We have one blinking traffic light. Franchises don’t exist. The Jeep is shedding paint but it still goes. Shopkeepers, innkeepers, boat builders, cooks, selectmen, farmers, and fishmongers abound.
Wampanoag ancestral camps carbon-date back thousands of years. Europeans discovered and began farming and fishing the Island some four hundred years ago. They mounted canons on whale boats to attack the British in the American Revolution. Today, hoary farmer’s walls crisscross up-Island fields at Beetlebung Corner and Menemsha men live still by hook, net, drag, and harpoon.
We live and work on Island, with our Main Street dry goods store in Vineyard Haven and, nearby, our coffee house, a tavern with a cast of locals like the set of Cheers. There’s no bridge or tunnel to reach us. You take the ferry, and when you dock, you feel like you’ve gone somewhere. Your spirit lifts as your pace slows. You’re on Island.
Life on Martha’s Vineyard changes month to month like scenes in a play. January clutches last year. February is as cold and quiet as the deep sea. In April, Mom returns from Naples. By June, wild Cosmos are abloom, farmers are haying, local shops are bustling, and at Katama, Lucy Vincent, Squibnocket and Philbin, intrepid dippers begin to test the surf. A renaissance. August gets packed perfectly and September quiets quickly, which is perfect too.
Seascape, landscape, and wild ones aplenty, Martha’s Vineyard is a wonder for such a speck.