Take Me Back
The brushes and the trees are started to get overgrown. The gardener hasn’t come in over a month. I feel them surround me like a great green comfort. I’m lost in visions of Martha’s Vineyard this afternoon. The romance of the lazy days, the sun-drenched everything. The forever fresh fruits and herbs. The long dresses and leather sandals, iced coffees and sandy Subaru’s. I spent every summer on the vineyard after the age of 11. I fell in love, made new friends, worked at the Dairy Queen and the shoe store and the henna tattoo shop. We would make bonfires and drink from bottles of my friend’s parents’ liquor. A few times we'd slept on the beach and we would wake up wet and cold. We swam naked in the ocean, had dance parties in minimalist homes on rolling hills with bended trees. Everything felt so magical on that island. Timeless. Maybe our kids will make the same memories.. I always dreamed of having a cabin there by the water. Small, simple but with a view of a pond. John Belushi said you haven’t had a summer unless you’ve been young, drunk and on the vineyard. I want that summer in my everyday life and in many ways I’ve recreated it. The cooking and dancing in dresses. The flowers of Venice. The free artist community. I’d love more of a sense of community, I tend to isolate. Those summers were magic.. The eye contact, the french kisses, the long dark drives around the island. Paul Simon. Always Paul Simon. I think of those lovers every now and then. The cigarette smoke and musk. Sleeping in a grandparents barn. I wonder how they are and if they are living their lives as beautiful as those few months, How have they recreated the vineyard? No make up, the smell of salt and smoke from fires. Spending time with babies and grandparents as if the days would never end. Did anyone ever work? I don’t remember even a hint of anyone having a real job. Especially the parents. It takes a lot of privledge to live like an artist. Or maybe it’s just a decision. Maybe I don’t need to make all the money in order to buy the home to have the lifestyle. Maybe Venice is my Vineyard.
