Letter from Klemens from Nantucket on 08-30-93
filed in kmeyer@jade.tufts.edu at about 20:30.

My day began a little after 4:00, when I got up to work. Although
there were a few clouds, I could see many stars  when  I  stepped
outside  for  a  few  minutes.   A planet twinkled in the East. I
moved a little away from the light of the house to  see  the  sky
better. The sand was surprisingly cool. A little after 5:00, when
the clouds over the airport began to glow, I  woke  Rebekah.  She
had  announced  that she wanted to see the sunrise with me today,
the sunset tomorrow, sunrise the following day, then sunset,  and
so  on and so forth until we went home. Last year we once watched
sunrise and sunset together; she has remembered it all  year.  At
first,  Rebekah turned over and wanted to sleep, but soon she ap-
peared in the living room door. We walked down the  road  to  the
public  beach.  Then she sat at the table with me, colored, ate a
piece of toast, and went back to bed.

In the late morning, Nathaniel and I took the trash to the  dump.
The  speedometer didn't work at first (It subsequently recovered,
but I don't think it is working properly.) I enjoyed listening to
music  as  I drove, probably particularly slowly, out the Madaket
Road. Nathaniel sat up next to me, but promptly  fell  asleep.  I
thought  of all the times we drove back and forth along that road
listening to Hoelderlin and Faust. I preferred Faust  because  it
was  easier, and music best of all, but I am glad for the poetry.
I am probably the only person in the world for whom the  Hoelder-
lin odes are set on the Nantucket moors.

As  we  drove  out  of town and I caught sight of the black water
tower at Dionis, I thought what a landmark that squat, ugly tower
is for me, how fond I am of it for the beach it marks.  It is the
first and the last one sees of the island fromthe ferry.   I  re-
membered  the  hill we were driving down on our way to the hospi-
talin August 1968, when we heard on the 5:00 CBS  news  that  the
Russians  had  invaded Czechoslovakia.  As we drove by the inter-
section with Cliff Road, I remembered that one summer, you always
brought  a  thick  paperback work of sociology to Dionis. I think
that it was Georg Simmel in translation.

The dump is very grand. There are many  signs,  somewhat  in  the
style  of  the  signs  which  once marked the East German border.
There is a guard house, where one is checked in by a man  with  a
clipboard  and  a  diamond stud in his ear. He disapproved of the
fact that I had brought only trash, nothing to recycle, but  when
I  assured  him  that the garbage was in bags, waved me to bins 1
and 2, where I could throw it over the bank, Konnarock style. The
seagulls  were  still there, but I suspect that they are required
to undergo regular recertification and to keep records  of  their
procedures.  There  were perhaps five employees scurrying around,
including someone with a long grey  beard  who  was  sitting  and
working  on  something.  I  was  too  polite to stop and watch. I
thought of the headland in Newfoundland covered with trash. As  I
drove out past all the well-intentioned sorting, I could not help
thinking of the concentration camps, also places  safely  out  of
town  where  society put its dirtiness (that is to say, expressed
itself) and scarred the world. Nathaniel was still asleep. On the
way  back  into  town,  I used the windshield washer to clean the
back window. Another day, we will visit Madaket and the  Head  of
the Plains.

We  drove  into  town. At the Steamship Authority, I retrieved my
$10 for driving the car off the boat.  Nathaniel,  riding  on  my
shoulders,  wanted  to  know why the boats moored in front of the
White Elephant had no sails. I told him about moorings, and  then
he  remarked  on  the  cab of a truck parked waiting for the next
boat. Cab is a new word, I think. He wanted to know how  one  got
into the cab, and I pointed out the steps on the fuel tank.

This afternoon, we went to Miacomet Pond. Rebekah twice swam back
and forth across the end of the  pond  with  her  flotation  ring
around  her.  In  the  morning, she had ridden all the way in and
back on the Surfside bicycle path. Nathaniel  dug  a  canal  with
Laura,  and  when  she  went in the water with Rebekah, I built a
castle with her. Inspired by several  other  children,  Nathaniel
took  his  clothes  off,  and ran gleefully in circles. The other
children, the same age or older, were tanned from  head  to  toe,
and appeared indifferent to their nakedness. Either they had nev-
er left the Garden, or had been readmitted.  Nathaniel knew  that
he had no clothes on, and that this was quite something.

It  is  now  almost  8:30.  Rebekah has been asleep for almost an
hour, Nathaniel for half an hour. Laura is  feeding  Benjamin  in
the  bedroom,  hoping  to  get him to sleep. Vincent has gone up-
stairs, and Phyllis has just finished the  dishes.  The  moon  is
full. I will transmit this if I can, check to see if my secretary
has sent me anything, take a short walk in the moonlight, and  go
to  bed. I will get up early again to work and to check the mail.

Klemens