A simple idea
came to me recently. M and I were enjoying the hospitality of our friends who
own a second home on Fire Island. Life on Fire Island, no more than a giant
sandbar of scrub trees and marsh off the Long Island shore, is by definition
relaxed. There are no cars. No roadways. Big tire wagons and balloon wheel
bikes account for non-pedestrian traffic. Speed limit signs say 8 MPH.
It is a strange and hypnotic stasis here, day after day in the summer, I imagine, really felt
it on Sept. 12 as we strolled along Holly Walk to the Atlantic Ocean side.
Here are several simple cottages, vintage-looking, with wide open doors and
windows, there is nothing about these places that would suggest that any time
had passed from the days they were built after the Great Hurricane of 1938.
God, do you feel it. The people here move about, manage their time in leisure
like their family members have been doing for decades.
Like the tides.
People here are but organic matter, not cement or mortar, we yield. And if the
dominant presence is the tides then they will hold sway on all the living
things touched and held by them. We cannot do otherwise. That is the why of
these people coming back season after season.
Which reminds me
of a story by Alastair MacLeod, “The Road to Rankin’s Point” http://bit.ly/1KtlBI9. How touching are they –
grandmother and beloved grandson. There are the precious few who allow in the
other (tides) to a place where it becomes something more than we can know, and
is given voice. How we interpret that voice is up to us.
Next: Running for
Your Life: If the Greats Were With Us Thursday
