More Than Enough

The golden light - attracts the artists. 

The quiet - the writers. 

The ocean - the surfers, soul-searchers, sunbathers, whale-watchers.

The bays - fisherman, sailors, windsurfers, boaters, kayakers, sunset picnickers.

The woods - attract the hikers, bird-watchers, forest-bathers, animal lovers.

The night - is for the star-gazers, the window-shoppers, katy-dids, and bar-hoppers.

If you have come here from somewhere and are now here-perhaps all year-you may have heard the timeworn grumble- ‘there’s just not enough to do here!’ People who find themselves bored and unmotivated often pack their bags and head back to some familiar town or city that provided a greater egress to the world at large. There may be some truth to that, being stranded here at the end of an island, jutting out into the ocean, may make a person feel a bit restless and confined.

If you have been lucky enough to grow up here-then you may have been lucky enough. Looking back to when I was young, people honestly could not believe that we lived here year-round. They would laugh and insist that the sidewalks were rolled up come winter-and all of the locals flew south or west anyway. That may indeed be the difference-that when you take your first and last steps in the same town, you have filled your days with all of the beauty around you - without requiring much in the way of distraction or entertainment. And the little big things-like a carnival, or a parade, or an eclipse of the moon - a soapbox derby, a fifty-cent movie, and a quarter worth of penny candy-all became a big little things. Life rested in that simplicity-of thought and spirit and being. And we may never have needed to know what we might have been missing. It all seemed like more than enough.

I apologize for living in some distant past and grappling with the constant and insidious changes in landscape and decorum. There are some things your heart just does not want to let go of. 

I will forever hold onto the beautiful memories of this special place – the misty potato fields that stretched all the way to the ocean- the winding backroads with sweeping views of forever farmland, the empty beaches which lifted you up, the quiet nights of haul-seining and fire-lighting, peepers and fireflies - feeling and being a part of something just so wild and beautiful. I guess that’s what it is-that’s where the heartache lingers. Home has always been – more than enough.