““It was as if rather than being there in that moment, I was somewhere else, wishing I could be there. . . . The strange reverse-nostalgia itched at me every time I stepped from the boat to the stilt house dock, and it was several minutes before I could slough it off and relax. I think as much as anything else it was a weighty sense of gratitude, as well as the foreknowledge that whatever this was--this occupation, this friendship, this parallel life--it would not last forever.””
