Monhegan Island lies 12 miles off the coast of Maine. Throughout the year, it can be reached by ferry from Port Clyde. In the summer, ferries also leave from Boothbay Harbor and New Harbor. All of these trips take approximately 60 minutes—depending on what the weather happens to be doing that day, of course.

We always got the one from Port Clyde. At 7 a.m. the eight of us would load ourselves into the two cars we had packed the night before, and drive all morning and into the afternoon, in order to catch the last boat. Our drive was mostly carefree, unless we hit traffic. Then, things always became more tense. No one wanted to miss the ferry. Pulling up onto the wharf at quarter-after-three., frantically unloading our things from the cars so they could be loaded onto the boat, parking the now-empty vehicles in the parking lot a mile up the road—somehow, we always made it.

As children, my siblings and I were obsessed with the island and looked forward to this trip every year. At Port Clyde, our anticipation always piqued. Once we finally boarded the ferry, we knew that only shipwreck would keep us from reaching our desired destination—and, unsure though we were at that age about a lot of things, we were certain that such disaster would not likely befall us. God, we believed then, was on our side.

Eagerly, and weather-permitting, we all took turns standing at the bow of the ship as it sliced the waves in two. We kept an eye out for the marine life (usually porpoises) which sometimes came to greet the boat, at times swimming along side it for a spell or two. Soon we would be close enough to make out the island as a small, but familiar, sliver, somehow distinct from the all the rest. As we drew closer, it would wax into something that looked like a humungous whale that had come to the surface to take a breath. Then, suddenly, we could see the village. Once we could distinguish between the different buildings, we always abandoned our posts and frantically went gather our carry-ons that we had left with our parents inside; for then, we knew, that soon we would be arriving.

At first, our relationship with the island was greatly influenced by our parents whose own interest in the place had to do with its long history as a an artist colony and their careers as landscape painters. Early on, we understood Monhegan as a place that was merely beautiful. Slowly, over the years, as each of us grew up and into our individual selves, we each came to associate that beauty with the different lessons we learned during the course of our explorations there. In this way, I think, we naturally came to understand our concepts and abstractions as being linked to the beauty which the island so embodied.

Much like the ‘Oronsay,’ in The Cat’s Table, we were freer here than anywhere else we had been. Most of the time, our parents tended more to their paintings than to any of us. So, our days were spent discovering all that we could about the island and, by proxy, our own mysterious beings.

In our youth, however, we never swam on the island—though, each of us loved the water perhaps more than the land. The rest of the summer—on every sunny day, on every possible occasion—we would beg our parents to take us to the town lake. At the time, we understood it only as a way by which to escape the humidity and the heat. We didn’t grasp what the water truly meant to us; that, like the island, it was its own world with its own secrets to be discovered.

On Monhegan the water was forbidden to us. We were told that the ocean—the same that on its surface could look so innocent and serene—was, below its surface, a violent and unpredictable killer. We were allowed to roam the land freely, but were informed adamantly about not going in the water—to not even go near it, lest a rogue wave should come and grab one of us when we were least suspecting. Once you were in—we were made to understand—there was no escape. The waves that packed the full force of the Atlantic (coursing in from the east, uninterrupted, all the way from Portugal) would grab us, dragging us down the 200 ft. drop that surrounds three-quarters of the island—into complete darkness and, eventually, death.

The only ‘safe’ place to swim (we were told) was in the harbor, at the beach cleverly named ‘Swim Beach.’ Here, protected by the smaller island, known as Manana, the murderous currents did not reach and it was safe to enter the water. Safe, yes—but not necessarily pleasant. Only on the extremely hot days would we dare to attempt to submerge ourselves in the freezing cold water for which the Northern Atlantic is renowned. A minute was all we could stand before we ran frantically back onto shore, where the once oppressive sun was now, suddenly, a welcome and warming presence. So, between the dangers and the temperature of the island’s surrounding waters, we mostly kept out, amusing ourselves with safer, drier adventures.

As my siblings went off to college, our family trips petered out. By the time my stepsister and I were 15, we were the only two visiting the island each summer with our parents. Now they taught an annual painting workshop on Monhegan, which my stepsister took part in. So, typically, I had the days to the myself—two weeks worth to be exact—and I was determined to spend none of them idle.

