It’s different now. Everybody says so. High season in East Hampton is nothing like it was even five years ago. There are too many people, too many cars on the roads, too few places to park, too many lines, and not enough peace and quiet.

I blame Airbnb.

Time was that the barrier was relatively high to spending any part of the summer in the Hamptons: You had to own property, be related to someone who did, or at least be able to afford a monthly rental, which came at a considerable price.

Now anyone who can scrape together $500 can enjoy a piece of this place for a weekend, and all those extra people add up.

Others have said that even if there are not all that many extra visitors around, the short-visit folks have to pack more into each day to get their money’s worth. This means they drive around more, eat out every meal, and just do more. It’s great if your restaurant or whatever caters to the tourist trade, but it’s not so hot if all you want to do is live here in peace.

If this sounds like an elitist view, so be it. This narrow end of an island can only support so many people, and the new online sharing economy is blowing it up, skewing the math, as it were, and elected officials, emergency services, and our limited infrastructure can’t cope.

“It’s only June,” you hear people say. “What are July and August going to be like?”

Meanwhile, a modest attempt to bring a measure of control in the form of a rental-property registry was answered by mewling protests. People either were not eager to see the party end or feared that they might have to start reporting their earnings on their tax returns.

Airbnb, Homeaway, and Vacation Rental by Owner are extraordinary new-economy powerhouses. Airbnb alone is valued at about $20 billion. Its business model is connecting the owners of houses and apartments around the world with customers looking for short-term stays, but it is also selling little pieces of you and me and the place so many of us love and have worked so hard to protect.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a young trio on bikes who stopped to pick a spray of protected lady slipper flowers from the roadside. Thinking about their dismissive response when we confronted them, I have to think, more than merely clueless, they were short-timers who gave less than a hoot about this wonderful place and were never coming back again anyway.

Disruptive is a word generally tossed about to describe the effect of the new online juggernauts. For sure, they are disruptive, but they also have real and already obvious consequences. Yeah, I blame Airbnb and its $20 billion, but I also blame us for putting up with it.

Steep slated parapets with sheer drops into penumbral darkness, cars speeding in reverse downhill that I cannot stop, paddling up a creek on a skinny oar, and running through rooms in other people’s houses or apartments have been the stuff of my dreams of late.

And then I wake up and see Mary and all is well.

I had been reading a book on “Fear” by Thich Nhat Hanh, and that may have something to do with it. He speaks of “interbeing,” and of the miracle that occurs when you mindfully breathe in and out, but it’s hard, I think, for an American programmed to strain and strive and to always be on the go to get accustomed to it.

Peter Matthiessen said we were awake perhaps five minutes a day. I wonder if it’s even that much. Just imagine if we were to be awake twice as long, say 10 minutes a day — how much more at peace we’d be with ourselves, and, concomitantly, with others. Fifteen, 20 minutes a day, and — assuming we could get most everyone to sit still for that long — there’d be world peace! Well, maybe only within the town boundaries — excluding Springs, of course.

A letter writer said this week if the bypass problem were solved by way of railroad right-of-way lanes and exits here and there no one would have anything more to complain about. Not to worry, sir. Not to worry. Contention is the name of the game here — forget the mutuality of opposites. It’s all one — all one big pissing contest by and large, and, as one who benefits, although to a somewhat paltry degree, from this unrest, I say, complain away, complain away. . . . Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself, I contain platitudes.

Want to clean up our estuaries? Condemn riparian properties. Want to solve the traffic problem? Build an El. Want to solve the deer problem? Airlift them to Deer Park. Want to solve helicopter noise once that’s done? Send in the drones. Want transparency? Wash your windshield.

There, I feel better. But I am mindful, even though in your heart you know I’m right, that, as Lord Palmerston famously said . . . no, no, it was Gladstone: “To be engaged in opposing wrong affords but a slender guarantee of being right.”

And so to bed. Sweet dreams.

I’m a fast driver and my husband can predict the weather. I should have been a racecar driver, and he could have chosen to be a meteorologist had he known it was a profession. His passion is something he can indulge in year round by studying the tides, the moon, wind direction, etc., while mine is stymied by the intrusion of way too many vehicles on the road at this time of year.

My need for speed can be frustrating when I can’t let loose on a long open highway, specifically the one that takes me to my home out near the Montauk Lighthouse. My inner road rage starts to fester when I get behind a car that’s either going very slow or one whose driver constantly steps on its brakes.

