I think I slept through Earl. Literally. Last thing I remember, Kim and I were helping Doris Ward move her wrought iron lawn furniture into her garage (furniture right on the cusp of being too heavy for a hurricane to lift — the worst type to move). Doris lives in the center of Edgartown. Glad to help. Really. Just really wanted a cup of coffee at the coffee shop. But glad to help.
No, I can’t. Which is okay. Chappy teaches limitations. There’s much emphasis on our potential these days, but sometimes it’s good to know where potential meets the horizon. And stops. Just stops.
I‘m easily confused. And I’m not meteorologically gifted. But I can’t believe that I am alone in being confounded by this summer’s weather. I find it disorienting to have a September or October northeaster in August. The markers are all off. The town should not be rife with people as boats are being torn loose from moorings. Presidents should not be vacationing here as an eastern wind unseats small children from their stations.
I’ve noticed lately how green nature is — it uses everything it makes. A leaf feeds the soil, a mouse feeds a crow, a sun feeds the plant. I wonder if there’s a lesson to be learned. Somebody should give nature an award or something — make sure it feels recognized.
Chappy doesn’t ask a lot from us. Just stay out of her poison ivy and ticks, and we’re good. But she gives a lot in return. More than one soul has been healed on a cool summer night, the stars, the owls, the salt breeze working in concert to soothe the senses.
If Chappy were to become a state — and I think that the subjunctive case is proper here as Chappy has yet to achieve statehood — then I believe it would be neither a red nor a blue state. No, I believe it would be more of a seagull gray. And the state would vote accordingly.
I’ve been wondering what the character of our Chappy is. I hear much about it being lost, but it would be a help if I knew what I was looking for, in order to find it. Maybe, as my housemate Bob suggests, one could find some answers in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Or Character Lost.
