A Page out of the blACKbook:
Every year, right after Figawi until the Summer Solstice, the island of Nantucket goes through a little lull. During the first few weeks of June, we’re like an arrow slowly being pulled back and ready to hit the beach. We’re infatuated with warm weather and busy nights, and we’re ever so disappointed when they don’t show up.
The local banter is that “summer is coming,” and for many, it can’t come fast enough. Throughout those first twenty-one days, we often become the Goldilocks of ACK. It’s too cold. Where are the beach days? It’s too slow. When do all the people show up? We are constantly in a state of seasonal panic. Is it summer yet? Will it ever come? When can I stop sporting sweatshirts and start wearing bathing suits?
See, we are all so worried about where this summer is taking us that we don’t appreciate the beauty of the present. We wait ten months for a two-month season and spend the better half of an already short month, anxiously awaiting July and August like a kid at christmas. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over a decade’s worth of Junes, it’s this… don’t wish it away. Don’t spend your days dreaming of the Fourth when there’s still so much to take advantage of during this month that gives us the longest daylight hours of the year.
Take some of that hard earned Memorial Day money and treat yourself to Restaurant Week during the first week of June. With so many island hotspots open with $25 lunch specials and $45 three-course dinners, it’s the perfect time to dine with a date while getting a deal.
Even though you may not be working on that tan quite yet, work up a sweat with a bike ride all the way down Milestone Road. Bring some cash and enjoy a Claudette’s sandwich in cod Fish park as you soak in the serenity of ‘Sconset. If you don’t feel like riding back, don’t worry about it. put that cycle on the front of the NRDA and rest your eyes on the seven-mile bus ride to town.
Take the downtime in June to read something great, like In The Heart of The Sea by Nat Philbrick. Savor the pages of this story on the whaleship Essex as you read it in the peaceful garden at the Atheneum. By the time the fourth annual Nantucket Book Festival comes around, your copy will be returned to the library and you can secure your seat to hear Nat speak at the Nantucket Historical Association on the first day of summer (yes!).
After we turn the page on the Book Fest, the next week is the Nantucket Film Festival, followed by the Fourth of July the week after…and then poof! All of a sudden that arrow has been launched, and we’re flying into full-blown summer mode. That’s the funny thing about the Nantucket season: As soon as it finally hits, all you want it to do is have it slow down. So get off that summer countdown and make every day in June count.
