The day of our departure, we were able to visit a wooden boat yard and see Seraffyn of Victoria herself, an amazing privilege. More photographs later. It certainly wasn't the best thing for a person trying to convince herself to stay put aground.
436 statute miles
38° F
Winds calm
Arrival time: 6:30 am
In the car last night, driving from Buzzards Bay north, around Boston, through the bright lights of the big dig, across the highways that bridge New Hampshire and again into Maine, I kept thinking how I was going home. It felt alien, the feeling foreign to the point of being uncomfortable. But there's part of me that feels that way, even now that I'm here, nesting my knees beneath my desk, my fingers on the keys. Home is merely something I convince myself of.
We towed the new boat behind the Volvo, the new boat whose coat of green paint is bringing out a host of possible names: Pickled. Pistachio. Pequod. Brillig, which has nothing to do with green, but is my personal favorite.
Today, after a five-hour morning nap, I pulled the first couple of rows of rocks from the ground, rocks cleared last fall that frost has heaved up to meet my fingers. Fifty mile-an-hour gusts during one storm while we were away broke a sheet of glass from the cold frame, and now hairline-fractured plate glass paves half of the garden. It's already past time to plant peas and spinach, past time to start beet seedlings. The earth is calling.
And so are the words. After this journey, this conference ostensibly undertaken for other people, I decided to pursue a trip this summer just for me, for the sake of my own art, and now a multitude of possibilities are heaped upon me, and I don't know which I should choose. I've been gone too long. Part of me just wants to hole up, with my desk, my words, to spend mornings with the blank page and afternoons with my fingers in the soil. Is that just fear calling? Or is it home?
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