Excuse the hint of glee you detected in the check out line as you scrambled for flashlights and double D batteries at the hardware store. It is small compensation in dubious times that finds the native among us mildly entertained as the newly initiated prepared for a hurricane to rake eastern Long Island. By all official accounts you should be scurrying about like a rabbit in search of its tail in preparation for the big blow.
Yet see the steady, determined stride of the farmer and fisherman among you (though they tend crops and seabeds of a different ilk these days) as they emerge from beneath the yoke of modern times, lean toward their ancestral pride and stand firmly. For these, Irene is a long awaited adversary that will be likened to the brethren before her, heralded for her width and girth and deep barreled breath as she washes leeward.
For there remain some among us who can tell the tale as their own of the water that rose to divide Montauk from the mainland and the wind that toppled the spire from its protestant perch above the Old Whalers pew. New Englanders are a salty crew and Bonackers I dare, the most crusty of the lot, stalwart and determined to hold fast to a shifting dune and muddy clam bed.
As the great equalizer approaches, with her 800 mile reach and 130 mile per hour howl, undaunted by designer show houses and black American Express cards, it is the farmer and fisherman among us who fear the least. For they know that after this beastly blow a calm returns to the sea and a vitality to the field born of this baptismal rite, having washed free the veil of modern conventions. It is the pilgrim that lives lightly on the soil that weathers the most severe of storms.
All the while, deep in the furrows of Sagaponack and beneath the eel grasses of Accabonac, Peconic, Noyac and Nappeague, lives the birthright of The Shinnecock, The Montaukette and The Amagansett, laid claim by the Gardiners, the Lesters, the Millers, the Hildreths, the Halseys and the many named among us who remain invisibly beside you at hardware store, flashlights in hand.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Say You Did And Stow Away
There's a new psychological state emerging from The Hamptons this summer in a mash up of over stimulation and waning desire as event signs propagate along our back roads announcing the must-see-must-do fab event of the weekend. Even the most willing of circuit-going minds tires along the circuitous route from Seven Ponds Road to Hands Creek in search of farm stand and cell tower, texting missives to the posse gathering outside Round Swamp Farm stuffed like sardines on the grill.
Even if you wanted to take a gander at Escape To New York, with their quirky campsite village outpost behind the Elks Club on County Road 39 or trip once again into the ever-expanding Hamptons Designer Showhouse, take in a producer's chat at John Drew Theatre or make your pilgrimage drive to Rushmyere's in Montauk, there's plenty of opportunity to talk yourself out of it while stuck in the bumper to bumper traffic getting through Water Mill, Wainscott and Amagansett.
Yet, at 10:20 p.m. this past Saturday night I actually counted five empty spaces on Sag Harbor's Main Street -- which had me wondering what was awry with the universe. I know that they've discovered what they think might by a sludgy water on Mars but parking spaces in Sag Harbor is an entirely other matter... one to raise an eyebrow or two as August turns the calender her haughty direction. For this is the month we must pack it all in, whether we are particularly in the mood or not because with Labor Day goes the fanfare of party tents and the casually clad summer set looking perfectly disheveled for an evening of hobbing and nobbing.
Luckier to find one's self lost among the simple pleasures of an afternoon's dip in the ocean come mid-week, digging clams in Northwest Harbor as the sun sets down, taking an idle walk through Green River Cemetery in search of Frank O'Hara and looking up old friends in the backyard of youth. See the beach plum begin to turn its bluish blush plumping on Long Beach and sit idle for a time as the terns make ready their sandy beds.
If we're luckier still, no hurricane will come to wash away all but what is elementally essential and bring us back to our colonial senses for ours is a cyclical pact to keep balance here on The East End as the world rushes in and the lighthouse bears down on eroding rock to even the keel.
Even if you wanted to take a gander at Escape To New York, with their quirky campsite village outpost behind the Elks Club on County Road 39 or trip once again into the ever-expanding Hamptons Designer Showhouse, take in a producer's chat at John Drew Theatre or make your pilgrimage drive to Rushmyere's in Montauk, there's plenty of opportunity to talk yourself out of it while stuck in the bumper to bumper traffic getting through Water Mill, Wainscott and Amagansett.
Yet, at 10:20 p.m. this past Saturday night I actually counted five empty spaces on Sag Harbor's Main Street -- which had me wondering what was awry with the universe. I know that they've discovered what they think might by a sludgy water on Mars but parking spaces in Sag Harbor is an entirely other matter... one to raise an eyebrow or two as August turns the calender her haughty direction. For this is the month we must pack it all in, whether we are particularly in the mood or not because with Labor Day goes the fanfare of party tents and the casually clad summer set looking perfectly disheveled for an evening of hobbing and nobbing.
Luckier to find one's self lost among the simple pleasures of an afternoon's dip in the ocean come mid-week, digging clams in Northwest Harbor as the sun sets down, taking an idle walk through Green River Cemetery in search of Frank O'Hara and looking up old friends in the backyard of youth. See the beach plum begin to turn its bluish blush plumping on Long Beach and sit idle for a time as the terns make ready their sandy beds.
If we're luckier still, no hurricane will come to wash away all but what is elementally essential and bring us back to our colonial senses for ours is a cyclical pact to keep balance here on The East End as the world rushes in and the lighthouse bears down on eroding rock to even the keel.
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