Sutton Island

APOLOGY TO REGULAR READERS:  I have discovered that there are some places I will be this summer that have no wireless signal.  I will continue to write a daily post, but will have to wait until I return to civilization to publish them on line.

sunrise: 4:48

Sutton Island. A nice change of scenery.

Arrival day always seems to be an arduous, sweaty affair, including a sprint for the ferry boat while heavily laden with groceries in bags and anxious dogs in a tangle of leashes – but it’s always worth the effort. The boat drops us off at the town dock, and we walk. We make our leisurely, albeit weighted down way along the footpaths which are the only mode of travel around this mile long island haven.

Sutton Island came into my life in the summer of 1979. I visited my boyfriend (now husband) at his family’s summer place off the coast of Maine. I fell in love with the place. Even though it is on the ocean and not on a lake, it is reminiscent of the Adirondacks where I spent every childhood summer. It is a place that allows you to continue believing in magic at any age. You retreat. You relax. You observe the rhythms of the earth and feel yourself connecting with them in a deeper way.

It was an act of near insanity to buy our own house on Sutton in 1994, but it felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity. Sometimes it feels like a perpetual burden – leaky roof, crumbling foundations, unstable deck, broken pipes, broken windows, cantankerous septic system, flickering lights…

...but then we sit on the front porch and watch the sun come up. Or we watch a flight of birds stream by, or a lobster boat out on the water. Or we just listen to the hush of wind through spruces and the steady beat of waves sweeping over a rocky shore. It is like living immersed in a heavenly apparition.

It’s nice to be here.

****************

I missed the best of the pink sky this morning. It came a full half hour before sunrise and I was still in the house. I’ll have to get out there tomorrow even earlier.