Slip Sliding Away

 I realize everything I am about to write reeks of privilege, and that makes it some form of cringe or maybe colonialism? I lose track. Anyways. 

My great-uncle served at Otis AFB on Cape Cod during WWII. He must have fallen in love with the area, as he subsequently bought a house on Nantucket in 1960 for about $10,000. I went there about every other summer as a child. After graduating high school, I worked there for a summer, cleaning streets for the DPW.  

In 1994, I discovered that the woman who would become my wife also had a family home there. I don't know if we would have dated if we didn't share a ferry ride home one Thanksgiving. We were married on the island, and our boys were baptized in the same church. 

Moving to New England meant that the island became central to our summers. We were absolutely blessed to be able to share our summers and our boys’ summers with our families. 

After my parents died, my sister and I tried to keep the house by renting it. The house was in the heart of the town and dated back to around 1800. The upkeep, carrying costs and sporadic repairs and improvements meant we couldn’t use it during the summer months. 

Last summer we sold it. 

When we did, I promised my wife we would be able to keep her family’s house, but the island kept changing. The place I went to as a kid was weird and crusty. It still retained aspects of an old New England fishing town. It was very hard to get to with only 2 ½ hour ferries or twin engine planes able to cross the water. 

Then they expanded the airport and launched high speed ferries. The airport is the second busiest in Massachusetts during the summer. Jets began to land from NYC. 

It all changed. Local shops that served year round residents became boutiques. Traffic became snarled. Quiet out of the way beaches became choked with lax bros and influencers. 

My wife’s sister insisted on selling their home. It closes later this summer. 

We will likely come back to Nantucket. As guests, not summer residents. We’ve sold my father’s farm. My body does not work the way it used to. So much of my life feels like the past slipping away.

Yesterday would’ve been my father’s birthday. We went to a place he loved to eat, in what might be my last night on the island. Probably not. But maybe. Afterwards, we walked down to the docks to see the mega-yachts, passed a swanky restaurant rented out for a private party. Apparently, I wore my melancholy on my face.

I look more and more like my father every day, and I can feel myself losing him, too, every day.