But I hold it in. I’m too polite to honk my horn or flip my middle finger at the driver. I’ve learned to be patient over the years, but I mainly hold it in because someone once reminded me that we’re all tourists when we travel and that we should treat tourists the way we would like to b treated in other places. I just wish that visiting drivers who are taking their time on the roads would pull over a bit to let pass the woman cursing at them from the confines of her Jeep behind them.

Sometimes sightseers can be a real problem, especially if you’re not on vacation and have an important appointment somewhere and you’re running late, as I was a few weeks ago on a trip to East Hampton. On a good day I can make it from the Point to East Hampton Village in 20 minutes. On a very bad, horrible day it can take up to 45 minutes, and that’s when the driver in front of me might notice that I’m talking to myself when in reality I’m cursing him out. It just feels good to let it out, even if he can’t hear me.

On that particular day I gave myself 30 minutes to get there. I was making great time until a Mercedes with New Jersey plates (I know, right?) pulled out in front of me from East Lake Drive and kept its speedometer at a steady 30 m.p.h. But you’re allowed to go 55 on that particular stretch, so that pissed me off.

As we got closer to the downtown area, the Mercedes slowed and so did I because the speed limit through the business district is 30 m.p.h. I was hoping the driver would turn off someplace, and actually got excited when the right blinker light went on for a turn toward the dock area. But as the car slowed, the passenger pointed out something farther west, and just as my bumper was ready to kiss their bumper, they decided to keep going straight, with me following close behind.

And so we drove 30 m.p.h. heading west onto the Napeague stretch right up until they saw the Lobster Roll restaurant and got all excited and the driver turned on the left blinker. They must have recognized the restaurant from Showtime’s “The Affair” and thought they might catch Alison and Noah making out behind the Dumpster in the parking lot.

I was so relieved that I could finally speed up, but was soon slowed again behind another car going about 40 m.p.h. This all happened while the road crews were repairing the highway, and, luckily for me, they had not yet painted the yellow stripes on the new road letting drivers know whether they were in a passing zone or not. If I got stopped for an illegal pass I’d have a Get Out of Jail Free card because the lines were not yet done.

I finally saw my chance to pass at the west end of the stretch and gunned it while saying aloud, “Sorry, buddy, we’re not all on vacation.” He must have been a really good lip reader because as I passed his car I glanced over and he flipped me the bird!

Did I mention that he too had New Jersey plates?

Janis Hewitt is a senior writer for The Star.

Ever wonder why there are no carnivals in East Hampton Town other than the one each summer at Havens Beach in Sag Harbor? Well, the answer is that they were banned long ago over concerns that have echoes today.

From time to time lately, I have been turning to the East Hampton Library’s remarkable online collection of old issues of The Star. These are searchable by word or phrase and can be browsed by date. It was in the July 18, 1968, issue that I noticed a lead headline, “Town Will Enforce No-Carnivals Rule,” and became intrigued.

According to the story, that summer, the town board granted one final permit for a three-day affair on the Amagansett American Legion grounds, but went on to agree that all groups would thereafter be informed by letter that there would be no more carnivals.

Subsequently, Supervisor Bruce Collins explained that the board would enforce a 1936 law that had been reaffirmed in 1951 banning them, according to  the wording of Section One of Ordinance Number Ten, “to preserve public peace and good order and to prevent tumultuous assemblages.”

By coincidence, the trouble then, as it is today, was in Montauk. The earlier case concerned a chamber of commerce event there. The board had decided that the carnival would cost the town more money in traffic control and law enforcement than the chamber would make.

“When you have a carnival on an arterial highway there is a problem of traffic control. Special policemen have to be hired and paid extra to do this, and it becomes a considerable cost item that the board is not happy with,” Mr. Collins told The Star’s Jack Graves, who was then in his first year or so here.

“Then there’s the spinoff on the town Highway Department, which has to do a large amount of policing and cleaning up after the carnivals. The carnival operator may clean up his area, but there are still people who take hot dogs and wrappings and containers into their cars and throw things all over the road,” he said.

Times haven’t changed all that much. Only today it is not carnivals that are the problem.

Hughie King corrected me the other day, as he should have, after I’d retrofitted John Howard Payne’s “Home, Sweet Home” with more modern lyrics.

Thing was, said our village historian, Payne’s grandfather never lived in Home, Sweet Home, as Wikipedia (it will be my downfall yet) had reported, and that while it was a fact John Howard had visited East Hampton as a child — he wrote of having been afraid of the geese around Goose (now Town) Pond — no one knows exactly where he stayed.

