Thursday night, 24 November 2005 [10:45 p.m.]:
Hi, there, my honey.Well you are probably thinking that I have forgotten all about you since I haven’t written in so long! But of course not a heartbeat moves in me without I think of you – you are much loved, cherished and missed.
I don’t know why, but I have been so very, very tired lately. I’ve been staying up like usual but I don’t seem to get anything done. Heaps have gone on – I don’t know how I’ll catch you up on everything!
Here is the best, most exciting thing! – Don posted your package to me from 100 Mile House on the twenty-first and it is on it’s way to me!!! You know, Don has been such a legend. Keith, he is a wonderful, wonderful person – he has really gone to bat for me and I owe him big time. I’m hoping when I come over to bring you your jacarandas that Don and I will be able to meet and to spend some time together. Oh, I just remembered – today was the day that I was supposed to fly out to Van. It’s only ‘cuz Don clued me into the weather on the Skeena in the winter that kept me from going. And now that I know that I’m hiking and I’ve got the time (probably will come in mid-July) I can get together all the stuff I’ll be needing. Today I ordered my tent (an expedition 2-man from a German company called "Robens"), two pairs of hiking pants – the convertible ones that zip off into three different lengths and are quick drying and one of those PackTowl things.
On Saturday I am going out of the metropolitan area to a plant nursery where the owner is an avid fly fisherman. He’s going to spend the morning and early afternoon teaching me the rudiments of the sport – how to rig up my line and leader, to cast and he’ll have a look at my flies. He gave me the email address of a man in Alaska (Rene from Ultimate Rivers) who sent me back a lovely letter about my hike up the Skeena and the steelhead and Dolly Vardens. He said that I shouldn’t go alone and that I need to check into the fishing regs. He also offered to put me in touch with some fishermen from the area and I think I will take him up on that. I’m going tomorrow to get some PVC conduit to make myself a case for the rod. One of these days I’ll make a small pouch for the reel.
Work has been completely shitful but if it weren’t for work I wouldn’t be able to come so I am stuck with it. Also, as a staff member I get special borrowing privileges at the Library and they even get in journal articles that aren’t in the University’s holding for free.
Honey, it is almost exactly one year since we "met" – we were so fresh and young and full of fun then. How I miss those days. I had no idea, not the tiniest sliver or glimmer, that you would turn out to be the person, next to Wozza, that I’d love the most in the whole world. I had no idea that you would transform me, no idea that you would set my feet on two amazing paths – my month on the Skeena solo and working on my Master’s. You know if you weren’t a guide you could be a motivational speaker (I guess that’s just a different sort of a guide).
I’d like to tell you about John S. but I have no idea how to explain it. All I know is that I am heartily disappointed and I don’t understand what has happened at all. He was eerily like Warren but maybe not so cruel. Well, come to think of it, maybe he was. I will tell you that, after a short series of nice emails, we went out on his motorcycle last Friday night. He picked me up and we went to my favourite coffee house in Parramatta, then we went to a mainly Thai restaurant in West Ryde and then he drove all the way to Manly!!! It was a beautiful night and the moonlight on the sea looked like beaten metal. He had a speaker/mike system in the helmets so we could talk and it was great. Then things got a little freaky and Monday afternoon I got a "Dear John" letter. But I had him over for dinner last night anyway and I’m hoping we can stay friends – he can’t explain what happened himself so I’ve got f*ck all chance of understanding it myself.
What is it with me, anyway? I have gotten Christmas presents for Graham, for Warren and for John S. – I just couldn’t help myself… I saw things that I knew that they would like and I just had to get them. I think that there will be three shocked gentlemen at Christmastime. Now Don is someone that I really should get a gift for and I have no idea what to get. He’s so funny, he’s one of those guys that doesn’t say a lot but when he does, it matters. Oh, gosh, the time he balled me out for contacting Jim and Deanna! I copped it for sure. But you have to hand it to the man – he did what he felt he had to do and that’s the cool thing about Don – you can always rely on him to be true to his word and to his beliefs. Thank you for letting me make his acquaintance. A top bloke.
Ah, the Aussie slang "bloke" – reminds me of an Australian movie "Wolf Creek" that I saw with Glenn W. last week. A story loosely based on the backpacker murderer Ivan Milat – excellent cinematography, score and characterisation. Glenn volunteers on projects overseas every year and he is the Philippines until just before Christmas working in some remote fishing village. Last year, he did two rotations in Thailand after the tsunami – he’s a forensic pathologist.
Grizz, I am going to finish and go get ready for bed a bit earlier than usual. I have lots to tell you but it will have to way ‘til another day.
Looking forward to seeing the night sky on the Skeena – and being with you in the stars. You’ve given your precious Sage hat to the right person ‘cuz I’m taking it to the Skeena where you wanted to be and it’ll get to be a fishing hat again. The only thing is, honey, that I feel a little guilty after I saw Jessi’s post – now that I’ve found out that she fished with you, maybe it should go to her. Maybe I can set it up so that if anything happened to me, Wozza can organise it for her to have it then.
All my love and about 95% of my thoughts (LOL! no wonder I’m ditsy sometimes!). XOXOXOXOXO –
- Susan
posted by Susan @ 11:45 pm
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