I have a new friend. He is a turtle. I think we get along because we see ourselves in each other. Like me, he is a procrastinator. Without fail he begins his trek across the ninth fairway of my golf course only after he hears the oncoming hum of my mower. I imagine him at home with best intentions to “this time” begin his journey to the swamp before the advent of my intrusive mowing, but each time finds himself only heading out the door once it is a bit too late. He crosses the hundred or so yards that bisect my back and forth mowing in about 30 minutes; his top speed is slower than most others’ lower gears (again, a reminder of myself).
The sea delivered a bumper crop, direct to our beachfront, of late summer succulents. Seaweed piled high like a teenager’s laundry at the foot of the bed.
Can’t get there from here. Bert and I said it first,
but Chappaquiddick truly took the sentiment to heart. Giving (or receiving) directions on Chappy is nothing if not impossible. Sisyphus himself would have said “aw, screw it” after the third run-through of the same direction to the same person.
There are markers on Chappy, real landmarks that denote location, which are fine if the location that you’re describing is within 10 yards of that landmark. Any further and you must rely on the ever-changing mailbox or disappearing street post.
The weather seems to know. Now is the time to rain. Now is the time to mark the passage of one season to the next. Seasons on Chappy follow less the Roman calendar than they do the school schedule. I was young once (though from my picture in last Friday’s Gazette one might not believe it. My personal take on it is that I look as though I was rudely transported from the cozy confines of my coffin in Romania to the Big Camp kitchen. If you look closely, you will see bats behind me). Back then, school started well into the first week of September.
I learned early that life is full of disappointments (thanks, little league and school dances). And my tenure on Chappy has done little to dissuade those lessons of youth. Chappy has a way of reminding one of one’s limitations, and of punishing too-generous helpings of pride.
I wonder if there is another place like Chappy. Is there any place quite so remote and yet accessible? Popular and unpopular? Populous and under-populated? Maybe what separates us from most locations is our location — tantalizingly close to connected, yet untethered. True, we are anchored to our spot by the land below water, just as is the “Big Island” is, but there is an air of a slow drifting away that permeates our senses.
I come from a family of wavers. We wave at each other (brothers, aunts, sisters in law), acquaintances (neighbors, businessfolk, fishermen), and strangers (you know who you are). I also come from a town of wavers. Pittsfield, though geographically located in Massachusetts, shares more personality traits with Fort Wayne than it does with Boston. Waving, then, is not only in my blood, it’s in my brain as well.
We’re all busy. More important, however, is that everybody else knows that we’re busy. Few street meetings or catch-up phone calls conclude without at least one reminder (lest we forget) that “I’m-we’re sooo crazy-wildly-insanely busy.” There seems to exist a fear within our community that we may be perceived as being idle. God forbid.
