I realized I tell a lot of stories to a lot of people and I don't know if there's a good way to keep track of who knows what. So below are the stories I feel are the ones that are worth sharing with everyone that wants to know me. Some may know all of these, some may know none of them, but writing is the best way I know how to tell a story so, you'll never hear them better then how I tell them here. I hope you learn something neat about me, the world, or yourself.
Plus if you have any questions about anything from these stories about me or what I did or where I've been, feel free to ask me! Take care, y'all. ~Enjoy
It all started (as many great stories do) in a Seattle coffee shop. It was a mild spring in 2016 and I had bought one of the cheapest drinks on the menu so I could sit down and use the wifi. I was still but a wee sailor, just a few months connected to my boat and while she was in repairs and we weren’t working on what we could, the captain would cut us loose to explore the city. And more often than not it was always just a game of “where’s the closest wifi?”. I was certainly still a “bluenose” (new Arctic sailor), but I had been on the sea enough to know that Music was what kept you sane and they didn’t have FM channels out in the middle of the sea. so I was at a coffee shop “legally” downloading more of the songs that I would later credit with saving my life out there on the sea. While downloading all of the old songs I could think of that I loved… Over the speakers of the coffee shop, I heard a tune.
A Haunting voice, a steady enduring tempo, and bold acoustic instruments that beat with the strength of a heart. I was still a young blood, with so much more to gain and so little to my name, but what I had always known I had, was a strong heartbeat and although this may have been the first time I heard this song, I felt a calling and connection to it that I wouldn’t realize the significance of until much later and many more times throughout my life.
I most likely couldn’t hear it too well as with most coffee shop songs, but I heard enough of the lyrics to put them into google and find a title. I don’t quite remember when I downloaded it, but it became synonymous with my first time in Seattle as well as my time in Alaska, Petaluma, South Jersey, Portland, and essentially, my entire life.
The song told the story of a Vagabond. A wanderer, staying and leaving, feeling and living, the highs and lows of their own compulsion to the road. The singer tells the tale of the Vagabond with pride as well as pain, conjuring comparisons to the elements and the animalistic ways that the Vagabond has lived and is still living their life. A life filled with struggle and strength, but despite the sadness in the singer’s voice, there’s a powerful honesty and pride as the singer calls out the Vagabond and their story. Not as tragedies, but as triumphs. Echoing the lines at the end of the ballad; “You made it, made it, Through”. The singer wants the Vagabond to find “Peace”. Not “Peace” as a destination, but “Peace” with who they are, the life they are living, and thus peace in their journey. Peace with being a Vagabond.
Years pass, February 2022. I “run away” to Portland with just one friend, email contact with only my brother, and a backseat of stuff from my old life that I felt was worth something special enough to hold onto. One item was the phone on which I downloaded all the songs that kept me sane during my time in Alaska. With no emotional attachment to my childhood last name, nor my former spouses’, I realized I had the unique opportunity and (self appointed) insurmountable responsibility of choosing my own last name. Family had always been such a malleable concept for me, but the idea of legacy imbued with a name, the kind of legacy that stems from generations of families and heirlooms as well as the kind that begin and belong solely to a single entity that somehow echoes through time without a drop of blood passed on.
I had achieved what I felt to be my single greatest achievement and that was “self-love”, so choosing a last name was to be my legacy that would glow with the sentiments I left with my life and or, my death. It was me asking to marry myself and my last name was going to be one that represented who I always was and no matter what, who I would always be.
I don’t quite remember the day or night, the spot I was sitting or the street I was walking, but I must have heard the song or simply remembered the song and thought… “That’s it!”.
“Vagabond?”
“Not quite.” I’m sure I thought to myself. I had always resonated with the song, the word “Vagabond”, and the lifestyle of being one who wanders from place to place with no home but the road. It was a perfect representation of my life up to that point. But I knew I could make “Vagabond” just a little bit more "me". I absolutely felt “Vagabond” represented “who I was”, but I also wanted my name to represent “who I was becoming”. And serve as a constant reminder and signifier of who I would never want to ever forget to be.
“Vagabondess”.
(I’m certain I went…)
“Wait… No. Did I just? Nooo…. Wait. WAIT! (*Excitement ensues*)”
Or maybe I just wrote it down in cursive and just stared at it and cried.
No one ever told me to “remember the moment you come up with your last name.” I suppose I myself haven’t told anyone to do the same until I wrote it down here in this story, but the wonderful part of it is… Just like a name given at birth, passed down from elder to elder, it’s as if I always had it.
