Ghosts In Paradise

[Above photo: Ari’s lovely 1890’s farmhouse/home. ]

6 June 2021

Taking after Selma Fraiberg’s seminal paper, “Ghosts in the Nursery”, which should be a center of discussion for any psychology/psychiatry/clinical social work/therapist training program, Beach Island is thoroughly haunted.

It is stunningly beautiful here on the Island, despite being crowded with ghosts. My mother first came here in 1913, at 9yo, with her mother and 4 siblings. My grandmother was looking for an escape from the summer heat and foul public water (in summer) of Boston and saw an ad offering a former church camp for rent in Maine. That it was on an island 6 ½ miles offshore and had for accommodation only a small cookhouse didn’t dissuade her. They came, somehow, with a large tent and a cook and fell in love, returning every summer thereafter.

Grandma was a spoiled beauty with no experience “camping”, joining all in those days who weren’t soldiers, prospecters, or surveyers. Grandfather, a rather timid and unambitious attorney, likewise was a naif.  He worked in Boston at the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company, visiting his family at intervals, while my grandmother managed the kids, three girls and two boys. All fell totally in love with the beauty and freedom, the lack of rules or hygiene. The boys and my mother all became proficient sailors over time. The kids would pile into their first boat, a Swampscot Dory decked over for racing on the open ocean, and sail off, returning after a few days. It had no engine or navigation aids and fog or lack of wind would thwart their return. Gram apparently would put a kerosene lamp in an obvious place and go to sleep, trusting in Providence.

As time passed, Grandfather bought a motor yacht, Egeria. The kids found a perfect Herreshoff sloop sitting unused in a barn, bought her for a song, and sailed her in Penobscot Bay for years until a storm tore her from her mooring and crashed her onto the rocks. The island was rented to two farmers during WW I. Their attempts to grow potatoes in this rocky land failed but they built a beautiful barn and a perfect small farmhouse with a root cellar. Both are used today. My grandfather also built a lovely house with a view of the harbor, although he didn’t own the land.  

My mother brought my father here after they became a number while in medical school at Columbia. My dad had some money before the Depression (none after) and had a 40 foot yawl, Playmate. He kept her at the Rye NY Yacht Club and in the spring my parents would spend weekends sanding and painting. When school let out for summer—Columbia didn’t let out for summer when I attended, he said with bitterness.— they’d sail to Maine and the island. Dad bought an undivided half of the island for his bride in 1926 for the value of half the spruce (as lumber).  Island life was too rough for “rusticators”, it seems, and Maine islands were for the taking then.  In a few years our second cousins bought the other undivided half.

I first came here at 2yo from Seattle, where my family had moved from Boston. I returned the next year but thereafter the great distance (train travel only), WW II, my mother’s depressions, my father’s surgeries, financial stresses, and more prevented our return until I was 16yo or so.

We “summer people” left the island before Labor Day to get their kids back for school. My wife loved it here and before children we stayed through September on two occasions. On the first, when we arose the day after everyone else had left, a blue heron was marching around the front lawn, assuming the invaders had decamped.  He was surprised to see us with morning tea on the front porch! We survived a couple of worrisome September storms.  I’d row out to the motor boat, which was heaving and pitching in the northerly blow, and somehow get aboard to check the mooring pennant.

Once we saw the Northern Lights. They weren’t the Norwegian greenish streaks seen in National Geographic photos, more fog-like wisps and flashes. Having never seen them before and it being the midst of the Cold War, we wondered if there had been a nuclear attack. My wife suggested we get in bed under the covers; I thought it was a swell idea.

Eventually, my mother gave the barn, the farmhouse and our half of the island to my sister, causing considerable unhappiness for my brother and I. Talking about ghosts, be careful how you dispose of your stuff!  Mom built a small cottage for herself, which she deeded to my brother and I. Our older brother and his family were happily ensconced near the Chesapeake Bay and didn’t want to be a part of the Island community. Eventually, my wife, kids, and I built a lovely cottage at the top of the meadow for ourselves.

Wild strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries come in succession. Each adult islander has their own secret location for chanterelle mushrooms. When children are here, we take them and all the empty bottles out on a rocky promontory and sink them with bb guns. In a few years the sea glass washes up, smooth and opaque, as “pirates’ treasure”. Sailing, rowing, kayaking, swimming for the hardy, and “projects” in the daytime, with reading, talking, or intense games of pounce (called nertz-West Coast or racing demons-UK) in the the evenings, especially for the teenagers. The champion was always a 14-15yo girl; she’d wear the crown for a year or two until a quick and ambitious youngster would supplant her.

The stories go on and on. Never an accidental death or serious injury; no drownings. My mother once fell down the cellar stairs. I carried her up, put her to bed, and gave her a shot of whiskey, a shot of maple syrup, and a good book. Beach Island is the repository of many of my happiest young and older adult experiences, especially with my own family. It feels familiar and odd, divorced and estranged from my son, to be in this wonderful spot with so many memories.

I wrestled Ari’s rototiller over a patch of the meadow where I’ve had a garden previously.  I greatly respect New England farmers’ toughness, especially in the days before electric or gasoline-powered aids. The length, number, and toughness of the roots! The endless rocks left from glacial scraping! My garden is tilled and planted.   The lovely sea kayak I built 23 years ago has two fresh coats of varnish on it.  I’m settling into a routine of reading, birdwatching, hiking, some maintenance, chatting with my great niece, Gwyn (off to Harvard Law in September) and Michael (the son of a friend of the island who has now become the caretaker), and smelling the balsam fir.  I’ll leave tomorrow for 5 days to visit my brother and his wife, scout Portland for an apartment for October, and visit friends on Martha’s Vineyard.  I’m in touch with some former students and colleagues in Myanmar and will resume virtual case supervision soon.

Looking back, talking to my ghosts here, I feel pleasure and regret. I wish I knew then what I imagine I know now. But I have had wonderful times here with all manner of family and friends. I could see continuing to do so for many years into the future, but apoptosis is likely to increasingly be a problem.  Eventually, I’ll shift to another, less substantial existence: others’ memory.  I’ll be a ghost.