Introduction
Hello world, I am again allowed to use my own radio!
Lyosha is a good kid, but he has tied up my boat's radio for quite a few weeks!
I know why he stopped talking, though, it's tough to be a teenager.
I remember being his age like it was only yesterday.
Or, perhaps, last week?
A month, at most.
Ane says I should introduce myself. My name is Samik Jensen, we have been hosting young Lyosha for about a month now, on our narrowboat.
I shan't see my 50th birthday again, and Ane would not mind me saying she is not too far behind me.
I'm a writer, like my wife. She writes non-fiction about ocean science, the creatures within, and sailing and weather. I write short stories about just the same topics. It's the only thing we argue about!
When there is paper, we circulate a local zine with contributions from other folks here in Thule. When there is not, we maintain a Seaspace node with our writing on.
It's a quiet life.
I should give you a tour of our home, the Quiet Signet.
She's as good a boat as we could wish for, warm, solid, safe, and almost completely dry.
Almost!
When you are surrounded by water, ingress is always a threat. The pumps work well enough in the summer, but in winter, a little manual help is needed.
Anyway, the tour:
The Quiet Signet
We start our day in the Chamber, it's where our cosy bed is.
After venturing out to find a little havregrøt for breakfast or setting the fire going in the winter, it's where we return to for the deep work that writing requires.
There are truths that can be best expressed through stories, despite what my wife might tell you, and I try, now and then, to write them here on my antique typewriter, in the Chamber.
Through the door is the Library, which until recently has been little Lyosha's bedroom.
This contains books and reference documents, it is our space for quiet research.
Separating the two, Chamber for writing, Library for reading, works well for us.
Mixing these two modes of work, by looking up a number or date whilst writing, is dangerous. Books are gateways to other worlds, and it is easy to become lost in them.
This is why our day starts in the Chamber. There is only space for one to write, sometimes Ane, sometimes me.
We take turns, the other doing research or cooking or socialising in the Salon.
The next room along is our office. This is where Ane and I run our lives.
While we talk about everything that you need to talk about when sharing your life with someone, we're both very literary people; we prefer to think and plan on paper.
The office is about light work - work where we need each other's help, or perhaps a friend or two.
The Salon is next, after you have walked through the bathroom that separates it from the Office.
Here is our galley, our kitchen, the social hub of our little world.
This room is the biggest, stretching all the way from near the centre of the boat to the rear steps leading up and out onto the steering deck.
Conversation and connection is what this space is for. Eating and drinking with friends, playing cards at the dining table, or talking on our 50MHz radio.
This is what life is really about!
The gallery is outside the cabin of the boat, on the rear steering deck.
It is a large platform where, when we need to move the boat, which we do once or twice a year, whoever is piloting can get a good view all around, with one hand on the tiller for steering.
Ane is usually our driver, though I can do it just as well, at least when pointing in a straight line!
She is far better at manoeuvring in tight spaces, through rivers or shuttling around in the harbour when a larger boat must be accommodated.
But most of the time, the Gallery's back deck is our largest outdoor space.
Somewhere we can go to see out into the world, into nature, into society.
The history books show that before The Collapse city folk regarded society and nature as two separate, sometimes even warring, things.
But when you live on the water, the artificial boundaries wash away.
No work happens in The Gallery, save perhaps for a few words on a scrap of paper fished out of a pocket, but it is where all work STARTS.
The world is not contained in my mind, nor in the books of the library, not even in the second-hand insights of conversation in the Salon.
It's out here, flying in the air, swimming in the sea, and just over the horizon.
The Gallery is where it all starts.
Stories
Ane and I have lived on the water all our lives.
When we were younger, we loved the freedom to wake up in 5 different village ports in 5 days while travelling around the sheltered waters of the Qorsuk Taseq:
Monday we could be in Paamiut,
Tuesday in Qaqortoq
Wednesday in Nanortalik
Thurday in Tasiilaq, and
Friday in Kulusuk!
Though that part of our lives is over, travel is still important to us. We now make longer trips only in the summer to visit the friends we made in our younger years.
Seeing their children grow up and start families of their own has been a joy for us.
(though, these visits often remind us why we did not start a family of our own!)
I won't keep you further, Seth, I'm sure you and your friends have lots of exciting things to be getting on with!
Enjoy your time in the Qorsuk Taseq, and if you visit Tasiilaq, tell them to try the Suaasat soup, it's not to be missed!
(END-TRANSMISSION)