On the island

— An orgy of reading. Recuperative. I am feeling less shattered than I have. But I hesitate to even say such things. They anger the gods.

— Mitchell, Meghan and Luisa came out for the day and it was seriously one for the books. I had all these plans (“let’s go look at lighthouses!”) and then all we did was make Bloody Marys at my house and talk and laugh. Oh, and also blast Michael Jackson and dance around my kitchen. Luisa wielded a mop and went downstairs to inspect the cellar and get rid of cobwebs. She loves cellars. She was holding a whiskey in one hand and a mop in the other. She re-emerged with a small statue of … well, he defies description. He’s a hippie. He has long hair, beads, and is making the peace sign. She found it down there. We then proceeded to place him all over the house (and the lawn) and take pictures of him in various landscapes. Crying with laughter. Magic day.

— I saw a standoff on my front lawn between a barking dog and a freaked-out deer. They stood staring at each other, the dog racing around barking at it. Then, the deer charged the dog. (I saw a similar standoff at Yellowstone once between a wounded deer and a small wolf – it was incredible). The dog bounded backwards in alarm and then the deer bounded off into the snow.

— Mum came out for the night and we took some great hikes (one out by the North Light), and then we found the trail that goes along the big white cliffs that encircle the north side of the island. The views were amazing. There was nothing between us and the abyss. And there’s still snow everywhere here, so the landscape: snow, sandy cliffs, and ocean – was startling to the extreme. Then we came home and had dinner and watched Searching for Bobby Fischer. Mum found a chess set at the house and taught me how to play. For some reason, I never learned. Allison (a killer chess player) tried to teach me a couple years ago but it didn’t stick. Mum teaching me how each chess piece moved was so funny. “This guy … goes like this: two and one – like an L.” “This guy can go like THIS …” But my favorite was her delineation between the King and the Queen. “The Queen can go any which way, in any direction, as far as she likes. And the King? …. Is a LOSER.” So every time either one of us would make our King move, one square to the right, left, whatever, we would start laughing. I imagined a big gluttonous slobbery half-wit king, unwilling to put down his greasy drumstick in order to save himself with rapid dispatch. The Queen, meanwhile, flies about the board. It was really fun. Mum won, but I didn’t do too badly myself.

— I have been reading poetry. A lot of Walt Whitman. I love him. Every time I read the poem about the Brooklyn Ferry, it seems like a new poem. It lives and breathes, and I feel it speaking directly to me, and that, to me, seems Whitman’s point. He is squinting into the future. For me. It is such a poem of America. Of New York. Intensely moving to me.

And then there is this:

What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me.
Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,
Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,
Scattering it freely forever.

— I have been taking long walks every day, choosing different sections of the island to explore. Mum and I found some good new spots.

— I go to bed at around 9 p.m. and wake up at 5 a.m. One of my favorite things to do is to make my coffee, in the pitch-black, and go out to sit on the front porch, before dawn.

— The other night, the temperature dropped. It had been a sunny almost mild day, but the weather changes so quickly out here. I drove up to the Southeast Lighthouse because I wanted to see what was going on. It was suddenly freezing with a bitter wind. There was some snow falling. A line of clouds lay over the ocean, with a blazing streak of sunset showing through, right above the waterline. But those clouds were low and thick. And the light up in the tower was going, reflecting off the giant mirrors. So mystical, but also so practical. A message to those out there on the sea: Beware. We are near. Beware. I stood on the giant lawn, in the quickly gathering dusk, watching that light flash, go dark, flash, go dark … until it was finally too cold, even for a hearty girl like myself. Beauty!!

— Found a bunch of prehistoric-looking rocks today peeking up from under the ocean. At the level of the tide when I found them, it looked like the humps of the Lochness Monster. Some prehistoric beast – struggling to be born? I’ve got Yeats on the brain too.

— I watched Comrade X the other night and laughed so loudly during the last half hour of the film that I frightened Hope. Hedy Lemarr is HYSTERICAL as the humorous Communist girl. “There is pilot, then co-pilot, then co-co-pilot, then co-co-co-pilot.” Clark Gable barks, “Stop stuttering.” It is my new favorite movie.