This summer, I pointed my vehicle towards various destinations.  Some involved water.  Some involved massive, castle like structures.  All of them involved lobster rolls.

One weekend, with, as I am now fond of saying, I had little to do and few shekels in my pocket, so I pointed my vehicle towards Falmouth, Massachusetts.  A ferry to a place called Martha’s Vineyard leaves from there.  GPS said it would take an hour and a half to get there.  Boston summer cape traffic thought otherwise.  Three hours later, I arrived at the ferry, to find out parking was somewhere else, that they only took cash.  Luckily, this being New England, they waved their hand and told me not to worry about catching a ferry that was leaving in approximately five minutes.  

The ferry ride was thickest New England.  Next to me sat Francis, a four legged fellow passenger of unknown provenance wearing a bow tie and embroidered lobsters on his leash.  Francis, a Martha’s Vineyard canine through and through.  I pointed my camera at Francis and he did not like that at all, so you’ll have to use your imagination about him. 

I decided to go to Oak Bluffs.  The vineyard has three main towns.  There’s Vineyard Haven, Edgartown and Oak Bluffs.  Vineyard Haven is a bit of a tourist trip.  Edgartown is thickest, thickest of New England.  People SUMMER there.  Ground zero for chinos with little ducks embroidered on them.  Oak Bluffs though had the most hustle and bustle, I mean as much as you can have on an island that you can cross in a car in about an hour.  

Live, laugh, lobster roll was sort of the theme of the day.  I dragged my usual knapsack of camera gear with me.  I was solo, so I wasn’t annoying anyone by photographing a single flower for a half an hour.  I did a turn around the island, all of it culminating in an above average lobster roll and a below average soft serve cone.

Being out there, I recalled my last visit to the island in 2014.  At that time, I was teaching at my professional home of almost four years at that point.  That job was insane, an environment where anyone could walk into the place, any day of the week and they did.  

On day, a very nice young woman from Mexico came to my class.  I thought nothing of it, other than she was nice.  A day later, one of the teenage girls in the class ran up to me and said — do you know who she is??? She’s FAMOUS!!!! 

It turned out she was a famous actress from Mexico.  It was funny because I just carried on teaching her as if I didn’t know this.  

One day, we were in class and we had an exercise on dream jobs, on what we would do if we could either choose a career or choose a different career.  She said she wanted to be a florist.  

One night we went to a Red Sox game together.  Before we went, we got to talking.  She said she’d started acting because that was kind of the family business.  She told me she’d never finished high school because of acting.  She seemed to be at a crossroads as well with her career, trying to decide what was next for her.  

A few weeks later, there was a day trip to Martha’s Vineyard that we could go on.  We went with two dear Chilean friends.  

The trip had this lovely calm to it.  We rode the little bus around the island.  It was raining but no one seemed to mind.  My friends made jokes about buying property on the island, which is decidedly out of reach for most mortals.  There was something small and humble about us on that island that day, enjoying ourselves and just exploring.  Not an intense vibe at all.  

I thought of my student, somewhat recognized in other parts of the world, but completely anonymous on this little island.  I wondered what that might feel like for her.  

A couple of days ago, I saw that my former student is now in a series on Netflix and I made a little post about how proud I am of her.  She reshared my post and it got 40,000 views.  Suddenly my Instagram inexplicably got 68,000 views in 24 hours.  This was not my intent at all.  I didn’t even think she would see it.  It was nice to that she had.

Last night I sat down and watched the series, which is called No One Saw Us Leave.  It’s beautifully made and well acted.  Oh and one of the stars is a heretofore unknown to me, handsome sandy haired Argentinian actor whose career I am suddenly very interested in.  At end, I found myself with a tear in my eye, not so much about the plot line, but seeing my former student in this beautiful and very successful production brought a tear to my eye.  

Now I’m at a crossroads with teaching.  I think I would like to continue but also the political climate is such that it feels like the opportunities are drying up.  I don’t really know what’s next for me, but days like that, making connections like that does make me retain the love for the job.  As Henry Burton says in Primary Colors — stop with this “when this is over, we’re all pros crap.”  I’ve gotten emotionally attached here, he adds.  I guess that’s how I feel about the job.  Yeah, we’re all pros here but as far as work goes, I guess I’m a bit emotionally attached to the whole thing.  

Anyway, we veered into my work life and this is ostensibly a picture blog, so here’s some beautiful Martha’s Vineyard to experience, without Francis, aka Sir Barks A Lot.  These are all from my lovely Rollei. I love that camera. Almost all of these look exactly like they came out of the camera. Martha’s Vineyard is kind of vintage and these were taken with a vintage camera. So there’s that.

Pictures here: