Madras

It comes as no surprise to me that on the very best days I find myself camera-less. Not the camera-phone, for that is my trusty companion, but the proper one, which somehow manages to be out of battery or at home. And then I wonder about all this recording. Is that God is telling me that I will become even more forgetful than I already am, and if I don't record on a daily basis, all that is going on, all that is around me, it will just all merge into one gray and blue blur?

On Friday morning we hiked for hours into the woods, the fields, the marsh, and finally to the beach. Like something out of the D-Day landings (but reversed, I suppose) we went over a stile, through some poison ivy, some wild pink roses that scratched at one's ankles, up a steep, sandy cliff and suddenly the whole azure-blue Atlantic was revealed in all its glory, with a few grey houses perched on the hill above, seagrass covered the dunes, and then the white sand. Miles of it. "Oh gosh, look at this!" I think I said. Not quite Dr. Livingtone, but a revelation nonetheless. It was the kind of beach that people have their picture taken on. Not holiday snaps but the posed Christmas shot, wherein the blonde family in their white shirts, blowing in the wind, sit for their annual picture, which may or may not be airbrushed to show the family in its best light. The Ralph Lauren ad -- sand in their toes, grass behind them and big white smiles emanating from sun-rouged faces. Dogs too. Two of them came with us, a pug and an Australian Shepherd, all wiggly bums and schnarfing, and stops for swim-dips along the way. Ospreys, Canada Geese & Sea Gulls dotted the path. "Sometimes," said my friend, and I paraphrase, "Sometimes, I look at the sky and the land and it all merges into one, as if God is all of nature and we're always part of it, too, but we don't realize it until that moment." That may sound trite and odd from afar, but there, in that place, at that particular time it felt just right.

There are four thirteen year old girls here who have become children again. They ride their bikes from the house to breakfast, to the beach. They play on the sand dunes in the sea, and bury each other and scream and shout and then come back to the bikes to whizz around the island again. All of them are sunburnt and happy. With her long legs and her long, curly hair, mine looks like a mermaid. At night we sleep in a huge white bed and she snores softly next to me, blissful.

The whizzing around the island part is interesting. You cover more ground, and can see into more lovely gardens that way. J has always maintained that sightseeing on a bike is the way to go and I wonder now why I've never discovered this before. I ride my bike like a child, standing up on my pedals and swaying from side to side to go faster, in probably a most undignified way, but it's more exhilarating like that. The gray shingles whoosh past, with the blue and pink and purple hydrangeas, and the ubiquitous pale blue sky.

We are LA refugees in a town where people have been coming back for generations. The uniform is polo shirts and short madras skirts for women and salmon-pink slacks and polos for men. I'm sure we stick out rather sorely in our jaunty hats and large sunglasses and iced coffees. Mobile phones don't exist. There is muttering about 'getting out of town' before the season starts. Apparently that season in August when most of the visitors arrive and Nantucket is at its fattest. Vacationers swell onto the streets and mingle not seamlessly with the old tribe in their patchwork madras.