i did it again

Determined not to be a tourist and not to sit in an impossibly beautiful house, I went on another 15 mile bike ride, on my own this time and with my camera. I didn't take but four pictures because once I was riding, the notion of stopping just seemed daunting and so I kept on- willing my legs to "power through" with every hill that made my thighs scream against the pressure I was forcing them to exert. But it feels good in the end, to have accomplished something like that- and enjoyed it.

I'm sitting beside fresh lillies in the center of the dining room table. I say this because in a few days time I will not be sitting beside fresh lillies. Fresh lillies will be my past, a memory stitched together with open windows, cranberry bogs, grey shingled houses, tall green hedges, blue hyancinths and the sea.

It's so easy for me to fall in love with a place. I get enraptured with the age of houses, the direction the wind always blows, the people walking down the street, the accents and the food. But, Nantucket is different. I saw a t-shirt yesterday while shopping that said, "everyone should have a Nantucket." And they should, every last soul on this earth should know the spoiled and perfect life this island heaves upon you. I love places because they beckon you to return, or even to live there like New York or London because there is always something you haven't seen, places you haven't been. But Nantucket is a feeling as much as it is a place. And it's visual- the hyacinths, the shingles, the oyster shell lanes and the sea. Maybe I'm a visual girl. Maybe Nantucket needs to be on my calendar so that I can remember that life can be slow and still filled with lushishness.

All I know is that I don't want this to be the last trip I make here.