Back in the water!

After nearly 18 months of the boat on the hard stand, today it went back in the water.  The kind of feeling you want to keep in your handbag, ready for emergencies.  Two years ago flooded back into my consciousness - a summer sprinkled with happy boating memories (see photos).  The two years since seeming drowned in challenges, yet we're afloat again and looking forward to coasting through another beautiful summer.  Thank you, Alan, for your hard work.

The forklifts work the port like ants, seeming to scurry to and from the Mount.  Viewing the Mount across the harbour while being rocked gently in the arms of the sea, I realise how much I have missed this perspective.  I drink in the moment.  My shoulders must have dropped at least an inch.  The mood seems to be spontaneously caught by the girls.  They settle down on the deck and proceed to pause pensively, looking out over the water, pencil poised over paper ready to catch their musings.

Boat berthed, we are graced with a performance of their creativity - Natalia has written a poem and Jasmine dances a jig whilst singing "Mr. Sea, Mr. Sea, Mr. Sea".

Such moments deserve recording.  Jasmine wrote her poem when we got back home.

 

Sailing on Mister Sea Poem

 

It is nice to see the sea

waving in farewell

as I sail across

Mr. Sea.

Boat goes bumping,

wind goes howling,

darkness falls.

A morning of fun awaits me.

It's morning!

I jump out of my PJs,

it's time to go fishing.

Next minute

a beauty king fish strangles

from my line.

Next minute

we're in the harbour

it's time to get out.

I wave farewell to the sea.

The sea waves back.

Next minute

I'm scampering on hot sand

in the hot morning heat.

 

NATALIA McQUARTERS, 8 yrs old.

 

 

 

Mr. Sea

I am on the sea... hooray!

The underwater world

whizzing by.

The fish jumping.

The water splashing.

The next morning

I jump out of bed.

I go to the side

of the boat and jump

out of my PJs.

We're at London!

JASMINE McQUARTERS, 6 yrs old.

 

 

SOME OF OUR MEMORIES FROM THAT SUMMER...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beckoning

The dazzling blue-gold day

reaches down from far, far away

between the forbidding high-rises

amongst the shades of grey.

The warm, slim finger of light

searches the streets still cold with night,

over the heads of down-turned eyes

to find my shoulder – tap, tap, tap...

The down-turned eyes shoot from side to side

around the back but not up high

“Who are you, stranger, where are you?”, say I,

brushing a light speck from my shoulder.

The long blue fingers of warmth

then run to play hide and seek,

shout "Boo!" like playful children
as I turn the corner, blind.

Surrounded by fun-loving laughter of sun

I finally say, “I know you, my friend

for you are the one, who reminds me to stray

far, far away from the dull, dark grey,

into the fields and trees of green,

to drink the fragrances, smell the stream,

yes, you are the one who reminds me to stay

far, far from the blues in a golden day”.

BY JEANETTE JONES

 

Butterflies

Nature's coloured beauty on double wings,
from self-imposed chrysalis
through struggling transformation
it stretches to explore its world.

Free flight on the wings of the wind.
Immaturity believes in the capture
of the creature, in the perfect picture,
and so chases in awed rapture.

Once immature, others have learnt
that what hands can't hold
can be held in the heart
so beauty and butterfly never part.

BY JEANETTE JONES

This Currently Small Thing With No Working Title

With youthful passion

I scattered my heart out, raw,

on the pages of the first volume,

an offering to appease

those who wanted me,

understandable, in one piece.

Actors for my next volume?

Life lands on these pages,

like a reality show, requiring

most of all, a brave voice,

keen observation, thoughtful –

Kim Hill perhaps my choice.

 

“Verbal snapshots of a female Kiwi”

could bring agencies clamouring.

Yeah, right. 

The tui's wings beat in my ears,

my flightless self accepts

the first draft could take years.

I am far from comfortable

in this blinding spotlight,

revealing my blind spot.

It is difficult to find,

in the comfort of my night,

others of my kind.

My senses sustain me,

as I happily poke the dirt,

my vulnerability can reflect

yours in the glass

if you are still long enough

to allow me to pass.

BY JEANETTE JONES

The above poem is my playful (or evasive?) response to the following questions:

1. What's the working title for your book?
2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
3. What category does your book fall under?
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
8. What other books would you compare this to in your genre?
9. What inspired you to write this book?
10. What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

My book?  Did someone say I was writing a book?  AAARRGH!

 

Dawn Picken, a writer and Mum living in Mount Maunganui who I met at this year's Writers' Retreat, has tagged me and four others to answer these questions in her recent blog titled "The Next Big Thing". I want to bags a copy of Marcel Currin's next collection of poetry on fatherhood and family life - see his response to "The Next Big Thing" nomination here.  Dawn and Marcel would be my first two nominations for "The Next Big Thing" - a kind of (as Marcel puts it) "pay-it-forward online game in which writers nominate other writers as the next big thing".  Yes, I am a fledgling with few contacts.  So 50% of my nominations consist of a tagback and a retag.  :-)

 

The other 50% of my nominations do not have a blog and are not members of Facebook (as far as I know), which makes the nomination a little more difficult for them to respond to, but does not necessarily reflect their potential of being "The Next Big Thing":

Warren Parkinson - just launched his book "101 Hot Tips for Health and Happiness" - Warren, really enjoyed the first one - have you got another one in the making?

Elizabeth Jones - a woman who has my admiration for her life experience and wisdom, Elizabeth is planning to write a book about her father's experiences in World War I. 

(If they have no other publishing medium, I may publish their response here as part of a future blog).