Here on Vineyard Sound, the sky and water and the everything in between them - (which is nothing) is blue, blue, a shade of blue or gray. We walked in the blue this morning under a cloud cover and a lightish rain that came and lifted, came and lifted in the quiet. So sunny it has been, we are happy for this moodier morning sky and the moistness on our skin/fur. Charlie, at 6:00 a.m. sharp, came to the edge of my bed and whined in my sleeping face to wake up, wake up, and I did. And I was happy he woke me so we could be out into the morning promptly at our appointed hour. The hour of blue everything. I wondered if I, as my feet slapped across the rounded wet stones, if I would swim, after all, without the sun on my back. And, as it happens, I did, and I did not regret the chill of the flat, still water in front of the great rock while the dogs watched. We were gone our usual two hours, and I thought the rain was lifting and would dissipate and that my son and I would return to the beach with our rented paddle boards under a dry but clouded sky. And then, it poured. And it was warm. So, we went anyway - what better way is there to spend a rainy day in Chilmark than out in the rain? We paddled along the shore of the Sound in the rain all the way up to the boat channel at Menemsha port and then we paddled up the channel with the current against us and found our way into a lovely marsh with white ibises standing in bright green grass in the blue blue of the salted water and we were very content and then Frank met us in Menemsha with the car and we returned home to the dogs and dried off and went back to our work. Toni Morrison died today. She wanted us to be our best. Must want it still. So, we must keep trying to be our best, and there is hope.