On my deck, we skirt the Alaskan coastline, soon at Ketchikan, the whales and bears and Wi-Fi skilfully hiding themselves from my eagle eyes. They too, show up as signs for Heather and myself, though not often.

It’s been a week, not yet finished, of self-indulgence in the form of food most certainly, but also in the terms of surprising (Why should I still be surprised that I am surprised by grief?) sadness, heart-clutching longing for Emily, and also for my Charlotte and Don. I am not in contact with them as I opted for the non-Wi-Fi package, not wishing to spend hundreds of dollars more to stay in touch with the outer world, when really what I wanted was a respite from it anyway, a time to go inward.

Cruising is the perfect contradiction for me: enforced ‘solitude’ with about 3000 other people on a vessel packed with every form of activity (Axe-throwing, glass blowing or adult colouring, anyone? How about some celebrity trivia, aqua-sizing, or lawn bowling?), entertainment, and food that I have experienced, all within the size of a football field. Even so, I’ve mostly barricaded myself in the stateroom, optimising our 8th floor balcony, our French doors open always to the wildness outside. I am often slathered in blankets and layers as now, sitting outside, far away from the joviality, but close to the the depths of both joy and sorrow. The ocean and shores of our Canadian and Alaskan shorelines are lushly, vibrantly, eerily beautiful, with tree-clad, mossed-in coves, variant greens that contrast with the dark sea teeming with life that sometimes chooses to commune with us in the forms of whales and porpoises, but remains largely inscrutable.

I venture out each day approximately three times, for my gustatory indulgences. My travelling companion and dear friend, Heather, and I abandoned our 8:30 formal dining time for the ease and choice and ocean-filled windows of the 14th floor buffet where we patiently wait for perfect seats. The “Ocean View Cafe” is open most hours and always filled with abundance and the kindest of attendants. I have never been waited on with such genuine graciousness, nor been amid people with whom I wish I could be friends. I have had casual conversations with many other travelers, but the deepest and most real and warm have been those of the staff who harken from more than 50 countries, all in need of this job, more than any of us cruisers could possibly need any more indulgence.

My three activities thus far, other than my fastidious meals, have been a 10 pm ABBA dance party, which had me in tears and fleeing with sobs after 10 minutes, after hearing their famous song, “Does Your Mama Know;” then a female impressionist who sang Celine and Tina and Cher (complete with wigs!), regaling us with talent and laughs, but also causing tears to stream as she sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” to end her set. Even the stand-up comedian gut punched me with comments about his kids. It’s funny how triggering morsels of moments can be for a sole person amongst a delighted audience. We all live in our own private worlds, even on this massive ship.

Heather has been the most wonderful of companions: the party girl of this room, that’s for sure. Each day she is complimented multiple times for her glittery jewelry, her blue mascara, her vibrant head of curls, her singing. I am largely ignored, a small presence in the glow of her warmth. She’s gone to karaoke, art auctions, all the musical theatre and more. She gets lost wandering the hallways and comes back with stories to regale me with, the girl in the room, lost in her own thoughts. We laugh and we cry together and we commune deeply with no words, too: we’ve always been so easy together. Soul sisters, we can talk and talk or be perfectly silent, lost in our own reveries. I’m so grateful to have her in this otherwise lone endeavour that is transitioning me from one season to another.

When I left LIttle River, my garden was on its last legs, but there shall be final things to harvest, and jobs to prepare for the onset of autumn. Don will also be shortly leaving on a solo road trip through America with our camper van, perhaps for a few months. So it will be a solitary time, and also one which will likely lead me to work of the paid kind. My sabbatical of grief and healing is drawing to an end, though I still do not know what will manifest. This time with my precious friend in this landscape of supreme solitude spoiled only by the 3000 others I only occasionally encounter, is my time to prepare. It’s been a hibernation of sorts, earlier than the bears, but just in time for me to face some agony I hadn’t yet looked at head-on, to stand on the brink and become concrete, as Pema Chodron writes: knowing that I can stay here and not plunge off the ledge nor head back into the forest, but just stay still, acknowledging what is. What has become. What remains. What I have lost.

And in all these many words I have barely mentioned my Emily, about whom this is really all about. Why I am here, even. How did I get here, docking in Ketchikan shortly? Because of Emily. Why am I shrouded in blankets and a wool hat on this balcony? Because of Emily. Even in her absence, she is rooted so deep inside of me that, like a renegade blackberry bush, her rhizomes have spread everywhere. There is no healing, only learning a new way to live.