In Nantucket: Allowing The Dust To Settle

Once again I am on the beautiful island of Nantucket. I walk early every morning from our cottage to the nearby cove. It’s a watery destination that I love and somehow each morning, weather depending, it looks different. This morning it is still, no bob or sway to the moored boats. The water is glassy, the air misty and heavy, the sky grayish. 

The cove has gone all misty

Whatever the weather, the cove always has some expectancy about it. I imagine people clambering into those moored boats, heaving over striped bags of picnic food for family outings or a day of fishing. People will come, boats will be readied, gear stowed and, on some, sails will be set and off they will go. But not usually when I am there, quiet and watching. It’s too early.

To begin this walk of mine I leave the cottage at the back,  scrambling sideways through a narrow slot in the hedge and over some bent-down, rolled, plastic chicken wire fencing designed to keep out rabbits, I expect. I do this rather carefully; the thought of catching my trailing foot in the wire is daunting to say the least.

Having successfully negotiated that move, I am on a narrow dirt road; the brown dirt is silky and fine, so fine that the soles of my sneakers leave perfect imprints. I walk maybe three hundred yards along this narrow dirt road to the asphalt road that will eventually take me close to the cove.

This morning I started out on the dirt road and had to stop because a truck was coming toward me. Some workman on his way to mow, clip, weed, or whatever needs doing, a constant occupation, it seems, here on the Island. Every house is landscaped to a startling degree of perfection. The truck comes, not really slowly but does slow as the driver spots me. I freeze into the road’s edge while he passes. I am now walking into a fog of fine brown dust raised by his churning tires, which I can see through, but which I don’t really want to breathe. 

 Annoyed, I begin waving my arms in wide flapping circles trying to move the dust away from my face. To no avail. I stand looking into the cloud, watching, as it to hangs there unmoved by air motion. This is a sheltered little road and besides there is zero wind this morning. Zero.

And what do you know? Another pickup comes cruising along, stirring up yet another cloud of this sandy silt and again I am forced to the side of the road, engulfed in miniscule, floating dirt particles.

Wait a minute, I am thinking, as I brush at my clothes, this is my walk! You guys are messing me up here.

Then I just stand still and look. I can see that the brownish cloud is slowly dropping, that all I really need to do is STOP and WAIT. I need only to be still and allow all this dust to settle. I know that it will. It doesn’t need my help. In fact, there’s not a damn thing I can do to speed the process up.  It will happen entirely on its own. The dust will settle more quickly if I cease to flail my arms around trying to control it.

OK. So my walk is delayed? Big deal. I’m on vacation. Who cares? The cove will still be there.

And when the fine brown dirt settles around me, I walk along toward the cove musing about how often I have attempted to control or manipulate a stirred up situation in my life that I cannot effect.  How often I have been angry and frustrated at my lack of success, only to find later that some other, more natural or more creative solution arises instead. I could have saved all that energy and angst and just let the Universe, God’s astonishing choreography, handle the situation. 

So many times, just like this morning, I could have stopped and waited and with complete confidence, simply allowed the dust to settle on its own.