Anyway, wherever it was, there was no place like it.

I admit it, I do at times (only at times?) play fast and loose with the facts — annoying impediments, I find, on the path toward Greater Truths. I may stand corrected, but not for long — an apt motto, I’ll warrant, for a journalist.

In this regard I’m reminded of the coat of arms my father had emblazoned on the whitewashed front wall of his castle in (or rather, near) Spain: “Aquila Muscas Non Captat.” Which he translated as, “The Eagle Does Not Stoop to Catch Flies.”

Maybe that was why I never made it to the Major Leagues.

Let’s see what Wikipedia says about it. . . . It says “aquila muscas non captat” means not to sweat the small things. Good advice, I’d say. In fact, our favorite family psychologist has that pinned to the door of his office. “Don’t sweat the small things . . . they’re all small things.”

I mean, given that there are an estimated 100 to 200 billion galaxies in the universe, each of which has hundreds of billions of stars (and does that figure include the 647 galaxies discovered the other day?), how can we presume that we and our problems are not small things?

Does it follow, then, that every problem, every failing we humans have is amenable to solution — or if not to solution, at least to amelioration?

This earth, I think, could indeed become home, sweet home should our arrogance be allayed and our collective minds put to it.

Do I stand corrected? By any sitting in judgment? Good, then, I’m off for a walk.

A phrase came to my mind last week. I have not thought of this phrase in the six years since I moved back here to the East End, and yet there it was, quite unexpectedly. Before I tell you the phrase I need to give you a bit of background.

I grew up here on the East End, in Montauk and East Hampton. I graduated from East Hampton High School. My father chose to live out here because of the surf, moving to Montauk in the late ’60s to raise a young family. Both my parents were “military brats,” and they spent their formative years living in Hawaii, where my dad met my mother and also learned “the sport of kings,” surfing. My parents owned the first surf shop in Montauk in the early ’70s called He’e Nalu, before its time, as my father often says.

Growing up, the television show “Magnum P.I.” was a weekly highlight in our household due more to the scenery of palm trees and aloha shirts than for Tom Selleck’s cultured mustache and sweet car. Our family took only one “big” holiday and that was to Hawaii for three weeks. I had just started 10th grade. I fell in love with the place and dreamed of going back.

After I graduated I did a short stint in the Marine Corps, and when I was 19 that dream became reality and I spent my first winter in Hawaii. I ended up spending the next 20 years living on the islands.

Hawaii is known as the Aloha State. Aloha literally means “breath of life.” Locals will say aloha as a greeting and as a farewell or goodbye. Aloha is a way of living and treating each other with love and respect. The spirit of aloha permeates the culture, and is a driving force in government, business, and everyday island life. Aloha can be conveyed from a distance by a smile and a “shaka” — the shaka more commonly known here on the mainland as the “hang loose” symbol, formed by closing the hand then sticking out the pinky and thumb, giving a slight wave.

As a newcomer to the islands, aside from the incredible colors and tropical fragrances, you may feel overwhelmed by the number and combinations of vowels in the names of places and streets. The Hawaiian alphabet contains five vowels (A, E, I, O, U), seven consonants (H, K, L, M, N, P, W), and the ’okina, which is a backward apostrophe and signifies a slight break in the sound. There are other small nuances but when you see a word such as “humuhumunukunuku’apua’a,” “kalanianiole,” or “Kawaihau,” I think you may get my point. My first reaction to these strange words was to make fun of them in my own form of Hawaiian speak, “hawakahakahikihikiho, wikiwikitikitiki.” My father reprimanded me, “Learn to say the words correctly!” This was my first important lesson in aloha.

As much as the spirit of aloha permeates the Hawaiian culture, there is a very strong sense of localism that can at times be extreme. The first time Capt. James Cook, credited with “discovering” the Hawaiian Islands for the Europeans, came ashore, his arrival was celebrated. Cook and his men were lavished with gifts of food, crops, livestock, and women. Upon his return to the islands he was bludgeoned to death before he reached dry sand.

There is a Hawaiian word that encapsulates this localism and brings me to the phrase that inspired this narrative. The word itself is “haole,” pronounced in pigeon form “how-lee,” which literally means “no breath.” Traditionally this word was used to describe those of European descent or foreigners. Haole can be used in merely a descriptive manner or can be used as an ethnic slur.

The word implies that the foreigner is ignorant to local ways and literally has no spirit. This is quite the antithesis of aloha.

