Mission to Alcatraz

It was a full and gorgeous trip to San Francisco, over in a flash and memorable in the way that those weekends can be at their best.  From Lands End and Ocean Beach to Trieste and the Saloon to the 7am kickoff and Vesuvio and City Lights, then Dim Sum and Dolores Park and Diplomatico Daquiries and Puerto Alegre and Kozy Kar and Mona Lisa Guinness, to Alcatraz and the Codmother and Buena Vista to a nap and Curry/Durant and Fake Pho and the Tonga.  A mouthful all told, and oh so very good.

A sobering return home, in more ways then one, realising the level of desolation and desperation has grown too extreme and that...  You need a change.  Too much fast food, not enough activity or focus, and so with 28 days until a hopeful trip to London you put down a marker.  So far so good.  The 4th trip to Peggys Cove tonight for the first truly beautiful sunset, and further thoughts about the latest of the plans for Ahab.  Examined from so many different ways, it fits.  And requires the planning to continue as you dream how to turn mere thoughts into a path.

Moving slightly away from the MFA at the same time, recalling 2019 as the original date, since it puts the primaries in the middle of the program.  And which may free you up to try and last through one more calendar year to help bankroll the future, on the assumption that Lav can be convinced to hold out one final year and farewell party.  It bears considering, and something truly to look forward to at the end of May, when you pour over the new listings on arrival in Cape Town.  Until then, let's make this latest manifesto a true one, and enjoy that first sip in awhile across the pond at Moby Dick. It just makes sense. 

353 Settlers

August 1750.  A month's sail from England, on the 504 ton Alderney.  And so the building lots they laid out and the life they planned were named after the Earl of Dartmouth.  Here you stand.

Birthday musings.  Parents growing old, we grow old, the world grows old.  Discussion further than planned, against the initial thoughts, about the Ahab visit.  How it might work.  How it clings to the mindset.  How Guinness may yet need to be the one exception to the buy local branding.  How the whales and the writing and the confluence of need for a place of mine own appear to be circling toward the same drain.

The bald pate on the upper deck of the ferry toward home.  The conversation renewed about the remoteness of the Europa destinations.  The recollection of Shackleton, and their separation from news of the war during their endurance voyage.  The Siberia guess, recalling ideas of Ulaanbattar and the Trans.

The idea of escape is right, toward freedom is right, toward freshness is right.  With world enough and time before the trigger is pulled, to learn and dream, and to imagine the path that must be taken, at cost.

San Fran next.  Then London.  Then New Orleans.  Then Nantucket.  Then New Bedford.  Then Santiago.  Then Puerto....  Then Then Then.

Until.

Until.

PS.  Remember the Brier Island entry of July 2015.  Remember the April 2017 entry re: Cow Ledge, and the next month's Skeleton Plans, typed from this very room.  Remember last night, and the equivocator and the seeds of time.

"Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day..."

Drip drip drip

Last sailing night of the season...  Does the music sound different, now that you know he is gone?  Not really.  Which is the magic, of art, of time, of everything.  Remember Lille.  And the 100th.  Oh. "I was the girl that jumped out of the cake."

Guts for the Adventure

Contract signed with Spiropoulos tonight, after Symposium disputes on the nature of a bet.  He likes the look of Cow Ledge Road, even if he doesn't understand the full intent behind the purchase.  The idea of a place as a retirement one, to house memories more substantially than possible in a condo, is a welcome one, and adds to the mix.  Try as I might, I cannot see the rationale for a purchase pre-Bark, so we have to trust in the fact that no one else will emerge in the off-peak.  Money rides on it!  But the stakes for purchase post-Bark have been raised anew by the challenge to the ability to take the leap.  It echoes conversations with Jen, about the lack of follow-through.  And her comment about knowing it when you see it.  I just might, you know.

Sad day as well, with the loss of Gord.  Speaking of memories.  And writing.  A true inspiration.  So many lines to quote, I will simply leave it.  You know what they are, and will keep hearing them for as long as you have ears.  Hey man, thanks.

Another Day, Gone

The challenge is this - reading some of the materials last night, it is clear that freedom of the tourist venture will come at a price and will not be easy.  You might make, in a year, what you make in a month or three at the current gig.  Which raises the question as to how long you could reasonably extend the firm pay cheques while starting down the new path.  Out of the question if both steps are taken at the same time, but perhaps within reason if it is one or the other.

But then you struggle through another day, in which the motivation to put on a tie is simply not there for the back-to-back meetings, and the familiarity of it all seems so...  tepid.  The efforts strained, the conversations over food court Seoul chicken so recycled.  The idea of change, of adventure seems so promising by comparison.  The inability to break free so prison-like in its effect on the mind, as you wait.  Dah, Dah-dah, dah-Dah.  Bad to the bone ring tone.  Ha.

The key to everything likes with the Bark.  Be sure to set the stage with the proper applications, but postpone the decision-making until you emerge from the other side come May.  See how the dilemmas look from the Southern Ocean.  How things may look different there, then, and here, after.  On so many fronts.  But keep a notebook to download the thinking.  One thing is decided.

Freedom 40.  Something wholly new by then.

"...full time, energy and attention"

448.  That's the number of revolutions that have elapsed since the 30% downpayment was made, back on 07/25/16.  Decided today to pay the full balance, so that's off.  Momentous.  Antarctica draws nigh, closer and closer.

Have also lined up some bucket list city trips to San Fran and now New Orleans to fuel the further off beat inspirations.  Add to the early January visit (weather permitting) to fabled Nantucket and New Bedford Moby Dick marathon and you have yourself some solid distractions pre-Feb 21.  The biannual London trip also shaping up nicely via standby in between the two, as you do/must. 