I was me. And then suddenly I realized, I had a last name. And so without the exact moment of realization committed to memory, it’s as if my last name, was, is, and always has been (and always will be?) “Vagabondess”.
(And what happens when I marry the most amazing man that did the impossible and gave me a home to hold my heart? Stay tuned to find out. c; No pressure, Hun. <333)
In the meantime though… there’s a small new development that happened recently and inspired me to write this blog post!
A friend of mine asked me what my last name was, and I responded with “Vagabondess”. They admitted they thought it was an “Alter Ego” kind of name. I chuckled and lovingly responded that I changed it after my marriage and that they weren’t “entirely incorrect”. I told them how I chose “Vagabondess” to represent who I was and always remind myself that I was, am, and will always want to be “a wanderer”.
Then for the first time in recorded history, someone analyzed “the spaces between” my chosen last name and genuinely asked me “why ‘Vagabondess’?”
They told me that they love my last name, and I knew they meant no judgement or offense but truly and genuinely wondered why I chose the root word “Vagabond”. They loved the “ess” part and got it right in assuming it was an expression of my femininity, but they brought up a very key element about the underlying connotation that the word “Vagabond” carries with its name.
As my friend pointed out, “Vagabond” has a less than positive connotation with it and while it was reminiscent of a wanderer, it also is associated to describe vagrants and transients, beggars and homeless, and some individuals just generally apart from society without the fundamental human sentiment of an established sense of “home”.
While I am eternally grateful to have never experienced the physical, mental, and emotional hardships of homelessness, I genuinely related to and connected with each of the "negatively" connotated titles that orbited around the title of “Vagabond”. My dear friend understood me well enough to know that there were subtleties and deliberate reasonings behind my personal choices in lifestyle, visual aesthetic, artistic representations, and especially anything I felt represented who I was. So, when I gave the smallest piece of pie about why I chose my last name, she infiltrated the entire pie factory and seized the means of production to figure out why I chose the name "Vagabondess". She sensed sadness and pain with how me choosing “Vagabond” as part of my name may have been representative of how I viewed myself. She agreed that while I very much exemplified a "wanderer", she wondered if my namesake of “Vagabond” was derived more from me running away from pain in my old life, rather than me wandering in search of new joys that I chose for myself. (She also mentioned how I also love stability in a very unique way, but that's another Blog Post I'm sure.)
Up until my friend asked me “why?“ I hadn’t even thought about any of the nuance and subtle meanings or connotations that could have been behind it all. It was as if upon reading her message asking me "why", I suddenly looked down and saw a filing cabinet labeled “2022 Name Change Documents”. Opening it up expecting to already know there were just a few papers in there and then it suddenly being full of new documents taking up the entire cabinet. Written in my handwriting, but written or typed with my non-dominate hand while my conscious brain scribbled in cursive over and over again… “Vagabond”+”ess” = Me *happiness*.
Introspective and detailed notes on how much pain and weight and pride and love resonated from that word to represent who I was and how I took to the road because “home” was never a place I felt it was “supposed to be”.
Years of trauma and determination to make it to the next day, the next place in life, to never settle for anywhere too long, lest I get attached and it weighs me down from the ability to run at a moment’s notice. So much nuance put into endless layers of raw, real, and reflective reasons as to why I truly chose my last name. And even now as I imagine these imaginary secret files I just recently discovered, I can’t help but imagine a note scribbled at the bottom of the last paper stating:
“Hey kid, Welcome back. I knew you could find your way back here and that either means you got here all on your own or you met someone who sees you well enough and loves you enough to show you what you couldn’t have seen by yourself at the time. I’m proud of you, you are beautiful, and I love you. Take care. ~Enjoy”
I had felt like an outcast my entire life. It’s why I tried SO hard to be liked by my peers. Once I realized that my legal residence was not where I wanted to be, I began to leave as often as possible and very much enjoyed “the journey” because I dreaded the destination that was my legal residence. I longed for acceptance from my peers, learning just the right ways of how to fit and belong into any social group or situation. I moved from activity to activity, social group to social group, friend’s house to friend’s house, looking for something better than the house I had to go back to. I wasn’t searching for anything in particular; I was just trying to get out of the house.
Getting out of the house was one of the main reasons I joined the military. I figured renting just wasn’t the move for me at 18, but Uncle Sam was offering room & board plus a lil spending cash and benefits, just for a signature. Sure, I am proud of my decision to serve and I standby all the many other reasons I joined, but me, “running away” from who I was and the life I was living, was undoubtedly a major reason I joined up.
