What was most vexing to me about selling the house was that the new owners had no idea what they were getting. They saw 5.5 acres, with only a small portion a buildable footprint. They saw the lot and the subdivision numbers by which we were known by the town of West Tisbury, important if it ever had to send a fire engine our way. They saw a roof that needed replacing and the chance to burden us with half the cost ($17,000). They saw a house they might upgrade, a house they might tear down. What the new owners could not see, and therefore could not appreciate, was the human history, all the lives that grazed ours and the ones that truly intersected, the noisy arrivals and departures, the arguments and the recipes, the ghosts and the guests, crabs caught and birthdays celebrated, clams shucked, towels shaken, lures assembled, bonfires lit, the dogs we indulged, the ticks we cursed, the pies we consumed, and, through it all, both close by and in the distance, the moving waters (as a poet put it) at their priest-like task. They could not see the depth of the life lived here during the summer for all those years. Excerpted from To the New Owners: A Martha's Vineyard Memoir by Madeleine Blais All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
