Three-session Weekend

It's been three years now since I moved back to the Island as a full-time resident. I miss Boston desperately but my theory is, everybody's got to have something to miss, something to long for and look forward to. For some people that place is the Vineyard; for me, it's Boston: the lights, the traffic, the noise, the pulse of the city. I especially miss the Irish music sessions that take place on every night of the week in every corner of the city and its environs. Not just the music, but the many friends I've made along the way. We're like a big family at this point.

This past weekend I had an opportunity to break away, probably the last time I'll get off the Island until fall, summers being what they are around here. As usual, I thought of a million reasons to stay at home and catch up on projects, but I know that if I don't pick myself up and make the effort to get on that boat, I could easily fall into a black hole; that safe and effortless place where many Islanders spend much of their lives. There's something about the geography, the fact that we are an island and have to make a ferry reservation to go anywhere that makes it more likely that we won't bother to go beyond our own little circle. And it is, literally, a circle. Umm, okay - a triangle.

At any rate, I'm back at home, still running behind in every area of my life, but I had a great weekend of music and people, three days in which I was nurtured and inspired on every possible level.


The ferry from Oak Bluffs, which I barely made since I mistakenly went to the Vineyard Haven terminal. Apparently I was not the only one who made this error. Welcome to May.


First stop (after a brief stopover at a birthday party for two one-year-olds in Milton), The Littlest Bar, downtown Boston. How I love a Saturday night downtown. Lovely to have a trio of lady fiddlers on World Fiddle Day (Cliodhna and Wynter pictured here, the third fiddler, not shown, was yours truly).





Terry and Mike





Boston's Customs House - a delight at night.


Sunday morning, Mass at St. Paul's, Harvard Square. The subtext of this post could easily be "Three sessions and a Mass," or, more accurately, "Mass and three sessions."








Headed down Memorial Drive. Lovely to see Bostonians out recreating on this fine Sunday in May as I was headed into town to spend the afternoon in a dark bar playing music.


Hennessey's. Not so dark after all with the big window open. I could hear the music all the way up Union Street.


Playing with the window open, watching the parade of people walk by, reminded me of playing on my porch on Main Street. When people stopped to watch and listen, it felt a little like being monkeys in a cage - or wait, maybe they were the monkeys. Some of them were quite amusing, that's for sure.





Wynter, Anto, Terry, and Mike.


Sunday afternoon at The Chatham Squire. Great to see Rose and Company. On this afternoon, these four youngsters, recently having won trophies for their playing, graced us with their talents. They will be traveling to Ireland during the summer for more competition.


Maureen! Maureen wields a mighty piano accordion.


Rose, Greg, and Peig.


Rose and Greg.