A Berth in Opua_________

At rest. The boat hasn’t moved, and neither have I if all be told. Willy is gone. He hoped on a new friend’s boat, a little 31’ and headed south to the call of culling sheep and hooking some trout.

Since he’s left I’ve slept a lot—trying to reacclimatize myself to my boat again. That is the longest I’ve had a roommate in many years.

I’m doing the most serious cleaning of Araby since I bought her. But my heart isn’t totally in it yet. My head is stuck in a book, a series really: “The Dark Tower”. I am almost finished with it. Seven books; I am on the last. It is hard to put down.

What am I really writing about?

What I really want to say is thank you. It has meant so much to me to receive letters from you all. I avidly look forward to reading them, feeling some thread of connection to my old “lives’. You all carry me through, help me to think better of myself, give me a face in my mind that I wouldn’t want to disappoint.

Sometimes I have to dig and scrap deep for motivation. Anyway, thanks.

I won’t be sending these emails as regular for a while. I’m going into hibernation for a few months, I think.

My boat is where it will stay through February, here on a linear dock in Opua. (Not so different from the linear dock I left in Port Townsend.) I am cleaning everything thoroughly ‘cause she’ll be on her own for a while.

On the 25^th my friend Martina flies into Auckland. Martina and I met on a train from Chamonix. I was confused and asked her if she thought I was on the right train. We talked briefly and I somehow extracted her email address from her.

That was, what, five, six years ago?

We haven’t seen each other since. We’ve written back and forth, growing more frequent as the years have passed.

Now we’re going climbing and “tramping” around New Zealand together for a few weeks.

After that, it is home to see the family and to attend to personal affairs, watch the ducks fly.

Mid January it is back to Araby and, hopefully, by then I’ll have a plan of what is to come. Part of this upcoming tramp is to scope out harbors in the South Island that I may want to reside in for the coming winter.

I want to be near the mountains. I need to write.

Really, after the last passage and the intensity of the dreams I had then, I am a bit nervous. The exhilaration has worn off and now I am left with the gravity of what I saw.

Is it real? And worse: Can I really do that?

I am frankly intimidated. It was so exciting to see these images so clearly, see them like they are real—but because they look real the effort of achieving them is veiled. Because they look real, there is no question of whether I can or I can’t—it already is!

But now that all has passed and I am left haunted by what I have seen. I walk forward timid and a bit confused. Where do I start anyway???

This is neither here nor there, just something I realized on a run this evening. (I need to get in shape. The mountains here are BIG).

The point was to say THANKS. And to say I was going on sabbatical.

To be continued. . .