2023 11 27
A particular calm
My trip to Martha’s Vineyard wasn’t scheduled until after Labor Day which gave me something to look forward to all summer.
The island holds so many of my childhood memories that it functions as a form of time travel. Memories sealed away spring forth at a moment’s notice. The sounds of flip-flopped children running across Main Street, the thwack of tennis balls in back yards of grand houses, the smell of newly cut grass, the feel of slow salty breezes coming off the bays. It’s not easy to unforget how effervescent and hopeful those youthful summers were. The memories are so vivid and intimate as to be almost embarrassing.
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A particular calm
My trip to Martha’s Vineyard wasn’t scheduled until after Labor Day which gave me something to look forward to all summer.
The island holds so many of my childhood memories that it functions as a form of time travel. Memories sealed away spring forth at a moment’s notice. The sounds of flip-flopped children running across Main Street, the thwack of tennis balls in back yards of grand houses, the smell of newly cut grass, the feel of slow salty breezes coming off the bays. It’s not easy to unforget how effervescent and hopeful those youthful summers were. The memories are so vivid and intimate as to be almost embarrassing. 
This year’s big event was Hurricane Lee which passed just east of Cape Cod and lashed my cousin’s house, where I was staying, with rain and 40-mile-an-hour winds. These were the gray days but there were sunny days too. I took the camera with me whenever it was my turn to pick up fresh fish at the Menemsha Fish Market or vegetables at nearby local farms.
Now that the summer rush was over a particular calm had begun to settle over the Island and the Islanders themselves. The kind of quiet right after a storm when you appreciate what it is like to be silent and alone.
