There is nothing like the tucked in feeling you get inside a boat. I had a Folkboat that I miss so much you cannot believe it.
She was the first thing that had to go, and he didn’t love her anyway. The V Berth in the Islander is tiny — more like storage? There is a huge galley and on the other side a table that folds away to make a more open larger bunk. The table is for writing. She has been very cared for, and I heard yesterday for sale for ages — as are so many in the harbor this year.
It’s her wood I love. The gleam. She is beamy too, and really heavy. I’d need to learn all the instruments and it would take time before I could singlehand her. She has a tiller! And the best name ever. Yesterday I walked around looking at all the wooden boats that need repair in Marina 1. Dozens. Huge gorgeous vessels. I love those the best.
The ribs of the old boat. I used to reach out and touch them all the time.
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I am not sure how I survived the last decade. I’m really not.
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A sea trial of the soul, somehow.
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What this decade has done was produce a body of work that I can sell. I’m glad for that. Plus, with these children’s books I can do Depth work inside the novel. Without having to be a therapist one on one. I am really proud of Heart of Clouds and the interventions I put inside. It’s going to be the same in The Seaheart. I’m going to address the concept of bullying in terms of the boy — who I have named Lancer and show the backstory. He is a young sailor — 15 and a half. Teenie is 14 and a half this year. What I am going to do in these novels is grow them up? Each year Teenie will meet a different boy and I will address social problems as a backdrop in the novel — as therapist.
A better way to work, and much faster! Films as interventions. In Heart of Clouds I modeled how a boy and girl might meet and make friends? I showed a addicted family system in T’s mom — also a strong, kind figure in Honeygarten as a positive introject. For Devlin, I showed how grief can be coped with?
It took so much out of me last year to write that novel. I don’t want to have to work with this minimal level of support. I just can’t. There are one or two things I need myself. Not a lot, but? A few things.
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So, V Berth as metaphor. Sleeping on the sea while she rocks you to and fro and you hear the little laps against her hull, and the night birds in the harbor. I cried about my mother, yesterday. There is no one for me to call. I have to invent a new family — of friends now. I guess this is a life passage we all take but God. My forties. So hard. So alone. The other night in the harbor on Barush’s boat — the fat blonde seagoddess type says “You need to calm down.”
Well, high strung types aren’t calm and fat like you.
No, we aren’t. Also? We are intelligent. What she didn’t like is that she wasn’t getting any attention. So she had to start in on me ad try and slice me apart. Most women always have. I have Moon opposition Venus in my chart — uneasy placement. This is one of those years when you have to make a break for it? But it was so long ago that you did, and your strength is so ebbed right now. Just ebbed.
A berth is a place to curl. And be warm. My literary erotica is going to make a lot of money. Really a lot. With that money I can help others and help heal the world — and be able to make the healing films I want to make as a therapist.
It’s just so effing Herculean. It is and it makes me cry and feel weak.
I wanted to bolt for that Victorian house. The thing is, he will never help me. I own half of two of these things. He has his parent’s house to go to. I need one. I need my own place. I just cannot be here anymore. I can’t.
Last night in the darkness I went down to Miramar Beach and just walked in the quiet by the sea. I have loved that beach since I was very little. Such a calm little bay. Like San Simeon.
In my trunk are those letters from V. The most exquisite thing anyone has ever seen. Ever. They will be a movie. So the world can see.
I have to make that happen. I knew the same builder built that little Victorian that had built V’s house. That film could have been shot there. It could have. It really could have. God. That was all I wanted and needed last summer. I have to have my own base from which to operate. I have to.
Once something sells, like Velvet Babe, or Heart of Clouds — I am going to be able to do that. I HAVE TO.
VALENTINE BONNAIRE - WRITER 