Mary Bergman

My father stands in the doorway of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond. Of course, there is no cabin anymore, instead the cabin’s footprint is marked with narrow granite stones, giving the whole place an unintended funerary feeling.

After years of watching people leave Nantucket during the winter, I decided I wanted to be one of them. Not for the whole winter, just for a week

I spent many years as an objective observer of this place. An academic, a historian, a researcher. On my better days, an anthropologist or some kind of gonzo documentarian, snapping pictures and recording my observations on the yellow legal pads I took everywhere, even the beach.

The dark comes early. At first, I fought it. Disoriented, dazed. And doesn’t it feel like midnight, the moon pooling on the ocean, spilt milk reaching for the shore? At least the clock in the stove, the one I cannot figure out how to reset, is right again.

I’ve always thought Nantucket was rather flat — elevation-wise, that is. Our highest point is the Madaket Landfill, and after that is Altar Rock in the moors.

I was leading a tour out in ’Sconset the Thursday before Labor Day when a local eyed us warily and said, “Summer’s over, it’s time for you people to leave.” Ouch! Now Labor Day has come and gone, the curtain falling on summer.

It’s August on Nantucket, and to find a place where you will be alone and undisturbed, you need one of two things. You either need a four-wheel drive or a boat. The other Saturday, thanks to a good friend and some borrowed kayaks, we set off from Barrett’s Pier and headed for the Madaket Ditch.

The air is so thick, there’s little difference between walking and swimming these days. High summer fog brings a certain relief to the island.

Birdsong, five in the morning. A sign that my neighborhood — a relatively new affordable housing subdivision — has matured. My neighbors’ trees provide plenty of places for songbirds to perch.