I arrived in Newport on Sunday, driving the last short stretch down from Leicester, MA, that morning. The route took me from Massachusetts into Rhode Island and then back into Massachusetts and back into Rhode Island. It rained the whole way and was cloudy and chilly all day. I pulled into the driveway of my Thames Street rental and spoke briefly with the landlord before taking off on foot toward IYRS. I walked around the campus once, anxiously avoiding speaking to anybody, and then walked back home, stopping for a quart of motor oil and a six-pack of Narragansett Bay Lager. I unloaded my pickup in the spattering rain and met my roommate and our downstairs neighbor. We are all incoming IYRS students in different programs and we ended up hanging out on our porch until almost one in the morning.
Tomorrow—later today, technically—is the first day of class at IYRS. I have been trying to get to sleep for a couple hours now to no avail. My head is racing through all the things I do not know, all of the mistakes I will make. And yet despite the nervous pit in my stomach I am almost deliriously happy. More than two years ago I learned about this place and fell in love with the idea of it, but I never thought I would actually be able to do it. But, at 8:30am tomorrow morning, orientation will start, and my name will somehow be on a list of first-year students in the Boatbuilding and Restoration program.
In the afternoon, after the morning of paperwork and introductions is complete, I'll unload my tools into my bench in Restoration Hall, and from then on I'll be a wooden boat builder. A neophyte, to be sure, but less so every day.
No matter what time I eventually fall asleep tonight, tomorrow I will rise early, have coffee and nerves for breakfast, and then head down the street into a new world.