The more things change . . .

MV CUTTYHUNK

FERRY ALERT

the more things change. 

WEST END LIGHT HOUSE  AND COAST GUARD

COAST GUARD HOUSE AT FERRY DOCK

POST OFFICE

POST OFFICE CIRCA 1890'S

CHURCH AT TURN OF CENTURY

CHURCH TODAY

Yes I know that’s not the way the adage goes, but I’m rewriting it.  At least for now.  I’m in the middle of my last week in what used to be my apartment on Cuttyhunk Island.  The building is a rental now but I took the downstairs for the entire summer because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet.

Now it’s time.  

We brought a few things home in the car after our July visit, (my dad's fishing pole, a couple of pictures, a few mementos) and I have to decide what to leave (besides a couple of boxes of my books) in the blue tote that’s going to stay in my sister’s basement.  One tote.  Mostly filled with books.

There is nothing I can’t leave behind left in the apartment.  Anything I couldn’t bear to never see again has already gone to our new house in Virginia.  All I’m dealing with is the practical; what would I really like to have in whatever place I stay in next year?  

When I rented back my apartment this year I thought I’d be spending the whole season here, spring summer and fall.  I hadn’t planned on suddenly ending up with a house in the middle of Lexington Virginia that needed furniture and fences and decks and porches and so on.  The upshot is, I haven’t spent much time here in the summer.  Not nearly enough.

And yet I’m not taking this place again next year.  I’m not going to tie myself down.  I probably won’t be here more than a few weeks anyway, to do a couple of readings and hawk my new book.

Surprisingly, I’m okay with that.  I think I’ve finally said goodbye to this house, and what living here meant.

  It gets easier, I find.  It took me years to say goodbye to the Allen House.

But things change, and change, and change again. 

the poplars at turn of century

The Allen House, now a private home.

 And you get used to it, hopefully.  And you move on.  Again, hopefully.  Sometimes you even grow a little bit.

When I left Cuttyhunk the first time I didn’t return for eight years.  This time, I’m not looking at it as leaving.

I’m just going to take a little break and try spending a summer in the valley I’ve called home for fifteen years.

What a concept.