Once at a summer cocktail party in Menemsha I was asked by a lady: “Where on the island do you live?”
“In Vineyard Haven,” I replied.
She suddenly gave me a look that made me feel as if I harbored a communicable disease. “My God,” she said, “I didn't think anyone lived there.”
Well, people do live there, and the moment of the year that I look forward to with unsurpassed anticipation is when I roll the car off the ferry, negotiate the fuss and confusion of the dock area, wheel my way past the homely façade of the A&P, twist around down Main Street with its (let's face it) unprepossessing ranks of mercantile emporiums, and drive northward to the beloved house on the water. On an island celebrated for its scenic glories, Vineyard Haven will never win a contest for beauty or charm; perhaps that's partly why I love it. The ugly duckling gains its place in one's heart by way of an appeal that is not immediately demonstrable. The business district is a little tacky, but why should it be otherwise? It is neither more nor less inspiring than other similar enclaves all across the land. People often think they yearn for quaintness, for stylishness, for architectural harmony; none of these would be appropriate to Vineyard Haven, which thrives on a kind of forthright frowziness. A few years ago, an overly eager land developer—now mercifully departed from the island—was heard proclaiming his desire to transform downtown Vineyard Haven into a “historical” site, similar to the metamorphosis effected by Mr. Beinecke on Nantucket. It is good that this plan came to naught. How silly and dishonest Cronig's Market and Leslie's Drug Store would look wearing the fake trappings of Colonial Williamsburg.
As for residential handsomeness, the good town of Tisbury cannot compete with Edgartown—that stuffy place; even so, had the lady from Menemsha walked along William Street or viewed more closely some of the dwellings lining the harbor, she would have discovered houses of splendid symmetry and grace. She would have also found some of the noblest trees lining the streets of any town its size on the eastern seaboard. It is this loose, amorphous “small townness” that so deeply appeals to me. A large part of the year, I live in a rural area of New England where one must drive for miles to buy a newspaper. The moors of Chilmark and the lush fens of Middle Road then, despite their immense loveliness, do not lure me the way Vineyard Haven does. I like the small-town sidewalks and the kids on bikes and the trespassing gangs of dogs and the morning walk to the post office past the Café du Port, with its warm smell of pastry and coffee. I like the whole barefoot, chattering mêlée of Main Street—even, God help me, the gawping tourists with their Instamatics and their avoirdupois. I like the preposterous gingerbread bank and the local lady shoppers with the Down East accents, discussing bahgins.
Mostly I love the soft collision here of harbor and shore, the subtly haunting briny quality that all small towns have when they are situated on the sea. It is often manifested simply in the sounds of the place—sounds unknown to forlorn inland municipalities, even West Tisbury. To the stranger, these sounds might appear distracting, but as a fussy, easily distracted person who has written three large books within earshot of these sounds, I can affirm that they do not annoy at all. Indeed, they lull the mind and soul, these vagrant noises: the blast of the ferry horn—distant, melancholy—and the gentle thrumming of the ferry itself outward bound past the breakwater; the sizzling sound of sailboat hulls as they shear the waves; the luffing of sails and the muffled boom of the yacht club's gun; the eerie wail of the breakwater siren in dense fog; the squabble and cry of gulls. And at night to fall gently asleep to the far-off moaning of the West Chop foghorn. And deep silence save for the faint chink-chinking of halyards against a single mast somewhere in the harbor's darkness.
Vineyard Haven. Sleep. Bliss.
[New York Times Magazine, June 15, 1990.]