#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

The Vineyard is typically thought to be the handiwork of ice age glaciers from around twenty thousand years ago, a relative eye blink in geological terms. And this is true: the Island was, in fact, bulldozed and sculpted by pulsing ice sheets at the edge of the tundra relatively recently. But the clays pushed up from under the earth by these glaciers – deposits that make up the Gay Head Cliffs of Aquinnah, that poke out in Chilmark, and that account for a good part of the western moraine of the Island – were originally laid down inconceivably deeper in time. Much of the deposits in the Gay Head Cliffs are from the height of the Mesozoic – the so-called Age of Reptiles. They’re part of a story five thousand times older than the rest of the Island. ~

~ Excerpt from "The Secret Life of Clay, Or: How to Read the Gay Head Cliffs,” Peter Brannen

Seagull Menemsha Morning

The morning rain held off, and I slept in a bit, walked late, and still got the solitude of the hills and beach that I crave. Suzi and Charlie, both with me, but I took a trail unfamiliar to Suzi and fortunately realized she was not following, returned to discover her looking back for me. Thank goodness I didn’t lose her. Then we were fine from there on. It turned out to be so nice, I texted my daughters and urged them to join me. First one, then the other, and we played in the spilled clay at the deserted, rocky shore, not a soul in sight, but we slathered a thick, creamy gray coating on all of our exposed flesh; we did each other’s backs and the air was warm. We let it dry on our cheeks and arms and thighs and bellies. Soon enough, swam int the cool water of the Sound and rinsed and refreshed we hiked home. The rainless morning gave us hope the afternoon would defy the weather report and stay clear. So we packed off to our friend’s rental in Aquinnah, hoping for a beachy afternoon. We pulled into their driveway, and the downpour began. Ahhhhh. In the Time of Covid, we had to find what to do indoors on a rainy afternoon. We drove home and the household napped. Sweet enough, to be in. a house of rainy rest. This was a perfect partly clear and partly rainy day, and an evening spent at cards, that lovely circle of us with the dogs asleep on the floor beside us and the rain stopped. I sense this summer coming to a close as this brief vacation nears its end. Strange to be here for such a short time, and not to offer a writing workshop while I’m here, as I’ve done the past few summers. I talked with my daughters about the book a bit today: making our plan for the 20th Anniversary Edition of Before You Forget - The Wisdom of Writing Diaries for Your Children, in which they will express what the diaries I kept for them over decades have impacted them, and how they want to respond to them creatively today. A plan is taking shape. I am in that near-September shift of envisioning the projects that I will invest my time and energy in this fall: all the excitement of anticipation digging into new beginnings that September energy brings. The clay of these cliffs, how ancient its origins. Mothers and daughters, how ancient our origins too. What a blessing to be close to them, to have them close to me, skin to skin, brain to brain. And, with us, too, this new being, in the roll and thunder and joy and bliss of all of it.