In the room where I am staying on the Vineyard, there are floor to ceiling windows that look, across the balcony, onto Edgartown Harbor. The water is a dark blue, the sky is lighter but both are crisp and clean. The sky is cloudless and pristine.
I have spent the morning on the porch, reading a book and doing some emails. After a late breakfast, all the batteries on my devices were running low, so I came up to my room to plug them back in. My kindle is charging, as are my phone and laptop. My poor laptop, three years old, is beginning to feel its age and I am afraid it will soon be time for a replacement.
This evening will be The Grand Illumination, a lighting of the old cottages in the Campgrounds with antique Japanese lanterns and more. I’m looking forward to it and will do my best to give you a good description tomorrow. That’s why I am writing early today. I’ll be out in the evening, taking in the Grand Illumination.
Grand are also the ambitions of Donald Trump, who is now, unbelievably and, to me, horrifyingly, being treated more and more as a viable candidate. In some polls he is within striking distance of Hillary. As I sit here looking out at the placid waters of the harbor, I am stunned.
Trump has declared that, sadly, Heidi Klum is no longer a ten. She wonders what that has to do with the election while, at the same time, mocking him back on social media. One often wonders what Trump has to say has to do with anything.
In another pre-election year kink, Al Gore is said to be thinking about a run in 2016.
IS today beheaded an 82 year old archeologist, Khaled Assad, in Palmyra. Author of many books and articles, sire of 11 children, he was one of the world’s, if not the world’s expert, on Palmyra. He refused to divulge to IS things they wanted to know. His headless body is hanging from a lamppost in town.
Turkey is restless. Following the failure of Erdogan’s government to win a majority for the first time since 2002, the country has been unable to form a government and new elections are expected soon. Two terrorists attacked the Dolmabahce Palace today, popular with tourists and home to the Prime Minister’s Istanbul offices. Kurds killed eight soldiers in the southeast.
Zimbabwe has arrested the man who owned the farm where Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist, killed Cecil the Lion. That brings to three who have been arrested. Not charged so far is Walter Palmer, whose Minnesota dental practice reopened today, but without him. He was photographed recently in Eden Prairie, MN, not far from his Bloomington, MN practice.
Jared Fogle famously became a spokesperson for Subway when he claimed that Subway helped him lose over 200 pounds. He is now infamous for child pornography charges and he has agreed to plead guilty to charges of child pornography and paying for sex with minors. He faces over a decade in jail. Sad end to a success story.
The UK is saying the e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than tobacco and is, if not exactly endorsing them, coming very close to doing so.
A female “Viagra” has been approved for sale.
Ashley Madison is a website for spouses who want to cheat. It has, like many other sites, been hacked. Millions of names have been released to the “dark web.” Only good thing: most people can’t get to the “dark web.” Not a good day to be a cheater.
The day is beautiful and I am restless writing. I want to go back outdoors and read some more and soak in the harbor’s beauty.
Until next time.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter from New York 05 26 2016 Thoughts while overlooking Edgartown Harbor…
May 27, 2016It is blissfully quiet this moment, except for the drone of the Harbor Patrol boat in Edgartown Harbor. I am sitting, at this minute, on the veranda of my friends’ home overlooking that harbor.
Yesterday, I arrived on Martha’s Vineyard. I am here for awhile, that while yet undetermined. My friends, Jeffrey and Joyce, own the Edgartown Bookstore. About six weeks ago, reading “All The Light We Cannot See,” a book I purchased last year at their bookstore, it occurred to me they might need some help at the beginning of the season. So I volunteered. And here I am.
Yesterday, I left the cottage and had a giddy thought. If I should decide not to teach in the fall, after the Vineyard, there is no place I have to be for the rest of my life. It was both liberating and frightening. I felt like my head was filled with helium. I have acknowledged, at last, I am adrift in the world and that the boundaries I am now setting are the ones of my own choosing and no one else’s.
I took a picture of the rhododendron as I left the house.
I
As I also took a picture of the creek before I left.
As I was sitting in my car on the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, Jeffrey texted me: don’t eat! They also own “Behind the Bookstore,” a restaurant that has a great reputation on the island. We were treated to a tasting course of everything on the dinner menu and dinner service begins tonight. It was all extraordinary, with the exception of the sweet pea gnocchi, which is still a work in progress.
The young chef is fresh out of Chez Panisse in Berkley, Alice Waters’ signature restaurant.
Tonight, after my first day in the bookstore, where I did my best to earn my keep, I am sipping a martini and looking at Edgartown harbor and thinking how fortunate I am to have this experience.
I am enjoying the moment.
Unbelievably but not perhaps unpredictably, Donald Trump has cinched the number of delegates he needs to be nominated. I am appalled and don’t want to think about it. So I am enjoying my view.
Let’s admit it. I am scared to death if he wins the election. Scarred to death. He has no credible credentials to be President of the United States. And I must decide if I will engage in this fall’s election to defeat him or stay on the sidelines and pray to all the gods in all the universes. I suspect I will do my best to defeat him.
But Hillary! As we were driving to “Behind The Bookstore” last night, Jeffrey said, and rightly, that there was no problem that the Clintons couldn’t make worse.
And it is so effing true. They stumble into things and don’t claim responsibility and just manage to make things worse and worse and worse. And the polls are showing that Hillary could lose to The Donald.
Oh my! Lions and tigers and bears… Oh my!
I am going to focus on the moment right now. I have to. I am sitting on a veranda on Martha’s Vineyard, looking out on Edgartown Harbor, calm and peaceful. The storm may be about to erupt on our heads but not tonight. I will savor tonight because not to do so would be foolish.
Tags:9/11, All the Light We Cannot See, Behind the Bookstore, Bernie Sanders, Claverack, Donald Trump, Edgartown, Edgartown Bookstore, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, The Donald
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