The benefits of small town life:

A young girl walks to the bank, a few checks in her hand. This is her first trip to a bank alone to deposit checks made out to her — one from the holidays, another from a blue ribbon entry at the Agricultural Fair. She went over the details of what to do with her father, who assured her the bank was open until 5 p.m.

She walks with excitement and determination and arrives at the bank at 4:45 p.m. But a sign on the door says it has closed early due to construction. Emboldened by frustration the young girl texts the bank president to say: “You Buttocks!”

Not long after, while she is relaying the story to her father, whom she also calls a Buttocks for being wrong about the closing time, a return text arrives from the bank president: “Come on back. I’ll let you in.”

The flu entered the house and dropped anchor, putting the young girl out of school and on the couch for a week. She sweated and she swore, tossed and turned and grew bored and cranky when not feverish and nauseous.

The parents took turns staying home from work as she is still young enough to need sick-bed company. It was a mountain of upheaval with moaning and groaning all around. But there were bright moments, too, like watching the new Taylor Swift documentary, snuggled together on the couch.

His daughter had been a fan for years and they had seen her live in concert once, and waited all day outside the Old Whaling in Church in Edgartown when word went around that Taylor was there for a friend’s wedding. They became buddies with the paparazzi and fellow fans, and they all cheered when Taylor arrived.

All this was terrain he never would have walked, he thought while watching the film, without his daughter leading the way. And then he thought of dance recitals and gymnastics meets, of braiding hair and having his nails painted pink. He thought of glitter and the Gilmore Girls, of tutus, roller derby and living room fashion shows. And he thought of the day she was born, when he held her in his arms for the first time and she let out a sigh and lay her head upon his chest.

Then he heard her ask: Daddy, why are you crying? And so he told her exactly why and so much more.

Cue the tumbleweeds. Cue too bright sunshine, empty beaches, rural roads with scarcely a car in sight unless you count the cops and road crews.

This is winter vacation week on Martha’s Vineyard.

It’s the week when just about everyone is somewhere else — or so it seems.

Hello to all our friends out there in places warm, snowy, exotic and ordinary. We see you on Instagram. We miss you. Stay safe. And come home soon.

With love, from the Islanders left behind.

As everywhere else, life on the Vineyard has taken a dramatic turn in the past week.

The Gazette is working hard to bring our readers the most accurate and up-to-date information available on the coronavirus pandemic gripping the world and affecting our own community.

Much of the Island is closed and government and public health officials are working around the clock to mobilize and prepare.

We have joined the critical community-wide effort to slow the spread of the virus by closing our office, but we remain available by telephone and by email, through our new news tip button on our home page, and via Facebook and Twitter.

We pledge to continue to cover the events as they unfold, and we commend the many people who are working to navigate this crisis, including our own dedicated staff.

As always, we welcome your suggestions and contributions.

Please stay safe.

The therapy dog (they are all therapy dogs now) rolled in chicken poop and so is not much help on the snuggling front at the moment.

The carefully structured workouts with the kids have gone the way of chaos. Now they mostly consist of the father yelling and throwing balls at his children which they have to dodge. They call it the Backyard Dad Workout, and it seems the father is enjoying it too much. Mud wrestling is put on the schedule for the next day.

The teenage son is attempting a pandemic mustache, which makes him look like an out-of-work lounge singer picked up for vagrancy.

They all argue and make up and argue again - the whole family taking turns at playing the villain, peace-maker and everything in between.

They go for a drive to break the monotony, keeping the windows up and blasting the Ramones. They stop at South Beach, park on a solitary stretch of road and run to the water where they watch the waves crash onto the beach. Even the smelly dog is mesmerized.

Another day ends and they tuck themselves in for bed, calling out from room to room, “Goodnight, I love you.” If you close your eyes you can hear them, along with all the other voices out there saying the same thing deep into the night.

As per usual, the four chickens make their way home in the late afternoon. They amble slowly on their daily route through the neighborhood and surrounding woods. They claw the earth, scratching aside leaves and twigs as they look for an evening cocktail of grubs and insects.

And then they tuck themselves into their coop, just like they always do. But unlike every other night their owners forget to close the coop door.

In the morning, the man wakes and looks out the window and sees the open coop door. His heart drops. All manner of night creatures like to eat chicken. He remembers his daughter ordering them online and the two of them picking up the baby chicks at the post office. The chicks lived inside, chirping pleasantly for weeks near the kitchen table until old enough to be moved outdoors.

Not this too he fears while facing another day of confinement. How to tell his daughter he forgot to close the coop door and that all her chickens were, well ...

And then, from his window, he sees the chickens emerge from the coop — one, two, three, four — all of them intact and hungry for a new day. He lets out a celebratory cheer, the first one in weeks.

The dog has fallen in love. He’s a little fellow, a year and a half old with curly brown fur. She’s a six-year-old white shepherd who lives across the street.

When other dogs pass, the little dog merely barks hello. But when he sees the shepherd the noises he makes echo the timeless language of love — of first crushes and moonlit walks, of prom nights and long hours waiting by the phone.

The shepherd, who had been depressed its owner said until this crush began, makes similar sounds.

Before sheltering in place began for their owners, the dogs didn’t notice each other much. But as the walks became more frequent something switched on. The owners can’t walk past each other’s home anymore; the dogs won’t budge.

And because there is no reason to fight love, in any of its shaggy forms, the owners now chat while standing six feet apart while their dogs romp about, sharing sticks and tennis balls, loping the perimeter of the yard or lying on the grass, paw to paw, jaw to jaw.

Eventually, it is time to go home again. But the dogs don’t understand and why should they? They are young and in love and isn’t that a beautiful place to be.

The family went to sleep at 11 p.m. Three hours later, they woke groggily from their beds, the dog especially confused, and made their way to the backyard. It was very cold outside but this was peak viewing time for the Lyrid meteor shower. If daytime offered little variety, sheltered in place now for over a month, at least nighttime promised a show.

They placed blankets on the trampoline and covered themselves as they lay down together to look up at the clear night sky.

It felt like a cross between fishing and fireworks, the father thought. You waited and waited for that slight tug on the line, and then as if out of nowhere, but really in deep space, a star flashed across the sky. There were small streaks, medium streaks and bold flashes. Everyone cheered, like at the fireworks, their faces tilted upwards smiling at the heavens.

The father was the first to leave, claiming he was cold and wanted to revisit the warmth of bed. But once inside, he walked up the steps to the second floor and opened the window that looked out on the backyard. From there he watched his family watch the stars. He heard the mumble of their chatter and their exclamations of awe. He heard the wind and small creatures scuttling about in the dark. He heard from his younger self and his future self too. He heard from friends and family, ghosts of the living and the dead. He heard his heart thumping and a world crying.

All that he heard and more one night while watching his family watch the stars.