From morning to night, I roamed the island aimlessly in my bare feet. Usually, I had a book and sketchbook in hand, and I would stop now and then to cozy up to a rock so that I could jot down some poems or try to draw something that had caught my interest. I was very interested in seeing everything from as many angles as possible and recording them as exactly as I could. This was the purpose poetry and sketching served me at the time.

Though a small island, Monhegan never once bored me. I knew the trails by heart and, yet, each time I traversed them they were somehow different. There were so many versions of a single place that I remained utterly captivated. I could walk to the eastern side—‘the back’—of the island on a sunny day and feel and experience something entirely different than the next time I happened to go there on a foggy day.

The rising and lowering of the tides similarly preserved—even stoked—my wonder. Places were noticeably transformed by the simple advance and retreat of the water. This began to fascinate me, and I often liked to ponder which version of a place was the ‘real’ one if the sea was constantly being pulled in different directions by the moon’s gravity.

One day, while on one of my excursions, I discovered the truth about the water. On the western side of the island there’s a little cove that I often liked to visit since it was a bit off-the-beaten-path and, therefore, I could rest assured I wouldn’t be bothered by many tourists. Each time I went, I made sure it would be low tide, however, since the rocky beach that made the cove so appealing to me at the time is only revealed when the tide is out. The cove is made possible by a wall of rocks that jut out into the water, forming what is almost a natural jetty. At low tide, I had noticed that these stood at more than twice my height, their surfaces covered in limp, damp sea-grass.

The day I discovered the truth about the water, I wasn’t trying to visit the cove, so I hadn’t bothered to do my calculation. When I came upon it, however, and it was high tide, I was impressed by the extent of the change the water had made. The ocean had risen significantly, submerging the rocky beach almost entirely. Beyond where the beach would have been, the towering rocks stood just barely out of the water. One of them, being particularly flat at the top, formed a nice-looking platform. I figured I could reach the platform rock if I went around to the other side of the cove, which I did.

Once on top of the rock, I stared down at the water lapping quietly at its edge. It was clear enough that I could see down into its depths. I could see the seagrass now brought to life by the presence of the undulating water. Mesmerized by it, I thought, this ocean is not the one my parents warned me about. Even below the surface, everything appeared to move gently, calmly, stolidly…

I put down my books.

It was a hot, humid day at the beginning of August. The sun was beating down on me, and I was an adolescent boy determined to see and experience things from as many angles and perspective as he could. I was more nervous about not having a towel than I was about what I was suddenly planning to do. With barely a thought, I stripped down to my boxers. I looked one last time through the water; I drew in a breath, and jumped in—

Monique Allewaert spoke in her lecture about how the water is a medium that influences how sound moves and how light is refracted; and how the air does this too, only we are adapted to it and so don’t notice it. My brother, who has recently begun to paint landscapes like our parents, philosophized to me recently that paintings show us what we don’t see: ‘light’ and ‘atmosphere’ are depicted in ways that draw attention to their existence. In painted form, they become something more material and more literal to our senses. I wonder if Michael Ondaatje, in The Cat’s Table, is not asking us to think similarly about time. In other words, maybe time is a medium as natural to us as air but that, like water, hides its depths. And maybe what his book does is attempt to communicate what had originally eluded us; a whole humungous piece of the world hiding in plain sight.

—I emerged from the water shivering. Was it from the cold? Or was it my excitement? As I pushed myself back up onto the rock, the breeze made my body feel as though it might be wound in plastic wrap. Yet, I felt in no way constricted. Rather, I felt limberer and lighter than before. I was fully aware of my heart as it beat, invigorated, in my chest. I looked down again, at the seagrass. Somehow, what I had always been told would kill me, had done just the opposite. In fact, it had seemed to magically render me more alive. I was left to question whether, prior to my dive, I had even been alive at all or if I had been like the seagrass at low tide—clinging to the rock, limp and and merely waiting for the water to breathe life into me.

(Note: By jumping into the water that day, I had only discovered that the western side of the island was, in most places, swimmable. The back of the island is never a safe place to swim—ever.)

 

Image: http://sensoryawareness.org/events/sensory-awareness-on-monhegan/2017-07-17/