coreKnell

Home again, home again. I have finally arrived home after a side trip to visit relatives, and it feels like I’ve been gone for about two months. I’m beginning to digest the amazing experience known as Viable Paradise XIII, though a lot of it requires further processing. I had fully intended to post every day during the workshop in progress, but that quickly fell by the wayside once it was in full swing. Now that I am home and have begun the decent into normalcy, I’ll try recollect events as best I can.

Saturday, October 3rd

Holy crap, I’m suddenly in Martha’s Vineyard, banging away on my laptop at the Island Inn and anticipating the start of Viable Paradise! How did this happen? I had big plans to write like 100,000 words a day and read even more, so that I could show up at this moment feeling completely prepared and confident. Now, without warning, that Big Event that had seemed so far in the distance for so long — has begun! One minute I’m worrying about Life Stuff — anything and everything but Viable Paradise — and the next I’m on an island across the continent, battling jet lag and preparing to write with a purpose again.

This feels a bit like one of those boilerplate noir stories where someone wakes up in unfamiliar surroundings, with no recollection of how they got there and a suspicion that their life is about to change. Admittedly, as unfamiliar surroundings go, one could do far worse than Martha’s Vineyard. Especially considering that most such protagonists wake up in a parking lot or a seedy bar with a king-sized headache and a lump on their head. And then the fog lifts, bit by bit…

Oh, yes. I do vaguely remember waking up way too early and sitting on airplanes all day. And then something about a harrowing trek through storm clouds in the belly of an impossibly small flying object. And humidity. The fog is indeed lifting.

I’ve got… one ticket to paradise.

The journey from California to Massachusetts proved, for the most part, uneventful. This was at least partly due to sleep deprivation. Things finally started to get interesting at Boston Logan, where I transferred to a Cessna puddle-jumper for the final leg of the journey.

On arrival at Terminal C, I encountered the first sign that sinister events were about to transpire when, without warning, the normal waiting room chairs were replaced with this row of vaguely creepy rocking chairs:

Great Hera, the plane was small. I had been expecting as much, but when first ushered across the runway I seriously doubted we would all fit inside. My head touched the roof as I buckled in. This unfortunate shot was the only one I could manage before we were warned to turn off our phones. The perils of using your phone to take pictures. I am in the back of the plane, to give some perspective.

The Cessna ride itself was actually quite exhilarating. Though I can understand why the faint of heart would steer clear, I highly recommend it as a perfect introduction to the island. Ours was the final flight of the evening, and we literally flew off into the sunset, then pierced the clouds and rode them out into the ocean. Think the opening of Triumph of the Will, only with occasional stomach-lurching turbulence. Another passenger noted what looked like scratches of desperation along the roof, as if a previous flier had attempted to claw his or her way out. But we landed safely, albeit following a violent round of the hokey-pokey as we dove under the clouds and toward the runway.

And then the real fun began.