I felt so lonely and trapped on the boat, letters and writing were my only emotional escape, but I can finally admit to others that I spent much too many nights literally dangling my feet off the edge of the boat, just an arm around a flagpole being the difference between life and the dark cold depths of the abyss. My fast and poorly thought-out marriage was me “running away” from the loneliness of Alaska. My “escape” to Portland was me “running away” from the dried and burnt husk left of my former life and all of the shambles I left it in during the course of my marriage. Even me leaving Portland had a twinge of me “running away” from the trajectory of the person I was becoming. As much as I loved being “Alex” up in Portland, I always knew I would end up being “Andria” in SoCal, so I lived pretty “fast & loose” with “Alex’s” life because I knew it was all going to be a quick and easy exit. I miss “Alex” sometimes though. I really, really do.
All of this to say… for the first time in my life, I am so incredibly content with “the place” I am at in life. To quote a song from my favorite band, “I feel home”. (Listening to it now as I type this.) And it’s not because I am back where I “grew up”. I grew up here, and there, and everywhere. I left where I grew up before and came back multiple times without feeling what I am feeling now, but “I feel home” now, and yet, all I’ve known is “run for the road”. "Home" for me was the road. The road I called "my home" is a part of me and how I came to be.
But… as I take off my archery glove to continue typing this, I realize something new. Archery is a part of me too. It is how I am coming to be.
But this wasn't always so.
I shot my first arrow no more than 4 years ago and yet it feels like I’ve known this my whole life and is a fundamental part of who I am and how I live my life. Just like how being a Vagabond is also a part of me and how I live my life.
*deep thought*
Thinking about it now… As much as “being a Vagabond” is responsible for so much of how I became who I am today… I feel like “being an Archer” has the same amount of impact in being responsible for me becoming who I will be. The person who I want to be and not so much who I already am or always have been.
Just because something worked for my whole life, and it is something I love and appreciate because I love and appreciate myself... Being a Vagabond gave me my life and me being a Vagabond became my life. That does not mean that it will always be the best life for me to live. It doesn’t mean that it is all I am and all I will ever be.
Being an Archer is now very much a part of me, and I love it and I love myself. I love what being an archer is doing to me as a person, physically, mentally, and emotionally. The more I become an archer, the better I feel. The more of this new me that I feel like as an archer, the less I feel like “a Vagabond”.
Huh.
Well… *deep breath* This is genuinely a huge realization for me. And y’all got to be a part of the journey, as I wrote this all out.
I can Change.
I should change.
If a new thing feels right and is better for me than how things have been, then it is okay to let go of what has always worked and try something completely different, even if it feels unfamiliar and maybe even wrong, as long as if feels like I am heading in the right direction.
“Heading in the right direction”.
If being a Vagabond has taught me anything, it’s that, just because I am moving doesn’t always mean I’m heading in the right direction. And my entire motivation for moving from place to place, whether it was the right move or not, was because I felt that, me staying in one place, felt wrong. Because at my core… I am and always will be, a Vagabond.
When I chose my last name… I realized I was very lost, but happy. Not quite sure where I was in that moment, but I knew where I had been and I had a good feeling about where I, and my life, was heading. I was just at the dawn of an entirely new path, a new life, a new “right direction”, and I had taken the first step. I was, and knew I would always be, a Vagabond, but I also knew I was something more. Maybe not at that moment, but I knew I would get there. It would be scary and difficult, and entirely brand new, but I had a feeling, right at the beginning of this new life, and I knew I had the mark the occasion. Which is why I chose to add something new and something more to my name. To tell history, myself, and the future who I always was and who I would become. A Vagabondess.
I am Alexandria Dorothy Vagabondess.
I am an Archer. I am a Librarian. I am a Writer. I am a Sailor. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a Friend. I am a Lover. I am a Fighter. I am a Human.
I am a Vagabondess. I am proud of who I am. And I am always becoming more. I am and will always be what I choose to be.
Take care. ~Enjoy
Songs Mentioned
“Vagabond” ~ by- Misterwives
“I feel Home” ~ by- O.A.R.
P.S. Just in case any of Y’all are like me and it takes ya a while to "put 2 and 2 together”... the name of this Blog is a pun of the words “Blog” and my last name “Vagabondess”. Hence... “A. Blogaboness”.
*Bows* Thank you, Thank you. I’ll be here weekly. *curtsies* You’re all too kind. Thank you so much.
