Context is Everything

While waiting for my supper to cook last night, a little on the late-ish side, and feeling the need to move my body, I headed out for a fast walk (the only way I know how to walk). I headed down Main Street and then out North Water Street where I walked as far as the Harbor View Hotel, then back again and down past the Chappy Ferry and along Dock Street, not an untypical walk for me. It was dark, save for the antique lanterns that lit the way, along with maybe two or three houses that were lit from within; there were no stars to speak of, but most remarkably, there was not a single soul to be found. I should say that one of the reasons I walk this route is because of the possibility of encountering other forms of humanity. After being home alone all day (every day for the past few weeks), a hello or a smile from another human being is most welcome. I did encounter two of Edgartown's finest at the bottom of Main Street in their cruisers and passed the time with them for a few minutes, which was both a welcome relief from the solitude and a pleasant diversion.

The biggest struggle for me at the moment is the lack of context I'm experiencing. My life up to now has been defined by my work and social interactions; a life filled with grandchildren and children and their activities, a home filled with family and friends and live music and B&B guests, with many hours a day tending to my home in preparation for and cleaning up after these guests, and, for 30 hours a week, a job caring for the now-elderly woman I've been caring for for 30 years, all of which has been on hold for the last six weeks.

How many times have I wished for more time to pursue some of my extracurricular activities such as organizing my photos, completing my handful of book projects, learning new songs, getting better at the bouzouki and the fiddle? The irony here is that now that I have all the time in the world, I am hard-pressed to even get out of bed in the morning (I am even creating this post via voice-to-text on my phone from my bed, barely having finished my first cup of coffee). Without the context of work and friends and family, I have lost all motivation. It's as if I am in a vacuum. I have always wondered what it would be like to be retired, and now I can tell you, retirement is definitely not for me.

I also dare to say that we are precariously close to destroying the motivation and soul of our country - not to mention the economy - with what is now turning out to have been draconian and freedom-seizing reactions to covid-19.

(a couple from the phone - somehow I walked out without the Lumix last night)

Gray and Gloomy

Monday afternoon March 30 was another gray and gloomy day - gloomy as in weather and mood - and even though it was chilly and not very inviting, I forced myself out of the house in the late afternoon. I did not venture far, well, some people would say that a walk down Plantingfield Way, into and through Sheriff's Meadow sanctuary to Eel Pond, over to North Water Street, along the harbor, and back home up Main Street, is a good hike. Not feeling very inspired, I brought the little Lumix along anyway.

Not only was my mood down in the dumps yesterday - and a long string of gray, chilly March days on the Vineyard can do that to you even in the best of circumstances - but the collective mood is being challenged at the moment, especially with the announcement yesterday that our isolation and disruption from normal activities will continue until April 30th.

We did have a reprieve from the March gray a few days ago, which I took advantage of with a little fiddling on the porch (partly in response to a request I received: "Sara, we could use a little fiddle music from your porch right about now."). Passersby are normally receptive to coming across someone sitting on a porch playing fiddle tunes, but the people who happened by the other day were especially happy to hear the music and have an opportunity to socialize (safely, as my seat on the porch is a good ten feet away from the folks on the sidewalk - far enough not to pass germs, but close enough to converse). I look forward to more of this as the weather warms up, especially since our confinement will be prolonged.

I am staying busy with yard work and house work - I may end up dead as a result of the pandemic, but at least my home and my yard will be tidy - plus working on some of the minutiae I ordinarily wouldn't have time for (adding a bow-holder to the fiddle and bouzouki stand I designed last year - it's taken a whole year of using the thing; staring at it and thinking about it to come up with a simple design for the bow holder - and it's perfect), plus spending a bit more time on this long-neglected blog; plus making videos for my Music with Sara family music program, plus organizing and working with fifty years' worth of photos; also applying myself to various fields that interest me: cameras and processing techniques, drumming, Irish music, Gregorian chant - and yes, there's no end to the number of instruments I have on hand on which I could focus and improve.

It all sounds good, but without context - friends and outside activities - it's all a bit dry and uninspired at the moment - bordering on depression - which is why my front porch will become increasingly important in the coming weeks.

A couple of live daily Masses I follow are also helpful - Bishop Barron's Word on Fire, which connects me to thousands of other Catholics world-wide and offers inspiring messages is a good one. Today's message: "We are all on our way to the cross right now." To which I say, this is certainly a Lent of all Lents. Also,  St. Paul's Harvard Square, which connects me with my off-island Catholic home-away-from-home.

So, back to Monday afternoon: The photos are not all that earth-shaking or different than others I have taken in my neighborhood, but I am trying, as well as continuing to test (and enjoy) the little Lumix.   


I've always liked the rose of Sharon seed pod, and the little Lumix's macro setting worked well here (that is not always the case, to my continuing annoyance). 



A brief take-out-window visit with some of my family. We can still meet up for walks or bike rides, but we are all missing being in each other's homes. 

The Grannis house

Butler Mud Hole, with Eel Pond on the other side of the beach and Nantucket Sound in the distance.  

A long path to...(normalcy?)

Approaching Eel Pond

The wind was strong and cold at the Eel Pond landing, straight in from the northeast.

Nature's handiwork

A bit of sunshine

Forsythia, "spilling into a pool of daffodils." (from one of my mother's poems)

When the lanterns on North Water Street turn on, around twilight, the street is transformed into a magical 19th-century theme park, although not quite authentic, as I've been told that 150 years ago, during the whaling heydays when these houses were occupied year 'round by whaling families, the streets were paved with scallop shells, laundry hung on the clothes lines, children ran in the streets, and the homes were likely not quite as pristine and perfect (museum-like?) as they are now.



Memorial Wharf

(above) It's hard to imagine that this harbor will ever be wall-to-wall boats again.(below) Now is the safest time - ever - to bicycle through Edgartown.