What I learned in Hawaii, often called the melting pot of the Pacific, is, aside from blood lineage, being local is not so much measured by length of time or ownership of property but by the degree to which one assimilates the spirit of aloha. As a newcomer, aloha starts with humility and respect. Not just respect for others, but respect for the “ ’aina” (meaning land, pronounced “I-na”). An awareness of one’s surroundings and a big smile go a long way.

So, in the words of the hugest Hawaiian in a crowded surf lineup, the phrase that resurfaced in my mind was “F’ing haoles, beat it!”

Have an aloha day.

Matthew Charron is The Star’s digital imaging specialist.

The Hampton Jitney is a great leveler. Other than the media moguls and Russian oligarchs who come and go on private jets or noisy helicopters, most of us 99 percenters — when we eschew our own automobiles — are apt to find ourselves crowded into a true cross-section of East End residents and weekenders on the Jitney. And something crazy is always happening there, isn’t it?

I’ve been riding the bus since its first year of existence, and I’ve seen it all: fights between riders, quarrels between riders and attendants, even a rider booted from the bus and left by the side of the road by the old Grace’s Hot Dog truck. But the set-piece drama that played out when I was coming back from New York one recent afternoon really took the cake.

We had barely pulled away from 40th Street, and I had just picked up my Kindle, when my attention was drawn to a woman of a certain age sitting behind me who had started whispering.

My first thought was that she was rehearsing a script. There’s a lot of theater here at this time of year, after all, and it seemed to me that her conversation was somehow too clichéd, too Hollywood to be the stuff of real life. After several minutes of nosy-Parkering, however, it became clear that the truth was less glamorous: She was on the phone.

 Calls on the Jitney are supposed to take place only in emergencies and be limited to three minutes. You are advised to “let your fingers do the talking” (that is, text). The woman behind me was on the phone for almost the whole two-and-a-half hour ride. The attendant never seemed to notice.

Naturally, when someone starts whispering, one’s interest is piqued. Blatant attempts at secrecy only draw our interest more strongly. What can I say? I haven’t much excuse. Does it count that I’m a journalist and am supposed to be ever on the alert for news? No? Well, the fact is, I was losing interest in the book I was reading and felt that, besides, someone who talks for two hours on a crowded bus when specifically asked not to rather invites eavesdroppers.

I’m a certain age myself, and it’s possible that my hearing isn’t the sharpest, so I can only surmise that if I heard the whole thing, many of my fellow riders did, too. I missed words here and there as the bus rumbled over uneven pavement, but I got the gist of the conversation.

“How could you do this to me?” she stage-whispered. “You know how I feel. How could you do this to me?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Someone was learning about a lover’s infidelity on a phone call on the Jitney. It sounded like her husband had just told her — by phone — that he was in love with someone else.

I attempted to focus my attention elsewhere. I picked my Kindle back up. The drama continued to unfold.

“How long did it go on?” I heard her ask. “Three years? No, I can’t keep it to myself. My sister will take one look at me and know something’s the matter. No. Don’t come to Amagansett.”

Hmm. Maybe it was a cheating boyfriend on the other end of the line, not a husband. I couldn’t help myself; I wanted to know more. I actually pondered getting up to go to the lavatory (as it is referred to on the Jitney) to get a look at the speaker, but I didn’t. I think a few others on the bus might have.

After quite a long time, it sounded as if she was crying. Oh, dear.

The whispering stopped. She had hung up. Everything was quiet for a while.

Then she dialed someone else. “I just have to tell somebody,” I heard her say.

The whole episode would make a good cartoon in The New Yorker, I think. I can visualize it now: A busful of Hamptonites snug in their Jitney seats, snacking on free pretzels, slyly rolling their eyes and bending their ears toward a damsel in distress, as she tearfully exclaims into an iPhone: “I just had to tell someone!”

 This anecdote doesn’t having a moral, unfortunately, and I admit it doesn’t make me look terribly good. But it does inspire a couple of tidbits of Hamptons advice. The first is: “Everyone can hear you on the Jitney. That’s why they have the three-minute rule in the first place.” The second is: “If you’re looking for a reality-television concept, consider the bus.”

I heard it happen, but I didn’t know what it was. I was driving down North Main Street in Southampton, and as I passed the Clam Man I heard a click click click coming in the slightly open window. My random thought was that I had picked up a pebble. I turned in at the nursing home, where I was paying a visit, and thought nothing more about it.

