SUMMER ON OUR ISLAND by Mike Djordjevich (USA)

I don’t know how it is where you are or how your feel about the seasons. Every region, country, municipality has its own reaction to it.

It makes sense that it is set up that way. We may all be humans but it’s our differences which bind us together. Etc.

I am sure no one wants to hear more of that dribble.

I mean, let’s go back to what matters: the changing of the seasons.

Our island has witnessed many changes: it traversed the path from being a camping, vacation destination via an upscale residential community
to (the worst possible development of all) a tourist destination.

To be clear, it isn’t the island which attracts the hoardes of overweight, out of shape, clueless, uneducated and misinformed people, collectively known as tourists. What attracts them is the ferry which, to them, is like a light to an insect. And, we, the Islanders, suffer.  In some fashion we are begining to understand how the people of Barcelona, Lisbon and Venice, for example, feel about those invasions. Of course, we are not comparing ourselves to those great cities. We are nothing compared to them. I am sure that we would be classified as the “poor relations” compared to them.

One redeeming factor in all of this is that the summer has finally arrived on our island. The days are long, warm and sunny. The cicadas as noisy and omnipresent in our lives in the summer. The unique smell of those evergreen tree needles is a bit more pronounced. It fills our nostrils (at least mine) with the pleasant memories of childhood.

We have just the one street which, to us, is the Champs-Élysées of our island. It is a fraction of the distance and/or beauty of the real thing but is glamorous to us, our Main Street. The store lights (boutiques, antiques, jewelry, restaurants) are made of neon and very colorful. In the summer I enjoy the juxtaposition of those to the darkening sky which presents its own light show. The reds, blues and orange streaks in the darkening skies left behind by the setting sun. The tree tops, those evergreen tree tops, look just a bit taller and more majestic at the end of the day.

The ferry itself, our life line to the rest of the world, or, at least, America, seems a bit brighter shade of white in the summer. It appears as if it sails more purposefully, peacefully and resolutely. It is not afraid, maybe, of the storms, big waves and rains of winter.  It brings its tourist cargo orderly and willingly, to the dismay of us who live there.

The summer brings peace and reconciliation, both individual and existential. It makes us look at everything with a little more patience and acceptance. We feel the same as the ferry, maybe.  Kind of like gliding along the 15 km of ocean it takes to get to us. Every year I hope it’ll make me feel more welcoming but that wish hasn’t come true yet. Maybe, some day, it will.

We realize that the autumn will be here soon. The skies will darken soon, the air will be colder, the ferry will be emptier. The birds will fly away and the cicadas will stop chirping.

So, let’s enjoy it while we can. Here is to the summer, may it never end.