Hannah Merker lost her hearing in a skiing accident nearly 30 years ago, but not her talent for listening.

Hannah Merker at home in Boothbay Harbor, Maine

Photo by Bernie Monegain

As she makes clear in her book, "Listening Ð Ways of Hearing in a Silent World," first published in 1992, there are abundant ways of listening. Most of them have to do with the heart.

Today, at age 68, Merker, always a close observer, a writer, a lifelong sailor and a liveaboard, is beginning a new phase of life, embarking on a new adventure and, as is her wont, honing her listening skills as she makes her way.

Her beloved husband, Harvey Lorin Rosenstock, died of a brain tumor in July 1999. Before he died, Merker and Rosenstock, along with their fellow liveaboards, had been given an eviction notice. The Glen Cove, N.Y., marina that was their home had been sold. The new owners would not lease to liveaboards. It would become what Merker calls "not-a-pebble-out-of-place sort of place." It was no place for live-aboards.

"There were other places I could have moved to on Long Island," she says, but they were bigger and crowded."

Before her husband became ill, he and Merker had decided they would move to Maine, where both had family, and find there an idyllic spot for Haimish, the sloop they had turned into a home. Merker buried her husband's ashes at sea in August, the box wrapped in a nautical map of the creek they had so happily lived on for more than 12 years, the same spot Merker had lived on alone for seven years before meeting him. Merker flew to Maine in September and made arrangements to dock Haimish and also her former house boat, Betty Anne.

In October she set sail for Maine.

Merker sits at a table by the window in the small, one-story cottage she rents here overlooking Boothbay Harbor. It's like sitting at the window booth in a seaside diner. The place is cozy, but much roomier than the sloop. Parts of the sloop are here with her Ð shelves that hold hundreds of books; an old woodstove from the Betty Anne, which Harvey used as a tool stand, now doing duty as a potting stand; an old sea chest; a bench that Harvey made for Haimish; a pink sail. These remnants from her former life, along with Smudge, her hearing guide dog, and the four cats that spend their days basking in the sun, the small shoots of herbs and flowers she started by the window, are all part of her new life here.

The cottage is as close to the water as it can be while still being on land. Merker wears layers of cotton and wool. Salt and pepper curls frame a face, distinctive because of her high cheekbones and the upward lift of her chin.

Merker can communicate by signing, and she is also an accomplished lip reader, able to carry on a conversation at the same clip as someone who hears. She looks out the window. It's low tide. There are mudflats all the way to the distant footbridge. Their beige mass glitters in the brilliant sun.

There's no wildlife in sight this morning in early March. But Merker is expectant, eager to find out what she'll see, what will draw her attention. "It's the first year in 20 years that I'm living on land, and I never thought I'd live on land." she says.

Her tone is more one of surprise than complaint. "For once upon a time, long ago, before we learned to live on dry land, we were fish, creatures of the swamps and the seas," she writes in "Listening."

Merker's story of arrival at this seaside place is one of adventure. Her life here is yet to unfold. The unknown lies before her. There is so much listening to do. For now-and perhaps forever Ð it's a life that's imbued with memories of Harvey, the love of her life, a man who always heard her and whose words often restored sound to her silent world.

Harvey would tell Hannah when he heard a jazz rift, or when the water was lapping against their boat, or that the great blue heron she was observing was calling to his mate. Her memory filled in the sound.

"He literally sailed into my life," she says.

In May 1986 both of their boats were docked in Huntington Beach. Both Rosenstock and Merker were out for a walk on the dock, he with his dog, Lucky, she with Sheena, her hearing guide dog. From that evening on, Harvey became a part of her life. "Harvey was such a presence," she says.

They moved in together, first aboard Merker's houseboat, Betty Anne, later aboard the sloop they bought and christened Haimish. There, on the bow of Haimish, they were married in May 1986.

Merker grew up near City Island in the East Bronx. Her father, a physician and sailor, made house calls. She recalls sailing with him aboard the Emma B when he called on City Island patients.

Just as she's sailed pretty much since she can remember, she's also written. She published her first piece at the age 10 and has kept writing since. She's also worked as librarian (the Library of Congress for 10 years), teacher and bookshop owner. She's typed many "boring, boring" manuscripts and she's worked as a barmaid in a Chinese restaurant.

By the time she met Harvey, she had been married and divorced twice. He had been widowed three times. She has three grown children, one of them Harvey's by a previous marriage. She had lived alone for 14 years before she and Harvey met, more than seven of those years afloat.

Harvey was a brilliant engineer and could make anything work, she says. When they lived afloat in Glen Cove, he commuted to the city every day, to his office at the World Trade Center. She commuted to her office Ð from Haimish to the Betty Anne.

Harvey died aboard Haimish 13 months after surgery. He couldn't speak for months before he died, but he and Merker were accustomed to speaking in a mix of American sign language and their own. Before he died, he crossed his arms over his heart to tell Hannah he loved her.

Merker's trip to Maine three months later was fraught with mishaps Ð and good fortune. She set out on Haimish with her four cats; her dog, Smudge; a friend; and two captains. They motored out of Glen Cove, but 16 hours later as they approached the end of Long Island the transmission gave out.

With a bad back worsened by sea travel, Merker decided to let the captains handle the repairs while she made her way to Maine by land. How she would manage that she didn't yet know so she sent out a mayday to Long Island Boating World, for which she writes a monthly column.

Just a couple of hours later, Rory Bedell, a stranger to Merker, walked down the dock and announced, "I'm here to take you to Maine." Bedell carried a cup of coffee in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, says Merker. She wasn't sure which of them her passenger would prefer.

The two of them, along with Merker's menagerie, headed for Maine in the red jeep Bedell had recently won. Boatless and therefore homeless when she arrived in Maine, Merker ended up at a motel for a week. Meanwhile, more things went wrong with the repair of Haimish. Through a Maine friend she had met at her Long Island bookshop she found the cottage she lives in now. "I got here, and the minute I saw it, I knew it was perfect," she says.

Though the repairs were eventually completed, Merker has decided to sell the sloop because it would be too difficult for her to keep up the mechanics. She plans to put the repaired Betty Anne in the water and perhaps use it as her "summer place."

Here, in her cottage, surrounded by her pets, her books, her work, pieces of her old homes and remembrances of her late husband, the view of the vast sea that they both loved, she is learning to listen in new ways Ð and healing. She writes monthly columns for four publications, reviews books and is at work on a new book called "Waterborn." It's about 20 years of living on the water.

Hannah Merker may be surprised to find herself living again on land after 20 years afloat. But she is by no means landlocked. Her way of thinking, her way of listening is very much waterborne, like the tides she observes from her window.

"I love watching the tides," she says, "and the tides here are big ones. Coming here was probably the very best thing that could happen to me.

"Being in Maine has been a very healing place for me. I needed a place like this."

Freelance writer Bernie Monegain lives in Brunswick, Maine. She is a frequent contributor to Points East.

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