My visit paid, around 2 p.m. I went to my car and when I turned it on to drive home, the little warning light came on telling me that I needed air in a tire. Well, that happens all the time because my car, the cutest car in the world, is notoriously hard on tires, so I continued on for about 30 feet and pulled into another part of the nursing home lot to find out what that flapping sound was coming in the same window.

A fella walking by confirmed that not only did I have a flat, but I had a flat flat.

Could I make it to the gas station intersection that I could see from the nursing home lot over the roof of McDonald’s?

He assured me that I could make it that far, so I went to the gas station that did not require a turn across traffic in any way — the Coastal gas station on the north side of the scary intersection of 7-Eleven, gas station, and gas station that has 40 street lights and 50 lanes of traffic. I should say here that it was Sunday, at now 2:30 in the afternoon on a non-beach day, and the traffic was nuts.

Another reason for the straight-ahead move was that I like little gas stations where the service is personal.

I do not pump my own gas, and never will.

The fella manning the pumps was alone and busy. Cars and vans were pulling in to load up on fuel for the trip home.

“Please,” I said, “I do not know how to do whatever it is that needs doing, but please do something to help me get home.”

This guy was so busy, but between vehicles (I kept watch to tell him if anyone had pulled in, at which point he would run to help them) he calmed me down. I should mention now that it was drizzling. I did have a spare tire, but where was it? (City kid, AAA princess.) Was there a tool (meaning jack)? I showed him the shiny thing that I had seen sticking out of my tire when I had started this journey. It looked big to me, and he seemed impressed and went off to get some tools. No mechanics around on Sundays was his mantra, nowhere. No mechanics. It’s Sunday.

I was now thinking, “Can I rent a car? How many years will I be sitting here waiting for AAA to come to me in Sunday traffic, in the rain?”

Armed with pliers and an adjustable, this fella (shall I begin calling him hero?) extracted from my tire a thing the length and almost width of my pinky finger. It took him 15 minutes of car dental work to pull this thing out. We were both mighty impressed — I took a photo of it — and what air was still in the tire fell out onto the pavement. I was now on a rim.

Meanwhile he was filling car after car after car, then running back to me. We were over next to the air machine and out of the stream of gas-needers, so he was doing a lot of running to service everyone.

During a lull in the traffic he came to the car with what looked like a first aid kit, and it kind of was. It had some very shiny things that looked like you could stopper a champagne bottle, or secure the corner of a tent into the ground, and an envelope of what looked like flat chocolate licorice candy. There was also a container of what looked like zinc oxide or that sun stuff lifeguards put on their noses, or maybe cold cream or lipgloss. Anyway, he slathered the hole — you could have fit a pencil or a ballpoint pen into this hole with room to spare — with this goop, and then using the shiny thing with the point on the end pushed the brown candy stuff into the hole. Then he was off to fill another gas tank or two, then back to me to slather more goop and push more brown stuff.

Did I have “quarters for the air machine, ma’am?” He ma’am-ed me, my savior ma’amed me! I had already taken inventory of how much money I had. I mean, how do you pay a hero? I stacked up the quarters, and when he came back from filling a particularly large S.U.V., I asked him how he knew how to do what he was doing? “Do you go to school for this stuff?” was really what I said.

He laughed and sweetly said, “I learned how to do this on YouTube. This is my first time.”

He said it would be $10. I gave him every cent I had ($15 in greenbacks and $2 in dusty quarters) and got home to East Hampton safely.

P.S. The next day I checked with the tire shop in East Hampton. They said he did a great job and that the tire would last for years, so thank you, my hero, and thank YouTube.

Durell Godfrey is a contributing photographer for The Star.

It’s been a big week. No, I’m not actually talking about the big week in the halls of government, but about the week here at home. I’ve surprised myself by adopting a dog, I’ve sung with the Choral Society of the Hamptons in a superlative concert (if I say so myself), and been host to five young men. 

We year-rounders have a right to be ambivalent about summer. Sure, we appreciate the pleasures that bring others here — quiet corners of the beach in evening, June strawberries, July tomatoes, August corn — but most of us work longer, and often harder, hours come the season. And then, naturally, our homes become hostelries when guests arrive.

This time, our visit from house guests was an unadulterated pleasure.

One of the five young men was the husband of one of my husband’s nieces (I can hardly follow that myself!), a swell and interesting man, who was nice to get better acquainted with. The other four were musicians imported to augment the local members of the South Fork Chamber Orchestra for the Choral Society concert. 

