It has been a long time since I have blogged, longer than any time in the seventeen years that I have been writing.
It is, as I write this, the 4th of July 2018 and I am on Martha’s Vineyard, in a little guest house that I jokingly [and fondly] refer to as “The Best Most Exotic Marigold Hotel” guest house as it reminds me of nothing so much as a hotel room in India which presents itself as being more than it is. It is a mash of conflicting colors and designs, worn but still utilitarian furniture, posters from museum shows long ago. It has ants and I had a mouse I think I have successfully driven away using sonic devices and lavender smelling sachets from a company that has been discouraging mice since the 1920’s.
Once I had looked it in the eye, I couldn’t kill it. Or perhaps it killed itself as it had a penchant for ant poison. But, fingers crossed, it has not made an appearance since the night we stared each other down in the kitchen at 2 in the morning.
Everything is a little tilted and off kilter, the floor sags in spots but not so much I fear falling through.
Generally, I eat here infrequently, usually having something during the day at BTB, Behind the Bookstore, which is behind Edgartown Books, which is where I am this summer, helping my friends, Joyce and Jeffrey, who own it and the restaurant.
Since they built their home here, I’ve been coming. In 2016, I came for a few weeks to help get it going and stayed for two months. This year, I am here for the summer. Jokingly, I tell friends I am a monk and my monastery is the bookstore. There is a small but growing pile of books I have consumed so far, most recently, “Circe” by Madeline Miller. Recommended; get past her days in her father’s palace and you have a wonderful read, not that the first is bad, it just gets so much better.
One of the reasons, I slowed my blogging was that I have intertwined my personal life with events out in the world and it became so difficult to do that during this presidency. To say I am appalled, is so an understatement. Every morning, I wake and read the briefing in the New York Times and am – gobsmacked, as a Brit would say.
So, I became silent, introspective. Detached but not uninterested. I call my Congressman, a Republican, and protest and protest and protest. And I wonder what more I can do?
It is unimaginable to me but apparently true that 45% of the people in this country think our president is doing a fine job, and that includes my sister and brother-in-law. When I return from the island, I will spend some time helping the Democratic candidate in my district, though I suspect the Democrats have nominated someone who is unelectable in our district.
The Republican Party, in which I grew up, is unrecognizable to me today. As a toddler, I wore “I Like Ike” buttons and, though Catholic, we supported Nixon. Where is that party? Not anywhere I can find.
Neither a Democrat nor a Republican, I find more these days to dislike in Republicans than I do with Democrats.
I doubt there has been a more dizzying time in D.C. since the scandal plagued days of Warren G. Harding. [Teapot Dome, among other things.]
Having finished “Circe,” I have gone on to “Bunker Hill” by Nathaniel Philbrick, seeking understanding of our national roots. Just a few pages in and I already feel a better man for choosing it as my next read.
They were quite the crew, those Bostonian rebels – and I think we should all know more about them, based on this reading.
Letter from the Vineyard 
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