I’m convincing myself that a song didn’t bring me to this point. Most of what I own is in a backpack to the side of me and in a trunk in the boat’s storage bay. It’s funny. I’m surrounded by tourists wearing light windbreakers and top- siders on their way to Nantucket, and I think about the two hour ferry ride a lifetime in the making.
Like most of the songs I like, this one is about living a different way, as if a select group, me included, are privy to a secret, fresh perspective. It’s phrased like an enlightenment of sorts. The songwriter cites the typical rat race and what happens to the psyche when saturated with sunshine and surrounded on all coasts by water. But I’ve never acted like this before. I’m not sporadic; my moves are measured and planned. I don’t have an addictive personality, don’t get star-struck and have no real obsessions of which to speak. The lure of the island, though, has proved irresistible. There is no beeswax around nor rope or mast on which to tie myself. Besides, the song is pretty cheesy, and I don’t like music that much.
But I’ve stared at Nantucket for the past two summers. I lifeguarded at a large south-facing public beach in Westport, MA and at a tiny, private beach that sits adjacent. For eight hours daily, I watched those swimming in water that formed the horizon Nantucket lays just beyond.
We would put up red flags on the lifeguard stands when the water was too rough for patron swimmers. On hot days, the tossing waters would taunt those laying on scorching sand. But my perfect day was when it rained. Many New Englanders see their paradise on a deserted beach, but mine is in the water on these days. Then, the water is so rough that I would body surf and come out of the water red and burning – the result a millions collisions between grains of sand and my speeding, surfing form. Walking heavily from the water, a man walking along the water’s edge approached. He asked about the weather and the water and the tide. At this time, a peculiar slope had developed on the shore – the result of a March Nor’easter. The last wave of a set would retreat quickly and collide with another one coming toward shore, resulting a spectacular water display we had earlier dubbed, “The Belagio Effect.” We marveled briefly, and strangely enough, neither of us introduced ourselves.
But this man said he spent a summer on Nantucket in his 20’s. He talked of boarding with complete strangers who would evolve into friends – similar folks leaving friends and family to approach life from a different tact. He said that during storms a person could ride riptides out for hundreds of feet and ride the waves back in for the best body surfing experience imaginable. He said his lungs would burn because he wouldn’t want to come up for air.
So I have high expectations for this summer and this period -- speeding while wrapped in an experience so good that I’ll first have to remember then force myself to breathe.
Like most of the songs I like, this one is about living a different way, as if a select group, me included, are privy to a secret, fresh perspective. It’s phrased like an enlightenment of sorts. The songwriter cites the typical rat race and what happens to the psyche when saturated with sunshine and surrounded on all coasts by water. But I’ve never acted like this before. I’m not sporadic; my moves are measured and planned. I don’t have an addictive personality, don’t get star-struck and have no real obsessions of which to speak. The lure of the island, though, has proved irresistible. There is no beeswax around nor rope or mast on which to tie myself. Besides, the song is pretty cheesy, and I don’t like music that much.
But I’ve stared at Nantucket for the past two summers. I lifeguarded at a large south-facing public beach in Westport, MA and at a tiny, private beach that sits adjacent. For eight hours daily, I watched those swimming in water that formed the horizon Nantucket lays just beyond.
We would put up red flags on the lifeguard stands when the water was too rough for patron swimmers. On hot days, the tossing waters would taunt those laying on scorching sand. But my perfect day was when it rained. Many New Englanders see their paradise on a deserted beach, but mine is in the water on these days. Then, the water is so rough that I would body surf and come out of the water red and burning – the result a millions collisions between grains of sand and my speeding, surfing form. Walking heavily from the water, a man walking along the water’s edge approached. He asked about the weather and the water and the tide. At this time, a peculiar slope had developed on the shore – the result of a March Nor’easter. The last wave of a set would retreat quickly and collide with another one coming toward shore, resulting a spectacular water display we had earlier dubbed, “The Belagio Effect.” We marveled briefly, and strangely enough, neither of us introduced ourselves.
But this man said he spent a summer on Nantucket in his 20’s. He talked of boarding with complete strangers who would evolve into friends – similar folks leaving friends and family to approach life from a different tact. He said that during storms a person could ride riptides out for hundreds of feet and ride the waves back in for the best body surfing experience imaginable. He said his lungs would burn because he wouldn’t want to come up for air.
So I have high expectations for this summer and this period -- speeding while wrapped in an experience so good that I’ll first have to remember then force myself to breathe.
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