...And when I think of you,and all those to whom I sang,for whom I wrote songs and letters or acted out my life..if I can tell you my story perhaps something will change,not the past,but the future?
That summer I was almost 17. I was living on my own for the first time.I listened to Judy Collin’s album “Who Knows Where The Time Goes” and the wonderful song ‘My Father”. I think of my father.We were not close,my Dad and I. It was my first summer living alone on Marthas Vineyard and the little house I lived in on 3 Lincoln Avenue.I read Rod Mckuen like he was Beaudelaire.All summer long I played this Judy Collins album as I am playing it now….and Dusty Springfield’s “A Brand New Me” lp and Bobbie Gentry’s”Ode To Billie Joe”lp...and Laura Nyro,Joni Mitchell,Carole King. Though I was a late-comer to those albums (or at least Gentry and Collins)they were constant companions to the summer there.All the adults (at least the cool ones which were the ones I came in contact with) were hippies:anti-war,friendly,warm…it was a new world.There was a commune next door and on the other side a wonderful journalist who was also a master chef.There were record shops on Circuit Avenue,Head Shops,India Clothing stores;incense and tiger balm were necessities.I lived on Dannon Spice Apple Yogurt and occassionally fresh mussels.Phonograph records played in the upstairs apartments on the Avenue and their hallways smelled of old wood,incense and marijuana. We were all tanned and the bottoms of our feet were stained of beach tar. “First Boy I Ever Loved” plays. “Pretty Polly”.
The sun’s light relinquished its hold on the street.The breeze barely made its way room to room,breathful gasps in the heaviness of August.The ocean swell slowly heaved.
Mason Jars filled with gin and limes in a beach-house….sandy wood floors,sheer billowing white curtains at open windowsides…salt and dampness in the air,in the linen, in my hair,on my body.Memory. I was eclectic,insightful,sensitive,soulful. Emotions turned me on.
--As always, for JPP and his lovingly guiding the story out of me.
