Sarah's Books - Used & Rare

Two more pictures from my island week - both of the doorway of the cottage I rented, the first one in the early morning light, the second one of me sitting on the stoop, at the end of the week. Tiny cottage - when I stand up, the porch door clears my head with two inches to spare (I am not tall). But it's open to the rafters inside, so it feels just right. A beautiful little snake comes out of the long grass and suns on the warm rocks in the morning; by the second day on the island I'd learned to walk outside slowly and quietly so as not to disturb anyone. In the second photo I guess I am sunning on the rocks, too:

What island time means to me - I read another Sarah Orne Jewett book this week, The Tory Lover (finished it last night), and this passage says it better than I could (p.142):

"To stand on the bleak height had freed her spirit, and sent her back to the lower countries of life happier than she came: it was said long ago that one may not sweep away a fog, but one may climb the hills of life and look over it altogether."

Bleak is beautiful. Take time off to keep on the sunny side of that fog. Works for me.