shavasana”, in the Ledger of the Deep. We also expended much quality champagne over the side to appease the four wind Gods, Boreas, Zephyrus, Eurus, and Notus, to grant us fair winds. While I do not fully believe in these pagan rituals, one does not take chances (ever) with the ocean. Shavasana is a term from yoga, denoting the final session pose of ‘active rest’ on the mat. Pam and I feel, after 30+ years of labor, we will not be begrudged a bit of active rest.
Pam and I are nothing but grateful for our careers in healthcare and the long (sometimes difficult, but constantly engaging) road we took together to achieve this destination. My message this month to the many thousands of providers toiling into the wee hours is that this life of service does not necessarily have to come at the cost of other dreams. For me, that dream has always been my love of harnessing the wind to freely move about the world. Admittedly, the reality of this lifestyle is not always as I imagined it during all those work years (looking at you Frying Pan Shoals). Then again, in so many other respects, my imagination failed to achieve the grandeur of my cruising experience thus far. Pam and I have completed our first 500 miles in the Atlantic, chasing the sun. I have become the salty captain of a sailboat gliding past the beach. Perhaps our vessel will be the sustaining image for some yet-to-be-minted federal provider who observed us from the beach. It is indeed a pleasant fantasy.
My message to you, dear readers, on this holiday season – jealously guard and sustain your future dreams beyond federal medicine; with time and patience, they can be achieved.