Although we do sing, Chris and I mostly live vicariously where music is concerned. Our own concerts aren’t frequent. We tend to pounce at any opportunity to hear live music. Last weekend, our visitors played French horn, bassoon, violin, and trumpet. We could hear them practicing in their upstairs bedrooms, as we chased our new dog, Sookie, around the backyard. Is there anything nicer than music pouring down from an open window?

We had a great time talking with them . . . and because of Uncle Mor ris’s violin. 

Some readers may remember my eccentric Uncle Morris, an artist who spent a year or two here way back in the 1980s. He dressed in homespun woolens, made friends at the library, flirted with girls 60 years his junior, and was a generally notable presence, with his white beard, as he walked up and down Main Street. 

I inherited his violin many moons ago and just had it repaired. 

We gathered for dinner with our new musician friends the first night. At one point Ralph Allen — the violinist —  left the table and disappeared into the next room. Suddenly, we were listening to Bach. He reported that the violin was a little stiff and needing playing and he continued to pick it up whenever he could during the weekend. What unexpected joy.

For me, of course, Uncle Morris’s violin is more than a nice instrument. It is loaded with family memories, and hearing it played reminds me of the best of them.

Uncle Morris was said to be a child prodigy. I imagine him as a little curly-haired boy with a violin in New York City, but only knew him, much later in life, as an itinerant world traveler who told us he paid for passage on steamers  by playing music and earned food in even later years by drawing unusual, swirling portraits of strangers on the sidewalks of Reykjavik. 

I’m not sure any of my grandchildren could be called a prodigy, but one of my granddaughters studied viola for a while, and I keep imagining that she will pick up Uncle Morris’s violin and give it a try. Or that perhaps one of my husband’s grandsons, the one who is playing the violin as an elementary student in Massachusetts, will stick with it and merit the gift of Uncle Morris’s violin some day. 

A grandmother can dream, can’t she? 

In the meantime, I am pleased that another granddaughter is learning the clarinet and was chosen to play in a recent regional event. Yet another granddaughter is taking guitar lessons with the nice fellows at Crossroads in Amagansett. Music brings us such pleasure, and we fervently hope the younger generations’ lives — whether they play Bach’s E Major Partita or Van Morrison’s “Moon Dance” — are enriched by it, too.

I had the honor, and I don’t use that word lightly, of being asked to read at the May wedding of close friends in California. Mike and John had begun dating something on the order of 11 years ago, back when marriage equality was not even on the horizon. They had a civil ceremony at San Francisco City Hall in the fall, with the intention of holding a celebration for family and friends in the spring.

By definition, United States Supreme Court decisions are historic, and Friday’s 6-to-3 ruling, which assured everyone of age the legal right to marriage, marks, in my view, a major turning point. Reactionary spasms of a fading culture war have ensued, to be sure. They seem like background noise now, echoes of ideas that have fallen out of the mainstream, surviving mostly among shrinking pockets of religious conservatives and those who fan their passions for cynical, political reasons.

You would think that with polls showing broad support for the right to marry the candidates crammed in the Republican primary clown car, like Ted Cruz, for one, might back off on hateful opposition to gay marriage, but, sadly, that is not the case. It’s hard to believe that opposing love is a good issue for any candidate, but what do I know?

Anyway, it was via email that Mike and John had sent word that they wanted me to read Shakespeare’s 18th Sonnet at the big event, you know, the one that starts, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” I was flattered and nervous and printed out a copy and practiced over and over again in my office. The poem is familiar, at least superficially, to almost everyone, the first line repeated so often that it has become a cliché. But, like all great works, it is about a whole lot more, in this case, the permanence of love and soul amid the decline of physical beauty — perfect for the union of two men comfortably past the mid-point of their lives.

The ceremony, led by a Buddhist officiant, was on a hillside overlooking a Marin County lagoon. With another reader, I sat on a hay bale in the front row. As Mike and John came down from the house, we stood, and a cheer went up the likes of which I had never heard at any other wedding.

As the evening wound down it dawned on me: This was as much a marriage as it was a victory celebration. It was as if our team had won the national football championship, only we were not tearing down the goalposts or flipping police cars over in the street. “We won,” we were saying. Mike and John won. And now gays and lesbians all over this country have won.

I still feel like tearing down some goalposts. This has been a moment to celebrate, a time to be extra extra proud of our nation, and something worth savoring as the days sweep quickly toward the Fourth of July.