Rain on grasses.
I took these pictures with just the normal lens on my camera. Too bad I didn't have my close up lens, but that was locked in the car.
It rained all day on Thursday and it started to clear toward sunset, which is the best possible thing because then you get light bursting through in moments when everything is still so nice and fresh.
The dogs and I went out for a walk, which turned out to be longer than expected because I stopped at Southeast Light and Wilson took off to make friends with some people in the road. I tore after him, locking my keys in the car in the process. And so we walked home.
It wasn't far and we cut through our extremely kind neighbor’s yard and saw the grasses, all wet and sparkling. And then I saw this wild iris. And this blackberry flower.
And all of this was very good until the sun dropped below heavy, low hanging clouds with just about the most amazing light I’ve seen. It cut through with precision, making deep dusky places and brightly lit places and the sharpest distinctions between them.
This is our neighbor's house and that light.
This is our neighbor's little pond.
This picture is from our yard.
And then the sun went down, bright under all those grey clouds.
This is from the next night, at the Hodge Property.
The next night I went out with the dogs to the Hodge Property, again at sunset. (We had been moving out all day, which was work, made much nicer by the fact that Bill is here this year, so could we pass each other every so often while carrying our respective boxes and we could both roll our eyes and make little remarks. I found this to be quite companionable.)
Sturdy little tree..
It was cool and clear and the light was wonderful. I took a picture of one of my favorite trees. When the unobstructed wind comes down from the north the first thing it hits is this little tree. That’s why I like it. I’ve taken its picture about a million times.
The other thing I want to tell you and I hope you can feel it, is that while the sun was setting, while the colors were deepening and everything fell into silhouettes, and while I got these pictures, other things were happening. The wind was softly blowing. There were many birds… all kinds…gulls and sparrows and egrets and all of them were calling or singing. I could hear the waves from many directions. And also because the beach roses are newly blooming and the shad is blooming, the wind smelled like roses. There was a sweet, beautiful young couple, walking hand in hand, and meeting Wilson and Molly, and talking and laughing. Anyone could fall in love on this night.
So that was last night. I knew we’d be moving out today, and leaving the island for a week or so. On such a night, that seemed like a pretty long time.
We’re out of the house now, because except for one week, the house rented for the rest of the summer. We had that expected fire drill of a morning. Without Gabby and Aldo and Janelle, who came and worked very hard today to help us, I’d still be there right now, cleaning and having a nervous breakdown. But we all worked together and then we were done and Bill and I got to rest. And do you know what Gabby and Aldo and Janelle are doing? They went on to other jobs. This is what people do on the island in the summer. They work so hard. They work without stopping.
Obviously, it is time to declare a Sabbath, then Bill and I will get the boat ready to bring it back to the island, which is where we will live. In the morning we’ll also unpack the cars. We'll see family and friends and I've got some photography projects planned and then I'll go back to the island (and so will Bill after a business trip) and then we'll have our summer lives. I won't say our summers are simple because they're not. But there will be many fewer boxes, and I'll be able to clean our whole space in about ten minutes and we'll mostly live in the open air and that is the best thing about it.
As the sun set the water turned that luminous blue. This is North Light and off on the horizon is the mainland.