Five years, well well well.

Don't call it a comeback; I've been here all along.

Five years later, and my blog still sits in its cobwebbed corner of the Internet. Five years later, after a career change and the launch of the boat whose building I described here.

Now my "struggles with the craft" have expanded to the fine motor skills and applied knowledge of bedside nursing in a busy emergency room. The same fine motor skills that helped me eyeball a drill bit down a smeared pencil line in wavy-grained wood now help me start IVs on the fragile thready veins of sick patients.

There is little detail to be shared here; between privacy concerns on the one hand, and a fear of dramatizing the surprisingly un-dramatic work of nursing, I will demur. What I can share is my ongoing awe at being present during some of the most poignant moments of people's lives.

As the year turns the corner to winter -- dry leaves blowing huskily across the road; Orion glittering at night -- the boat sits bundled in the garage and my chartbooks share counter space with textbooks. I am lucky to be living a full life.