#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Ferry from Woods Hole to Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard

An early departure. Frank is so cheerful, so pleased to be getting away on another quick jaunt, and so am I. Easy, out the door. Soon enough, we’re in Woods Hole having talked the whole way. The future: our future. Playing with ideas for the fun of it. We get an earlier boat, and then we arrive in Oak Bluffs for the first time in a year, on Martha’s Vineyard, just the two of us. And all day to ourselves. Which means, to the beach! We grab sandwiches in Edgartown and drive down the long, long dirt road to Longpoint Wildlife Refuge. It’s overcast, a little cool, and gorgeous. I have my book, he has his phone and his beach umbrella. We are of the few who have come out to the beach here today. After three short naps, I am ready to walk. I walk up the beach toward Chilmark for three miles. Past so many places of memory on this stretch of the Atlantic. Summers bringing our young children here to this exact shore, thanks to my brother and his wife who spent summers here. It’s such a blue, blue day, and cheerful and lighthearted and filled with happy memory and each step a sensory delight in surf under sun. Three miles up, three miles back. Then a swim in the waves with Frank. Sweetest of the day, dinner with my brother and sister-in-law in their home on their deck. An evening of reconnecting, deep conversation after months apart. So many shared summers here. I am so grateful for this fine day.

Long Point Wildlife Refuge Beach Trail