Matinicus

©Gordon Bok

        Of all the children I went to school with in Camden, four of them stood out to me, especially. Among the rest of us little tear-ups they seemed to have a special grace and dignity that seemed almost out of place, perhaps because it was so in place. We all went our separate ways, of course, and I don't think I even saw three of them again. But one day the schooner I was working on put into the little island of Matinicus;· and, while going up to the village for something, I recognized one of them, whose name was Judy, and for some reason she recognized me. She was lovely, a thin little thing, almost delicate, with a brand new baby on her hip; she had married one of the young fishermen on the island. We talked for close to an hour, and I left the island very happy for her; that she had found a place she loved and that she was happy. It seemed to make one corner of the world very right. A few years later, on the mainland, I heard that she had died of cancer. It wasn't neglect or anything, just incurable, and for years I could never bear to see the face of that island darken the horizon. But then in 1980 or so, I fell into a conversation with a slightly drunk fisherman in a local inn. He was fishing out of New Bedford, and we were talking about that. At one point he mentioned that he was originally from Matinicus, and I thought to ask him if he had known Judy; he sobered up like I had hit him in the face. He said: "When that girl died, every soul on the island mourned her, and they never did that for anyone." And then he said: "Look: if you loved her like we did,there's something you ought to know. You know she had two daughters?" I said I knew she had one. He said: "Well, she had two, and one of them is exactly like her. She's got that same kind of awkward grace that reminds you of a deer. And she's got that same way of smiling that can light up the whole field she's standing in. And, for us, it's almost like Judy never went away." For years, I had been playing with a tune, a sort of vague lament for Judy that had never wanted to come together. I went home, then, and dug it out and took it apart, and from every sad part I built a happy part, and put it back together. And it is true that from the same ingredients that give us grief we are given our happiness. (GB)

Matinicus is recorded on the CD All Shall Be Well Again