T.C. ~E
Have I ever told you I why I joined the military?
“I had already told everyone I knew the same old stories, so I left to go find new people to tell them too. As well as go find some new stories to bring back and share with those who had already heard all the old ones”. That’s what I told people when I got to my first unit. I also tole a lot of people "I needed Discipline" and wasn't going to find it at home and I also just wanted to get out of my parents house and go on an adventure! But as much as all of those reasons were absolutely true, I left because I knew I had to get out, or else I never would.
Jr. year of high school, I was a cute kid, nice and friendly, and as my good friends told me later after graduation… “you just had No goals”. And they were right. I felt I didn’t have much to look forward to or even live for, but I valued life and I wanted mine to be worth something. I also had a bit of a hero complex, or at least a desire to fight for a better world. So sometime my Jr. year of high school I realized the military was the place for me. “I’m gunna be a combat medic in the Army” I told my parents. They weren’t too happy about that, but at the time, I wasn’t too happy about much, but I felt I had very little to lose and if I could save the life of just 1 person with something worth living for, then my life could be something worth living for too.
Fast forward to April-ish of Senior year, I met a smart kid who told me he was also joining up after high-school and he said he got letters from “all 5 branches.” “All five branches?” I asked, only thinking of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. And that’s when I consciously became aware of the United States Coast Guard. And after way too quick of a google search, I said to my parents, “I’m gunna be a rescue Swimmer in the Coast Guard”. My Mother was much happier about her child joining the military. I graduated that June, enrolled in community college to stay with my High School Sweetheart before I “Shipped out to battle” and then they ended things that October. I was failing all of my community college classes, living at home after only making it 2 months on my own, and really not wanting to spend anymore time at my parent's house. I knew I needed discipline and wasn't going to find it at home, so I googled “Coast Guard Recruiter near me.”
I went to a Coast Guard recruiting station that November and got a 97 (out of 99) on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test and I started my own personal training. I was swimming nearly every day, doing cardio and strength training, way more than was necessary for basic training, but I wanted to be more than basic, I wanted to be a hero. So, I went back that June feeling ready to ship out.
Then I lost my wallet and my ID and took that as an opportunity to take my foot off the gas and really think about what I was doing.
I wasn’t particularly happy with my life, but I was becoming very content and comfortable. I was making good enough money as a lifeguard, I was spending a lot of time with my friends and even better, I was spending a lot of time with myself. I was 18 so I was really discovering so much about myself. And after realizing that the days of my youth were set and my adult life was rising I suddenly felt a strange sense of oblivion far off in the distance. I saw myself spending the rest of my life in this comfortable kingdom I’ve worked so hard to build. I had so many great stories that I had told practically everyone I knew and would repeat to everyone new that I met, and I was great at telling those stories. I had good friends, a good cat, a bed to sleep in and food to eat, and so much potential it was seeping through my pours with all the sweat I was giving back to my dry Southern California Kingdom.
And I don’t remember when exactly, but I was suddenly becoming so aware and almost afraid of the life that lay before me because I could see it all laid out. It was in those days and nights, gazing upon the rising sun of my adulthood and the rest of my life, cresting over the same mountain I’ve watched all of my sunrises come from ... I knew I had to leave it all behind or live and die in my kingdom of content-ness.
So I went back to the recruiters, ID in hand and fear in my veins. And around September they told me I would be shipping out at the end of November.
That about sums it all up as to “why” I joined the military. But I’ll cover it all in my first memoir when that comes out. (Hopefully before age 30. *Shrugs*)
Til then… Take care. ~Enjoy
(Trigger warning: The following story describes starvation and bodily functions such as puking. Graphic/violent death of a sea creature)
My first patrol was from Alaska to Hawaii and back on a 283ft Vietnam era boat. Over 4000 nautical miles, a month out at sea, 50 ft waves, fire, flooding, only dry oatmeal and sips of water for a few days. An appreciation for life and one heck of a story.
I arrived in Alaska late January 2016, snow, ice, and cold cold cold. But thankfully I had been to Kansas plenty growing up and just got back from Basic Training on the cold East Coast, so I was ready. Warm socks, a good coat and cap, gloves and boots. I got to my boat just in time for them to get underway. "Where are we going I asked?" "Hawaii" a shipmate told me, "I hope you packed your swimsuit" (the answer was definitely not).
