Island Hopping

Lagoon Pond

Like a sundial's shadow tracking the sun's rays around a fixed circumference, I keep moving around the outdoor table trying to find a lasting pocket of sunshine while I type. The cool breeze blows as the lawn twinkles with dappled golden swaths of light. Margo switches her position, always close to my side, between a bed of ivy and the covered porch, making a "C" as she tucks herself nose to tail. Elsa and Harry nap under sheets, fleece blankets and comforters, still catching up on "Z's" before their summer jobs start. Dave visits his mom up island before she leaves tomorrow.

The island hoppers that we are, four out of the five members of our family will reside on Martha's Vineyard for the summer. Away from the still and sticky heat of St. Thomas, away from the crystal blue water that calls you morning, noon and night, away from friends, routines and our house project that's still not complete. For two and a half months, I live with what I was able to carry, a 2 checked bag allowance with my American Airlines platinum status.

I've gotten used to what I call "container" living. Like the flowers and plants we brought from house to house this past year, the things I brought with me have their own sort of gravity. Journals, checkbooks, my many face, neck and body creams, computer, a handful of crystals, pillow sage spray, a print out of my so far 173 paged book, two pairs of runnings shoes, Margo's thunder blanket, a fold up yoga mat (I didn't have room for blocks, though I wish I'd brought them), 2 binders and a spiral notebook filled with renovation documents, 1 binder for my astrology course, 3 pairs of reading glasses, Blundstones, too many bottles of supplements, raincoat, Rabble game, watercolors with paper and brushes, playing cards and cribbage board, and, of course, clothes, shoes, cosmetics, and toiletries. I feel like a box turtle, carrying my home wherever I go, with a trailer attached to my tail. I think of how grand it would be if I didn't need the trailer, but give myself credit for living with about 40% of my things in the last year (our plants were at least 20% of our stuff) and 15% of my things for the summer.

In this roaming before homing, where roots haven't taken yet to ground's soil, where my family and I get to experience the flavors of different places, I can't help seeing the relationship I have with my things or, for that matter, of picking up and leaving so frequently. Are both of these a result of island living and, as a result, island hopping? Am I learning to live with less or packing up in order to live? With a Sun, Mercury and Venus in Aquarius, am I too eccentric, oddball or unconventional for my own good?

I can't say that these questions keep me up at night, but they do drop into the atmosphere when I'm in places like Stop&Shop for the "first shop" of summer. As I purchase salt, olive oil, mayonnaise, a basil plant, paper napkins and detergent, I think of the spices, canned beans, pasta and rice I just packed up and put into storage. It's a bit like retracing steps in the sand after the tide has come in, following faint outlines of footprints you know were there. The motion feels forward, but also backwards.

This practice of temporary re-homing tends to feel like home-less-ness. Not in the unhoused kind of way, but in the way of living with less home and, as a result, doing my best to recreate an essence of home with as few things as possible wherever we are. I wonder if it's the stuff that makes a home? The feelings? The memories? Is it the knowing where the bowls are kept and the extra toilet paper is stored? Or, perhaps, its the books and photographs that line bookshelves and bedside tables? Either way, I've become pretty adept at uprooting and nesting.

Moving to MV this summer felt like something nourishing for our family. Like the ospreys who wake us up with their cries each morning as they fish in the nearby lagoon and return with food to their chirping nest of chicks, Dave and I return to our nesting grounds. We rebuild the nest with our own forms of sticks, bark and grasses, hoping to infuse new experiences with happy memories. The Vineyard is the one place we've come to almost every summer since the kids were born. Be it a week, a month or the summer of 2020 when Covid had the world on hold, we consistently come back to this island. Dave had his first job at Katama Airfield. I came here the summer after I graduated from high school and worked as a landscaper. And now we land for a few months to give our kids a similar experience. A place to nest, even if it isn't home.

As I feel into my own skin, the crystals and sprays rest by my bedside, the piles of library books and puzzles sit on table tops, the cut flowers bloom from make-shift bud vases and the flip-flops pool onto the covered porch. Our tiny kitchen is stocked, the laundry bin is half full and the bikes lean on kickstands, drooping into the sandy soil.

The turtle has landed.

With honeysuckle scented love,

St. Sunshine