This morning I woke in a cabin, looking up into stained glass showing a sailboat among anchors and seahorses. The FreeLoader’s Rest is a heavenly refuge, with real hospitality to warm the heart. The cabin is connected to an actual sailboat, with stairs leading up into the hull, with a table and small bed at the fo’csle, and mini-portholes lining the roof. It’s raining; the wind blows through tall trees outside. The Friday Harbor ferry has changed over to the Fall schedule, and a new season is upon us. I grab the old 70’s black and white video camera salvaged by another guest here, and take a few brief shots of the quirks of the cabin. Realizing the lens has a hair and some black dust spots on it, I remove the outer lens and clear it away, but I may have to crack it open to get the remainder of the debris. Haven’t checked the audio yet. Still, it feels good to get this acquisition: a video diary which doubles as a black and white VCR. As I adjust to the isolation of this place, there is a desire to get creative, to make up the distance by broadcasting and sending out a signal. I struggle a bit with being marooned here – but the antidote is immersion into media and intellectual pursuits. I will spend more time writing, being creative, and making my own entertainment again. I’ve been e-chatting from the studio at The Whale Mausoleum; I enjoy sitting in the haunted widow’s peak of the town, the best vantage of vessel traffic in and out of port. I’ll want to make this place a hub of technology, streaming media in and out to expand worldwide reach as well as draw.
