Moored In The Shelter Of The Inlet

Home Again, Home Again; Jiggedy Jig! Since this is mostly a nonsensical phrase, I get to make up what it means and I'm making up that it means hooray for Penelope Anne Armstrong who has yet again "moored in the shelter of the bay."  And she is going to mix metaphors to beat the band in this post, because even that one little nautical phrase is a ganglia of symbolism. (In keeping with the nautical theme, I supposed I could have referred to coils of rigging rope rather than ganglia, but my teeth hurt right now and my mind is on nerves and tendril-like ganglion plexuses.)

The top coils of my clever metaphor that made me exclaim "Home Again, Home Again," is the fact that I finally signed a lease on an apartment today right after work--or really, right before after-work. (Interesting that I have chosen to let go anchor chain in a place called Anchorage.) Then during the real after-work period, I loaded up belongings and hauled them over to my new port.  But not Newport, remember; it's Anchorage.

I signed a lease, picked up keys and staked a claim with a roll of toilet tissue in the bathroom and a handful of boxed belongings in the living room.  When my landlady showed me up to the apartment, we looked around, left and walked out the door. I began following her down the hall and she stopped to ask me, "Aren't you going to lock your door?"  That's when it clicked.  No, not the lock, the idea that I had actually finally alighted.  (Still mixing metaphors, you say?  Well, maybe I'm a gull or an albatross or a puffin!)

Yes, I know it's just an apartment--yet another rental in a long line of places that aren't really mine, but it's my home now, and if for some unexplained reason it turns out to be less permanent than even the last couple of months of parking my toothbrush at temporary stations, I am still rejoicing that I have a home again--jiggedy dadgum jog! 

It actually is in the shelter of the bay in that Anchorage is a port city and my apartment is right downtown with a spectacular 180-degree-plus view of Cook Inlet, Mt. McKinley 300 miles away, Mt. Susitna (and other mountains off in the distance,) the ship yard and Ship Creek where people go to watch people look at fish.

I'm happy. I haven't been unhappy, though, as I've been cruising to this point. Who could be unhappy working in Montana or driving the Alcan or staying in the work-residence where my shipmates and I have formed close-quarter alliances and shared mermaid stories? Metaphorically speaking, of course.

It hasn't been just working or driving or staying--it's been...well, it's been something I don't quite have words for at the moment. Living, I guess. Sharing head space. Getting along with life. Receiving and relinquishing keys.

What next? I wonder.