I had never been on the open ocean before and I was aware that some people got seasick. I figured I would, but I was a tough kid and I had the medicine in my pocket, but I figured, "I could probably tough it out". The waves outside the still harbor were no more than 3 feet and as soon as we got out to open ocean, I sat down, ran to the head (restroom on a boat) and threw up my very good lunch. I walked back to my chuckling shipmates, popped in the cute little bright pink motion sickness pills and was now ready to tough it out (with just a little help from the medicine.) It wasn't long until I was back in the head puking up bright pink this time. my first 30 minutes at sea were over and I may have lost my lunch, but I hadn't thrown up my hope, yet.
As the days got longer the farther south we sent, the waves got higher, and I got sicker. People told me to eat bananas because they "taste and look the same coming up as they do going down" (this is true), but I also learned that according to old sailor lore, bananas are bad luck to have on a ship. But then again so are women, so I took any and all advice, not from the medical professional onboard, with a grain of salt. Mostly because I couldn't really eat or drink much without immediately throwing up. Not bread, not rice, not applesauce, not eggs. I was bedridden by day 2. I literally couldn't work. I could barely stand to go eat and puke so my supervisors let me just lay in bed with the hope that I could "get used to it." by day 7 of 14 I got a visit from my supervisor telling me "time to get up and work". "I don't think I can walk around without puking still" I told him. "Then you'll just work and puke and if you make a mess you clean it up."
The next 4 days were a hazy and delirious hell that I genuinely don't think I had the calories to commit things to memory. I still couldn't eat anything without it coming up. And I literally mean... ANY Thing. I couldn't even drink more than a sip of water and I mean A SIP. It was take a sip, wait 5 minutes, maybe 10, use whatever calories I could spare to try and keep my sip of water and then gather enough strength to take another sip. I still tried what I felt I could keep down and eventually, after many failed attempts and maybe 2 or 3 days of just sips of water, I found dried oatmeal would stay down when consumed in very sparse and separated spoon-fulls. At least half the time it would stay down. And I had to take what I could get.
It was a dangerous time. I was in the Med Bay constantly. I don't remember how often, but I remember people telling me after the fact that I would be sent there because of the strange array of colors my skin was starting to turn. I remember the taste of stomach bile and I remember the feeling of my body wanting to empty my stomach's contents even if there was nothing in there to empty. The Doc told about a "Shot in the Butt" that would "knock a person out for 3 days" and I remember the concern in their eyes when they mentioned this. I just remember wanting relief in whatever form that came in. After those 4 days I remember waking up and the fact that I actually remembered waking up shows that I was healthy enough to begin committing things to memory again. I had sipped enough water and ate enough dried oatmeal to where I could begin to function in the state I was in. We were just 3 days away from pulling in to Hawaii and the waters were calm enough and warm enough for a fishing call. I went outside for the first time in more than week and just sat in the sun and looked out accross the expanse of oceanscape in all directions. Every fishing pole onboard was cast over and pulling up the biggest and most beautiful fish I've ever seen. And then thrown on the deck and beat in the head with a club until it stopped flopping. But seeing that didn't make me puke so that was also a good sign. And then The captain who knew a thing or two about fish cut open a few, paired it with pickled carrot and soy sauce, and made enough fresh sashimi cups for the entire crew. And watching the captain cut open these beautiful fish didn't make me puke either. And I had the rare opportunity to try fresh fish less than an hour apart from being alive in the middle of the pacific. Stomach be dammed. I was going to taste this.
It was delicious. I only had one cup because I didn't want to tempt fate and by the time I realized the fish was going to stay down, it was all gobbled up and we were back on our way towards Hawaii. There were just a few more days left of the transit. Day 13 we saw land again and the boat was just waiting for the spot on the pier to open up so we got a very rare "Swim call" which meant they parked the boat and we got to jump off 10 ft into the water and swim around. (Or take the ladder if jumping wasn't your thing.) Boats in warmer weather get them all the time, but us Alaskan Coasties only got "polar plunges" (Swim calls in cold water for the brave and stupid). SO! with the Islands in sight and nothing to swim in, but my Gym clothes from basic training I left the boat for the first time in 13 days. swinging from the crane we use to lower the small boats, flying away from my 283ft Steel coffin that almost consumed me. With excitement in my eyes, a cheer in my vice, and fear (And a little bit of dried oatmeal and sips of water,) I splashed into the water. I was now among the same ocean that caused so much instability in my life for the past 2 weeks. And it was beautiful. Not to be on top of the waves, but a part of them. I had survived my first transit at sea.
Believe it or not... the trip back from Hawaii was arguably more life threatening than my trip there. But I'll share that one later. T.C. ~E