Saturday On The Vineyard
I could hear it even though the air was cold and the trees were almost bare. I could hear what it would be like in the hot July heat, the masses of people de-barking the ferry, carrying coolers and bags and children, looking forward to a weekend in the sun.Only now, in reality, all I can hear are people shouting “taxi!” as Sweet Girl and I walk through the Vineyard Haven parking lot to the bike rental shop around the corner.
Fitted to beautiful bright blue bikes that make me feel like I’m a little girl again, we head down the coast: Oak Bluffs, Edgartown, Tisbury. Our thighs start to burn ascending the steep hills, but the brisk breeze in our hair and the feeling of lightness that overcomes us as we coast down the other side makes it okay.
We stop at a small used bookstore in an old converted barn that smells like history and feel the first edition copy of the Complete Poems of Robert Frost, 1949, inscribed in fading pen: to Jane, with love. Good fences make good neighbors.
The island feels smaller than it is, we think, because the city is so large. Down at the empty beach we get sand in our shoes and wonder where the summer went. Lifeguard chairs no longer on duty, blankets and umbrellas stored away until the onset of the first 70-degree-day. It feels like a lifetime away.
We pedal past small streets and large shingled houses, down brick sidewalks and wooden docks where boats rock lonely, abandoned, dreading the winter and awaiting next spring.
We find sustenance at a small café, re-charging for the 10+ mile bike ride back. At the Edgartown lighthouse I tell Sweet Girl that we should buy a lighthouse, to which she responds, you mean one of those little ones? Like a paperweight? I say no, a real one, thinking that the weight of everyday life is something that perhaps owning something like a lighthouse could lift. Thinking that being lost myself, I could take solace in the ability to guide other people in the right direction, to bring them safely home.
The sky turns orange and purple and we say how we never see anything like this in the city. We dread returning, feeling comforted by the off-season Vineyard, feeling that life is simple here, that it makes sense. Tomorrow we both have to work in the city and are dreading a return to normalcy. What if we stay? We ask ourselves. What if we get jobs here, become locals, leave the bright lights and hurried crowds of the metropolis behind? What if? What if, what if, what if.
We board the last ferry, tired, and watch the island disappear into darkness, for we know that we have promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep.
posted by Victoria Comella @ 1:57 PM
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