Leaving Nantucket

My friend Polly left yesterday.  It was great fun to take her class at the 1800 House and to hang out and share a meal or two.  If I'm lucky I'll catch up with her again in Oregon in November.

I leave for Colorado in the morning.  It's going to be so hard to leave here.  Not just because of all the
beautiful flowers and pretty houses and the beaches.  It's hard to leave because somehow I feel so at home here.

I feel very "me" here, if you follow my thought.  It's not a deja vu thing, it's a recognition of a place that fills me up rather than sucks me dry.  It's a tonic being here.  I can hear myself think while I'm on Nantucket.  I breathe a little deeper, I sleep a little sounder and I definitely laugh louder and longer.....oh, that part may be Bee's fault, not Nantucket, now that I think of it.

I see things more clearly.  I couldn't take my eyes off these trees yesterday.  Bee and I had a late lunch outside at The Brotherhood of Thieves (isn't that just the best name for a restaurant?) and I looked up and was mesmerized by the late afternoon sun slanting through the leaves way above my head.

For one thing, I noticed that we are definitely in the midst of summer, maybe even heading into the last innings.  The colors are changing from the pinks, purples and whites of early summer to orange, red and bright, bright yellow.  Louder colors. Full on high summer colors.

The rose hips are coloring up and this year they are huge.

And yet, that gorgeous afternoon light, coming through the leaves, ever changing as the soft breeze ruffles the leaves and changes the light patterns----endlessly, quietly.  Beautiful.

Good bye, Nantucket.  Thanks for filling me up with such good things.  Thanks for the fun and the rest and the laughs.  Thanks for everything.

I am so grateful for my time here.

"Just a sandy wind-swept island!"
What more would you have it be,
With a turquoise sky above it,
Around it a sapphire sea?
Mary Starbuck