Ferry Time

Time seems to flow differently on days when there is a ferry crossing planned. Constant mental countdown . . .  If heading to the island, start with the reservation time, subtract 30 minutes to be in line on time, subtract another two hours to account for the possibility of traffic in the 100 minute drive.  If 495 cooperates, we can fill up the gas tank at the end of 495, and may even get to have dinner at the “White McDonald’s”—so named by our kids over a decade ago, and probably what we will continue to call it even if they ever paint it blue. 

Leaving the island, similar careful timing is required. The same half hour buffer before sailing, only 10 minutes to the ferry this time, though there’s always the worry the drawbridge will be up, though I try not to think about that. The laundry has to finish drying, stove assured to be off, heat adjusted, house safe for its short nap.

It has become a rhythm, and we’ve gotten fairly practiced at it, to the point where we almost think we’re in control. And of course the emphasis is on almost. Two recent trips have made it quite clear that control is an illusion.

Travelling down the middle lane of 495, headed to the island, four spaniels in the car with the two of us, mattress tied on to the roof, all is on schedule, until the front left tire blows out.  We pull the car over, get the donut out of the trunk, working around the mattress ropes, and keep the dogs inside the car. The donut shouldn’t go on the front, especially with the aerodynamic enhancement of a mattress, so that means changing two tires. Once changed, the margin is totally gone, and driving on a donut means going slower. Which, from a different perspective, is good, because we actually don’t have enough gas to get to the ferry, and we don’t have time to stop for it anymore, so maybe improved gas mileage will mean we will still make it.  n the end, we do stop for half a tank of gas, and we do make the ferry, though with a twelve minute margin rather than 30. Fortunately it is not August.

The same lesson awaited us on a recent return trip, though a bit more subtly. When we got to the terminal in Vineyard Haven, all the steamship folk were in foul weather gear. The ferry was late, and I wondered if it would run at all. I had meetings the next morning I really needed to be in the office for. This boat really needed to run.

And then it hit me. The boat would either run or it wouldn’t. We will either make it on time, or we won’t. There are larger things at work than my own schedules. We are not in control.  Whatever happens, we’ll adapt. We’re on an island.