I’m traveling back home after spending an incredibly quiet and stress-free five days on Nantucket.   For those of you who are not familiar, Nantucket, part of Massachusetts, is an island in the Atlantic Ocean.  October is the off-peak season on Nantucket, meaning that the Island is much quieter than it is during the summer.  This week, I was able to experience the perfect storm of quietude. While the entire island was relatively devoid of people because of the season, I was utterly, almost sinfully, able to spend my five days in an especially quiet corner of Nantucket, in a beach house owned by my wife’s family. I was the only person occupying the house. My wife urged me to go, to get away from “everything.”  My co-workers at work were equally generous with their encouragement and support.

I truly did “get away from it all.” The sun and the moon were my only clocks.  I spent my time reading, writing, walking on beaches, shooting photos, eating simple fun food (can of chili, anyone), beach-combing, enjoying the 60 degree daytime high, not shaving, playing the guitar, staring at the horizon, staring at the horizon again, listening to the waves, and watching the seagulls sail by. Although I did quite a bit of reading and writing (which I also do at home), I had long uninterrupted stretches of time in which to do this work, rather fighting for an hour or two here and there.  I had my own desk where I …