A New Year's Vision for 2026 - The Year of the Eye
It is New Year's Eve 2026. I am sitting at the dinette aboard the yacht Moira, anchored in a wilderness bay where there are no houses, no people, no roads, no fences. Frederique is making digital drawings of mermaids, her fingers moving across her tablet with quiet intention. Café de Anatolia flows softly from our Bluetooth speaker—a voice carrying us across continents and time. Flash, our monstrous pussycat, sprawls across the table behind my rather ancient notebook, purring as if he holds the secrets of the universe. An excellent internet connection via smartphone means I am not really alone, though I am surrounded by solitude. This morning, Frederique and I walked the wilderness trail to Pipette Creek with a small, feral forest friend—now ten years old, a mother cat we rescued when she was tiny and wounded. She follows us as if we are her parents. The day before, a huge low pressure system blasted New Zealand, sending cool winds northward into our anchorage. I feel them now—the...