- Book Review -

Several years ago, my husband and I decided to live on our sailboat in Seattle after moving from a fairly remote island in the Gulf of Alaska. Our decision was based, mainly, on our newly found passion for sailing and our desire to try something new and out of the norm. On the plus side, it seemed like a much more affordable way to live in the big city. “Living on a sailboat?!” Why yes! Sounds dreamy and romantic, doesn’t it?

Many people dream of a fresh start, living an alternative lifestyle, and just getting away from it all. In a world filled with people spending too much time inside and not enough time in nature, it’s no wonder that many of us yearn for something else. And back in February, just before our entire world was turned upside down, I started reading a book titled "Our Life Off the Grid - An Urban Couple Goes Feral" by J. David Cox. To some, the thought of living off the grid may sound like pure hell while for others it would be utopia. For David and his wife Sally, an urbanite couple in their mid-fifties, it just seemed like the right thing to do for their own mental health. So they moved from the city to a remote island on the west coast of British Columbia. However, dreamy and romantic, it was not. Take it from me, after living on a sailboat, I know! Just imagine pumping out your own sewage, running out of water in the middle of a shower when you’re all by yourself on the boat and having to run out on deck to fill up your water tank with a head of hair all sudsy from shampoo, carting your groceries and clean, dry laundry up and down the dock when there are monsoon rains, and the list goes on.  And my list doesn’t even compare to the challenges David and Sally have to face just to go for a grocery run.

Reading this book was like spending Sunday afternoons with a favorite uncle, listening to him recount story upon story of his most excellent adventures and encounters. This memoir was written with such wit and satire, that I often found myself laughing out loud and relating to the experiences they’ve lived. David and Sally dove into this new lifestyle without any skills or knowledge about building houses, creating their own electricity, water, etc. yet they managed to create a home for themselves with all of life’s basic needs and more. This book is written in a way that is so organic and down to earth, that most would relate to their stories, from how to make things happen when you have no clue about what you’re doing to how couples work together, deal with each other, and grow together in the face of new challenges. They kept it real throughout, giving us the good, the bad, and the ugly.

If an alternative lifestyle was intriguing to you before reading this book, you just might still want a taste of it after reading it. Dreamy and romantic it is not but gratifying and worthwhile, it certainly seems to be to David and Sally. Sometimes, small changes make a difference but in David and Sally’s case it took a whole lifestyle change to make their existence worthwhile again.    

And in this time of quarantines and social distancing, this book might bring you great joy and a bit of an escape from the mundane.

- Kirsten -
Fresh Air Reads contributor