It’s a funny thing that the same influx of people that overwhelms so many of us in August is also what we love about living here: everyone comes to visit.
As I wonder what I have to say in these heart-wrenching times, people keep wandering into my life and distracting me. More than distracting, they nourish me by expanding my world. I am reminded that they, too, are struggling — each in unique ways — with the turmoil in our body politic and with the loss of rule-based systems.
Many of us have been hit with the loss of government funding we have come to rely on in the arts, for elder care, for schools, child care, public broadcasting, and environmentally urgent projects. The more marginalized among us, neighbors with families of mixed immigrant status, are high on the list of our community concerns just now. I make myself available to listen closely to the cries and delight, the anger, histories, and humor of my company. These are times to stay in touch.
This summer I have celebrated having breakfasts and beach fires, brunches and dinners with fascinating and beloved others from afar. There’s the humanitarian aid staffer for the U.N. who works in Mozambique and tells me of the beautiful beaches and the horrific toll suffered by the large population there with AIDS who have lost medical support from USAID. And there was the visit from a U.S. Congressman’s son who stops in Eastham to see his wife’s family en route to a summer stay on the Vinyard. He does political research and tells me that Zohran Mamdani is more than likely to win the election for mayor of New York City in November, a thought that makes me happy.
Another visitor, a woman who works in one of the European Union’s directorates general, tells me what a beautiful country Sudan was, known as the Bread Basket of Africa, when she visited her sister there before the war.
Then there’s the Hollywood costume designer who brings squashes from the Vermont farm she works on during the summer and the Virginia cousin who manages the grounds at a small college and with his adult son spent their visit digging wonderful things into my yard between sailing and quahoging.
These visitors are among the too many people we all complain about out on Route 6. The rude driving by some scares me and provokes rage that makes it difficult to recognize the kind empath I profess to be.
Collapsing into bad behavior in moments when our responsibilities are too much and our supportive relationships are insufficient is familiar to most of us. When upheaval is so rapid, as it is now, a collective trauma may be at play. While harmful executive orders are being executed far and wide, I try to remember that the wheel is still in motion, and there’s no telling where it will stop.
More people are out protesting the hate-mongering and injustices — people who never considered themselves activists. Rachel Maddow keeps reminding us with images of all the rallies in unexpected places where many people communicate their feelings about how our ship of state has been scuttled. The urge to protest may be based on what these new activists learned in seventh-grade civics about respect for the law or at their grandparents’ knees about treating others with kindness.
I go down to the pond to gaze out on the stillness there and find that the geese have reclaimed the wooden dock as their porta-potty. This is because the device used for scaring geese away was removed. The surrounding water surface is covered with lily pads and lotus blossoms. Buddhists teach that the lotus with its roots in the mud and its clean petals facing the sun is a perfect reminder always to consider the whole picture.
