Island Magic

Cuttyhunk Island is not for everyone. It is a place where children can bang the front door behind them after breakfast and stay away until dinner without a mother’s worry. It’s a place where leash-free and small, run leash-free – in search of another pup to play all day long. You don’t need make-up, fancy clothes or electronics. A book, some walking shoes, a beach chair, and the mindset to let the rest of the world wait does the trick. You either love it or “not so much”; I chose the former.

In 1980 I stepped onto the island, and she captured my heart. Last week the girls and I introduced Cuttyhunk to the men we love. We packed our cars in the driveway at 4:30AM. Five hours later, we met more family & loaded John Paul’s boat in New Bedford, MA, for the one-hour sail. We touched the island at 1:00PM only to unload again. We brought too much food – because one never knows, wine & beer – because it is a dry island – games, beach towels, and bikes.

We played horseshoes on the beach, Kan Jam on the lawn, harvested clams in the rain from the chilly – more like freezing – waters of Nashawena and hiked to the West End. Colleen and Jon hosted a picnic for 60 of our friends and family. We filed down to the beach and lit 25 paper lanterns in memory of Janet, the woman who started it all. We ate lobster on the beach and swam the channel & back. Colleen won at poker, the Trivia Pursuit game was a draw and Robbie finished the only puzzle in the house. Joe proposed to Kierstyn – actually she accidentally pulled the ring from his pocket before he could– a much better story – and we roamed the island in search of service to see if Kristi was going into labor. We upheld tradition and jumped off the dock as the ferry pulled away, giving Rich a proper send-off and survived the battle of the bugs on the midnight walk.

As we pulled from the dock into the channel on our last day, I took stock in my fortune. While family can be messy, frustrating, funny, and kind, in the end, they make my life a life.