Hilton Head Island: Good Night, and Good Luck

         The marsh is sunny, clear and cool.  There is even a chance of snow in the forecast for Sunday morning.  Good grief! 

        I am living a life of routine.

        I wake between 5 and 6 AM.  Get dressed without waking Carol.  Go into the kitchen and start the coffee maker.  Pour a glass of juice and retire to the guest bedroom to write.  I don't recall when I began working on GANNET 6 or even why, but considering that I write between 500 and 1000 words each morning and the first draft now totals 120,241 words, I have been doing this for at least five months without missing a day.  Tomorrow morning GANNET and I will cross Panama.  Not quite to the Pacific, but to a boat yard beside it from which we will not escape for four days, but the end of the voyage and the first draft is close.  I expect to finish it next month.  Perhaps even this month because I have already written about the final passage to San Diego and may be able to use that.

        When my factory shift ends I join Carol for coffee and to read the depressing news and then poetry, ancient Japanese or Chinese and modern Western, which presently are another book of Haiku and Derek Walcott’s OMEROS.

        Around 10 or 11 I have my breakfast of uncooked oatmeal, trail mix, berries, and milk, to which I sometimes add a dried date or figs or apricots.

        Weather and motivation permitting, I go for a walk or a bike ride or use a treadmill at the club across the street.

        I no longer eat lunch, though I sometimes have a piece of bread or fruit and a glass of iced tea.

        In early afternoon I listen to music.  First Bach, then whatever catches my attention from my library.

        Most afternoons around 3 there is a soccer match being televised somewhere from Europe.

        Then a workout, shower, and two drinks with Carol and dinner.

        In the evening we usually watch something on Netflix or Amazon Prime.  A few night ago it was the excellent GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK:  LIVE FROM BROADWAY on Netflix in which George Clooney portrays Edward R. Murrow in the early 1950s when he was reporting on  Joseph McCarthy.  There are those who find relevance of this to our present times, Caro and I among them.  I highly recommend the film.

        Then I go to bed and read for a while.  Most recently Cormac McCarthy’s BLOOD MERIDIAN.  I go to sleep between 9 and 10.  I often wake up during the night and read for an hour.

        Then I get up at 5 to 6 and do it all again.