Island Snapshots

— Big storm. Crashing surf. Mountains of spray. Wind so loud it literally shrieked.

— Crazy bright stars.

— Finished the novel Beware of Pity (New York Review Books Classics), by Stefan Zweig. Can’t believe it is not more well-known. The fall of Empires is in it. The crackup of the world in World War I. The disintegration of certainty. The disorientation of the modern world. Not to mention an excavation of the human mind, and the emotion known as “pity”. Phenomenal and harrowing book.

— Also reading T.S. Eliot. Guess I am into disintegration and moral apocalypse.

— Great weekend with Jean, Pat and Lucy. Pat’s great-grandfather was the lighthouse keeper out here back in the day, so we took a little visit. Also, just learned that in Roger Williams’ first merry band of rebels that came to what is now “Rhode Island”, one of Pat’s ancestors was in that first group.

— I have been taking baths. Every day. Hope sits at the edge of the tub, meowing insistently. It disturbs her greatly, my behavior. She cannot understand it. It truly WORRIES her.

— Percolating with ideas. I needed the mental space to percolate.

— The weather changes so quickly out here. Sunny day to black storm clouds in a matter of 5 minutes. I go down and sit on the jetty and watch the waves crash up onto it. It’s all very French Lieutenant’s Woman.

— Found my favorite beach. It is isolated. I can see the lighthouse (I believe) in Montauk across the water, wavering like a mirage. I get a coffee to go at the Depot, and drive down there in the early morning. No one is ever there. A beautiful beach.