HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

If anyone’s having anything other than an emotional black hole of a week, please contact me at the above e-mail address: I’d love to be cheered up.

First of all, post-Thanksgiving is bound to present a letdown. Many of us have dropped loved ones off at the boat. Granted, that’s often a joyous experience, but sometimes it’s quite the reverse. I had a full week with my son, Charlie, who lives in LA, a city he deplores, and works at a movie production company called Castle Rock. He misses the Island, however, and when he’s back for the holidays, he not only catches up with most of his Vineyard-based buddies, he can also depend on other members of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School diaspora being here. It works great because around the time I’m ready to fall into bed with a book — around 9 p.m. — the young whippersnappers are ready to rumble at the Wharf or the Ocean Club or Seasons.

Okay, so Charlie takes off on Monday’s 9:30 a.m. boat, I get on with my life, or so I believe, then later in the afternoon on my way to my shift at the Food Pantry, WMVY plays Carly Simon’s song — you know the one — about the guy sailing. So the lyrics remind me of all our grown children who would rather be here than there:

I’m bound for the Island, I’ll be there by dawn, and it feels like, it feels like I’ve never been gone.

If you’re unfamiliar with the melody and Carly’s deep resonant voice, you won’t be weeping right now but, trust me, the song’s a killer.

At the pantry I tell operations manager Steven Auerbach about Charlie, the song, and I sniffle for a brief, decorous moment. Later at the top of Waban Park with its long vistas towards the sea, I plant my face in my lap and let the sobs roll out, all the while the lyrics “bound for the Island” churning in my brain. Damn you, Carly Simon!

Earlier that day at the West Tisbury Library, I ran into the always fascinating Niki Patton, playwright, philosopher, astrologer. She told me that for the duration we’re all running around fraught. Here’s the thing: After six years, Uranus (it’s so much easier to write it than say it) is making a transit out of its somber positioning in the solar system, but it’s leaving major skid marks as it goes. Mostly, Niki explained, the departure of this heavenly body places us in cumbersome situations. We need to move forward or backward because the status quo is too painful, yet it’s difficult to do anything but stay stuck and miserable. By March we’ll feel some relief, and April will bring showers but sweet ones. I’m probably explaining this badly, if not ludicrously, so go on Niki’s blog to read it first-hand, http://stargaia.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html.

Haunted by Niki’s message that we’re all schmushed under a ponderous planet, the next day, Tuesday, I run to Craftworks on Circuit to ask my close friend, Paula Catanese, if she felt fraught. Instead I encounter her partner, Ron DiOrio and, again!, Steve Auerbach. I’m so desperate for feedback that, although I know what I’m asking is basically a chick question (men having so little access to their interior life, poor dears), I say anyway, “Have either of you been feeling fraught lately?”

To his credit, Ron gives his usual wise and measured response, although I don’t recall exactly what he said. I turn to Steve, who looks blank. “Any thoughts?” I ask. Nothing.

Minutes later at the post office, I find my dear pal, Olive Tomlinson. “Are you feeling fraught?” I ask her. “Of course,” she says, and I’ve never seen her so deflated. “I’m worried about the economy. We’ve never lived through such a terrible time.” Inopportunely I mention dropping Charlie off at the boat, listening to Carly Simon and weeping on the bench in Waban Park. Suddenly Olive is Cher in Moonstruck when she slapped Nicholas Cage and told him to snap out of it. Not that Olive smacked me, but she put me in the picture of how much more dire life is for so many people. Next she lightens up and suggests lunch soon with me and Paula. I say, “Paula thinks you’re so funny. She doesn’t know how depressing you can be.” Olive laughs. We hug.

I move back out into the scorched earth of Uranus’s exit. Once again Steve Auerbach is in my path. Seeing as he’s popping up so much, I tell him a story about synchronicity: Recently my friend Gwyn McAllister sat on my couch and told me that before her father died this past September, the two of them had read Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge together. Then later that evening I dipped into the new Nick Hornby, Juliet Naked, only to learn one of the characters had given another, who happened to be in a hospital bed, a copy of Barnaby Rudge. Steve is unimpressed. I say where’s the benefit in being skeptical? It’s so much more fun to believe in stuff!

Some ten minutes later, I park my bike and make my way to my building and who should cross my path? Steve Auerbach. He says, “I just saw a license plate that read Barnaby Rudge.”

What a kidder, that Steve.

So that was my week, or at least the first couple of days of it. Live, laugh, love! And believe in stuff! That’s the only way we’re going to get through this mess.

The Minnesingers (show-vocalists of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School) are presenting their Winter Concert at the Old Whaling Church on Dec. 10 and 11. Special shout out to Oak Bluffs singers Sam Oslyn, Mitch Lowe, Olivia Becchio, Jenna Lambert and Amalie Tinus.

Happy birthday to John Alley today.

Don’t miss the last Holiday Blow Out for the Farmers’ Winter Market and Artisans Fair at the Ag Hall in West Tisbury on Saturday, Dec. 4 and Saturday, Dec. 18 from 10 to 2. There’ll be a crackling fireplace, music, and a hot lunch and soup provided by Debbie and Peter Koines. Oak Bluffs artisans and providers include Kathy Cowley’s New Moon Magick chocolates, Wendy Oliver’s Frosty Hollow orchids, Andrea Rogers’s lavender sachets and broom-corn brooms, Barbara Ronchetti’s Island Alpaca, and Whipporwill Farm.