A family of great crested flycatchers has moved into our woodpecker house, apparently not at all disturbed that it was designed for another type of bird. I sit at the breakfast table and watch...

The phone rang early this morning. It was a friend who’d recently moved from the island back to the state where she’d been raised. I miss her, but was pleased to know of her...

I collected a beautiful shell last week, varying shades of peach and lilac, set off with gleaming white. It was a watercolor miniature of an ocean sunset made permanent—or so I thought. This week...

The weather warmed up again today, and I was able to sit on the back porch, not really reading, but letting a book lie face down in my lap. Among the afternoons sounds I...

Sometimes I wonder why my world on the island seems so dense with connections. Things I see, hear, taste, touch, or smell remind me of other things, and my life becomes a metaphor. When...

Each Sunday during the summer I watch renters arrive at their units. They carry in suitcases, bags of food, and sports equipment, laughing and calling to one another. During the week I witness their...

Today I passed a mixed group of gulls sitting in the sand, each staring at the sea. They barely moved as I approached, continuing their concentrated gaze, only stepping back a few paces. Why...

In the still of the night, the sound of the waves seems exaggerated, crashing on the shore, rolling along the coast, breaking in a rhythmic crescendo. When the routine noises of the day are...

As the island empties in the growing darkness of autumn, my mind considers other seashores, other ages, other lives. I think about the Sea of Galilee and what it must have been like for...

The beach was deserted and still this morning; I couldn’t see another person within view. As I made my way along the shore, I saw a dolphin break water beside me, just beyond the...