Projects

I buy tobacco from the local shop. When I'd started, the woman at the counter said I shouldn't. I told her I had my reasons.

I tried to build a boat once. So many had sailed past my window over the years that I, at one point in my closed-off life, thought it might be worth a go. I spent hours every day working at it. After a few months, as it started to take shape as something resembling seaworthy, locals would ask me why I didn't just buy a boat and add to it from there. I never really had an answer.

As the months turned to years, my ship approached completion. However, it also looked a bit of an eyesore. While it had a certain appeal to it, its made-from-scratch nature gave it a distinguished aesthetic from the rest of the harbour.

The harbour master, going through a rough time and needing something to sink his teeth into, decided my work presented a target. He came to me one day, as I rested in the sun, telling me I couldn't keep that thing in the docks much longer. We argued for the duration of the afternoon, attracting the attention of other well-established members of the village, most of who agreed with him that my boat was simply too... to put it in their terms, shitty.

By the end of the day, we reached a compromise: If I moved my boat out of the water and into a shed of some kind, I could work on it and possibly sail when the project reached its completion.

After moving my ship, I visited the shop and bought my first bag of tobacco.

I go back to the shed nearly every day. The boat's finished, but I'm still waiting on the harbour master's permission to take it back to the water.