As the predominant thought remains fixed on Long Island and the Cow Ledge Road.  Various permutations and computations in that regard.  Upon the return in early May, I can see separate paths: LI-only, MFA-only, LI + MFA, RPL?  Start dates as early as 08/18, with deferral up to a year later possible?

Consider this post an unlyrical placeholder of thoughts on this Monday night.  Should have squeezed in a final sail instead, but oh well.  Have printed off some "how to..." reading material.  In either case, there is a case to be made, finance-wise, for sticking with the law through to the end of next year, with a liberal interpretation of the words in the title from the Agreement.

Think on 't.  I know you shall.      

Make It Happen, Captain

Forgot that title line in the prior Brier island reports.  Noticed prior to exit 19 to Paradise on the drive out. I see tonight, after the Bicycle Thief dinner with PMac, that Lav's place has been for sale 240 days.  How long until another 240 days pass, Siri is asked.  June 8th.  Heh.

How much is enough, would be the question I would ask.  "Midnight Rambler" - this is a good song.  Heh, again.  I know my answer is less than most.  Far less.  A small place, but mine own.  Keep conjuring it up.  I'm more sure it is right, and more sure it will be waiting.

Remember the mice?  And the sail around George's?  And KDoucette channeling McArdle, in your last time asking him to appear at the Energy Law class?  Remember?  The make-out couple on the ferry rooftop?  Boom-less sailboats and 3 day old diapers and and and.  A good day, 133 away from Feb 21.

The Midnight Rambler.  The one that shut the kitchen door.

You don't need a desk in the grand passage studio.  The bar is the desk.  A few candles.  Whale oil.  Countdown is on.  Semi-final and final requests for Russia are in.  It is happening.  Enjoy the swan song.  No seal either, toda, for the registrar.  Ha.  Time is, running out.  Do it, McMahon.  Put the pieces in place and gather the courage of your convictions and do it.

Same As It Ever Was

Woke up on the morning of October 6th with scant recollection of the closing hours of the Lower Deck celebrations for Mr. Keith's 222nd.  Quite the balmy day, beautiful sail, beer left at HT2 for next season (we shall see how it goes), then Nas and Court for a Chinese fortune sunset before the bar and the madness.  Then the hangover, strangely the Talking Heads on the mind upon awakening - water flowing underground... Once in a lifetime...  It was a perfect if embarrassingly ridiculous festivity.  The 210 shirt beaten by the 207th, although a rueful smile upon hearing the subsequent Value Village comment.

Long drive to Freeport done shortly after MacDougall skipped away.  It is a ways, but not unmanageable as a distance.  Just tough to do too many commutes a season.  But it lives up to the billing.  The studio apartment is solid and hotel-like, worthy of the good reviews.  The bar downstairs is perfect, and the shop next door full of possibilities.  Food not as intimidatingly good as I expected, but would still be a full task to figure it all out.

That is the fun of it, I think.  The Picton Castle photos on the wall a sign.  The 1999 "just a dream" shot.  If it does not sell... I could see an offer in May, I really could.  Change your life enormously around to do it, but it really is what you need.  And there are ways to make that place better and truly your own, I can feel it.  Learn what it is like to really run a business, and have the time and location and opportunity for the writing.

The whales are maybe what did it.  The sound, "thar she blows".  The unexpected breach, the magnificent slow rise on a beautiful angle out of the water, upward, no photos able to fully capture it.  No words either.  Supremely breathtaking creature.  That and the hiking opportunities that abound from the doorstep.

I would like a chance at it, Lav.  It will be on my mind throughout the Barque.  You have to think it will survive the winter, until the email gets sent from Cape Town in late April to explore the meeting, the incorporation, and all?  Maybe.  One of the many ways life could go.  Nothing left for now, but to wait, and see.

Hello San Diego!

Home from a wonderful four days among old friends and many of their young daughters.  From the condo to the cell to the "Inn" for business to the suburbs.  The anger and absurdity of the dog exchange, the resentment over the political anniversary posting, the athletes and their relationship trajectories, the memories of cottage parties of yore, MP and Chris P. kareoke in the bar overlooking the Laff, the assistant's life in and return from Cambodia, Dad's memory of the bare facts, the drunk sporting event attendance and even the bad hollywood international law film to escape the exhaustion.  Tiring, but excellent.

Some insights as well, as hoped.  Relationships.  Careers.  The cost of childcare.  And if you have not that focus and those commitments, then what, if not an orthogonal direction?  (Nice word, Whalen)  Art?  Though in what form of contribution has it not been explored already 1000x over?  The writing as the underlying oasis of hope, even though it is rarely attempted in a serious fashion.  Or simply travel - seeing - as art.  The return to randomness.  The reset, after so many years.  An idea once planted, that can not be shaken.  Full many a promise that must be broken, and few the voyagers.  The meeting with the Yale/Cambridge Nigerian, and his old stories of fights between the hockey and basketball teams remembered down the years, only confirming the direction further.

Indeed, nothing from this past month to suggest any deviation from the current musings below.  Everything, from the Labour Day weekend sail to kick it off to the Porter flight return home and ferries in between, combines to suggest the opposite.  One new, helpful addition from the capital re: of the RPL application to throw into the mix, as the more professional escape from private practice.  To explore and discuss en route to SF. 

And then maybe London.  And then maybe destination unknown for NYE.  And then maybe Nantucket and the 24 hour reading in New Bedford.  And then, certainly, Santiago.

Hello San (Tia)go!  "Somebody scream if you're having a good time.  That's what I'm talking about."  Heh.  Ne change pas.  We don't.  And the time has soon come, having earned the freedom, to walk the true paths again, unencumbered.  Tock tick.