It is the end of an exquisitely beautiful day on the Vineyard; the sky an azure blue that reminded me of late spring days in the south of France. It was very warm and stayed just this side of unbearable. Now the temperature is falling, and it will be a comfortable sleep tonight for which I will be grateful; my little guest house has no air conditioning. Rain is coming but nothing like Baltimore, where friends live. Places there where I have walked and shopped were evacuated today as the rain pelted down.
It’s been a good week. The bookstore has been filled with interesting people, eager for books, to know about books, to talk about books and I relish that – the conversations that titillate the mind and toy with the intellectual synapses of a man now long past his prime but still vital.
My great, good friend, Dalton Delan, wandered in and there was a sweet reunion. We’ve known each other now a long, good time.
Today, while sitting in the Black Dog Tavern in Vineyard Haven, I finished “The Alice Network,” one of the big books of the summer, about a female spy in World War I and a young girl in France after World War II, attempting to find her beloved cousin. Very satisfying read.
Tonight, I am digging into a Philip R. Craig mystery, set on the Vineyard, and am relishing it.
This is a summer of reading, of listening to classical music, which I am now, of taking in the world in small doses as it is so – okay, I have run out of words. Surreal, is one of the words writers have used to describe the times in which we live, and I agree, it is surreal.
So, it is comforting to read books and lovely for me to be in a bookstore, listening to people who are interested. And that is wonderful.
Outside my bubble, I am fearful. The world is a frightening place.
Reports say Russian hackers penetrated the electric system, deep enough they could cause blackouts. Some voting machines have back doors which can be exploited. Oy vey!
The Trump Administration has admitted parents have been deported without their children. So where are the children? My heart aches. What is going on?
The moon has risen, a full moon. A time, perhaps, for werewolves? One wonders in these times if there are werewolves. Not the kind from stories but the kind who are sucking the life out of the delicate system we have built, a system which has been careening from crisis to crisis throughout its history and a system which is, again, in crisis.
Faithful to the American dream, I suspect we will weather this one, too. We will survive the Trump presidency.
What worries me, on some deeper level, is the growth of right wing movements across the globe. Hungary. Austria. Germany. Italy. America.
So here I am, on the sublime island of Martha’s Vineyard, a full moon in the sky, visible through the trees outside, against a blue gray sky.
Whatever we do, the moon will rise and so will the sun. Upon what world they do – well, that’s for us to determine.
Letter from the Vineyard 
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