Shelter Island
Every once in a while, I catch the smell of my grandparents’ house in my chest again. Like I’m walking up the three concrete steps and through the porch door, into the kitchen with the light from above streaming through that window in the roof. Like my feet are retracing the same worn paths in that old wood that has held my family for years. I’m not sure what sparks the smell in my nose because sometimes it smells like my grandfather’s old sailboat, and sometimes it smells like his white cotton t-shirts and the towels that sit in the laundry room, above the counter that always held the tray of oatmeal raisin cookies from Costco. Sometimes it smells like the grass in the sun, that yellow green blue smell, wet and salty, and sometimes it smells just salty like the ocean, the Atlantic that stretched out beyond you if you drive too far in any direction on their island.
The wind here sometimes reminds me of the ocean there. When I sit on my balcony, the wind is cool and the sound it makes in the trees reminds me of the sound of the waves on the beach and it reminds of me of the stillness in the mountains. It all fills my ears the same way. Even though the wind is cold, the sun is so warm that it makes up for it and the sky is a shade of blue that you could swim in.
When I was seven years old, right before my family moved to South Africa, I was in my Aunt’s wedding. I wore a white linen dress, with red and pink flowers, and a sash around the middle and I remember I had a silk scarf that I carried the whole night, wrapping my arms in it, and running with it on the dance floor. The wedding was at one of the churches on the island, not my grandparents church, but the one by the marina, and we walked all the way up the hill towards it, the whole wedding party, my aunt in cream silk and all the men in suits. It must have been summer because it was still warm, and the grass was still so green, and the fireflies came out that night.
There’s a handful of beaches on their island that mean the most to me, that come up most frequently in my memory, like I can still feel the sand on my skin, and like I have always been meant to be on those beaches. Crab Island was on the far side, down their road and to the right a handful of times, until you reached the end of the road, and the white shelter sat looking over the parking lot on one side and the sand on the other. Sailboats always sat on the far side of the beach, next to the tall grass and if you went a little further down, you could go through the trees or along the water looking for shells. The orange ones were always my favorite, golden, yellow, sunburnt, like a clementine or a drop of honey, but I always looked for the ones that twirled around themselves, like a castle for a fairy or a mermaid. Once you had walked far enough, you came to a small inlet, and here when the water was low, you would understand why it was named Crab Island, as the little creatures ran over your feet, scurrying sideways between the holes in the sand. When you took a step, it felt like you were the biggest thing around, like your footstep could cause the whole world to shake.
On the other side of the island was Sunset Beach, and after dinner we would drive down with a blanket and sit while the sun turned the water gold and orange and pink until finally it faded into that cool smokey blue, a color that only the Atlantic Ocean ever carries. One year, we went there for the Fourth of July, and the orchestra played as the air around us turned hazy after the sunset, and then we watched the fireworks over the ocean.
In the middle of the island sat the pond, and we would bike there, as the trees grew closer together, and the world turned even greener, if you can believe it, and then we’d come to the green water, and quickly pull our clothes off and dive in. The edges of the pond were covered in lily pads, and there was a rumor of a snapping turtle that lived in the water, but one summer I watched with amazement in my eyes as my aunt swam all the way to the other side of the pond. When I was older and went back, it didn’t seem as far, and I almost made it the whole way myself, but when I got to the middle, I let myself float, the water murky around my body, and the sunshine warm on my face.
When I close my eyes, I can pretend I’m in the attic, the smell of the light wood surrounding me, the breeze from the windows on either side filling the space, the air hot. I always slept in the far corner, on a mattress on the floor, the braided rugs right next to my hand. Some years when we came, there would be presents waiting under our pillows, and some years the only present I wanted was my grandmother’s blueberry cobbler, or the sweet taste of watermelon from the market.
When people ask me, what place makes me think of home, I always go back to that house, the old furniture covered with the linen sheets, yellow and white, and the piano by the windows, and all the animal figurines sitting against the window in the dining room, the ones you have to look through to see the bird feeders that the chickadees always came back to. I think that it is because love fills that house, from the basement with the collections of items that my grandfather brought back with him from his trips, to the hallway that all the bedrooms sit off of, with pictures from the 1880s all the way to the one of me on the tree, and to the attic that we slept in for all those summers. Like my grandparents’ love couldn’t stay between the two of them, and it was more than their children could hold and so the house had to carry it for them.