Isle of Springs Column: The end of summer

Tue, 09/18/2018 - 8:00am

The storm raged across the island just after noon on Thursday, Sept. 6. Wind sent the trees into a tailspin; fallen branches flew from one resting spot to another, to another; rain pelted the windows and geranium blossoms.

The lights went out half way into the fifteen minute storm. Twenty-four hours later CMP had not restored them. At six-thirty on Friday night, in the darkening light of our dining room, I announced to Roland, There is a part of me that hopes the electricity wont get restored. That would make it OK that Jack and Pamela were smart to turn around and go back to the Vineyard from Boston, instead of visiting us for ... Before I could say, week-end,the lights in the room clicked on, then off, then on.

Stove, hot water, reading lights, computers, and the eighth episode of Mind-Hunter would return to our lives. The few families left on the isle would have to take cold showers, improvise ways to get their morning coffee, keep the food in the frig from spoiling and read by candlelight. When did Islanders get electricity?I asked. Can you imagine? We are so dependent?

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Late Friday afternoon, I heard that CMP would call our island manager to let her know when they were on Sawyers Island so she could pick them up. A tree, Kim announced, had fallen on a wire over near Mackenzies. The company had announced we would be back on line sometime before six. It as five-thirty and she had not heard from them.

I needed to vent: almost thirty hours without power and a derailed weekend with good friends. Roland was still in town having waited for news whether to shop for two or four. So I called Eric in California to tell him that we had been out of electricity and, in case it was off for days, our friends decided to cancel their trip. My disappointment made a good excuse to all him. His heart is connected to the Isle of Springs; he likes to keep posted on island happenings. That is crazy, They should come.(He was so comforting,) First visit to the island?I replied. No hot water, tepid coffee and showers, no refrigeration, no internet, two sets of narrow dark stairs?” “Yeah,he muttered, probably remembering how old his parents and their friends are. Well, at least, go over and take a picture of the tree, mom.

Good idea. I could kill two birds with one walk,I thought. Three days before I had left a towel slung over a rock at the Ridlon beach. Pat and I had gone there to read and chat. Because it was so hot, we sat in the water at the edge of the shoreline to cool off. We would scoot back each time we felt the tide creep up However, we were so engrossed in our conversation, I took no mind to check on my belongings: sneakers, socks, expensive blue sun shirt, (on sale), and a beach towel of great size. Fortunately, while in the midst of one of our deep conversations, the blue of the shirt caught the corner of her eye as it swam between us. She helped me rescue the shirt, the floating sneakers and the beach towel. You cant carry that towel home. It is far too heavy.she announced as she laid it over the rock. You can pick it up tomorrow.Of course, tomorrow came and went like the storm, and I neglected to hike across the island to retrieve it. I wondered if it was still there. I set out across the island.

My first stop was to check out the reason for the blackout. I spied a long, long stick-like tree had snapped off its almost as long base and now rested on a wire. There was the culprit, in the woods between Vaydasand Mackenzies. (Turns out this was speculation, not fact. Blown fuses were at fault.)

And the towel had held its ground, most likely weighed down by the torrent of rain. The after-the-deluge-sun had dried it to a weight I could manage.

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Because most of you islanders have migrated from your cottages to your homes, an eerie silence blankets the isle by day. So when I walk across the island, I notice that I step carefully, softly, almost tip-toeing as if someone were asleep. It made me wonder during my walk to check the tree on the wire and rescue the towel, if those of you who have left realize a bit of each of you remains, in spite of your absence. The top of the hill neighborhood and the less clustered cottages still signal cheer, warmth and welcome, even in the nippy air the storm brought in. Your spirits, to use the current teen language hang outin different forms. Patsy and Wills flower boxes brim with pink, purple and red annuals and trails of vinca green; Jennys pert Black Eyed Susans stand out amidst some scruffy neglected flora. On down the path is the empty Sturgis cottage, but it still smacks of a hearty population, not of people but of stones, lovingly painted with words of peace and love. One lone white aster stands straight up in their old tomato bed, like a light in the dark. I am tempted to pluck it, but I imagine a Sturgis peeking out the window and catching me.No, leave it there in all its glory. Cant have an empty Sturgis house.

On the way down to the Ridlon beach I noticed a hardy ring of geranium plants filling the Vaydascircle garden, the pink and white dotted flower heads lively despite the storm. On my return up the path, I pluck a few, almost falling navigating the rocks and roots that lie outside the circle. I whisper to myself, Patty wont mind. She is in New Jersey. She left her hanging baskets on my porch steps the day they left. She wont mind.Before that, I had considered stealing a few of Katy Richardsons collection of perennials at the back of the house, a bright contrast to the stark image of the drawn shades over the front windows. No view to the sea, a reminder that the Island, too, is closing down.

It was a lonely, yet delicious walk. The silence served as a tranquilizer, after an especially visitor and event-filled summer. While stepping onto the bridge-path, just after the Thomas-Morehouse house, out of the corner of my eye, I spy white blooms erect on three stalks in one of their gardens. I am not sure if it is phlox or a type of hydrangea, but these plants are definitely in charge at this time of the season. ( I told you that a piece of each of you remains.)

Then I spot the first Islander I have seen in an hour. Mike Potts exits the cottage (Alison must be cooking dinner) walking in slow-motion past the cairn and into the Casino. I speculated maybe this is part of a ritual where he goes inside and stands, or pulls up a chair to sit and relish the solitude of that ancient building, a place that we fill each summer with the clatter of food dishes and drinking and dancing as well as hymns and reverence . . . perhaps he is catching the still small voice of calm.