Connections: Voltaire’s Advice

Two houses, huge ones, are going up just south of the Ross Lower School on Butter Lane in Bridgehampton, but even pondering the fact that they are on what was supposed to be protected farmland did not dispel my happy mood as I drove away from the school’s field house after a yoga class. 

Sunday morning was bright and beautiful, with the temperature heading into the 60s. The roads were empty, the wind hadn’t kicked up yet, and I was propelled back to simpler times. 

Decades ago, my children went to the original Hampton Day School among the Butter Lane potato fields. There was no field house at the time, and the Day School is no more, but I thought of how lucky my kids were to go to school there, and I thought about other Sundays when the weather was autumnally spectacular. 

In days long gone, my husband led a small caravan of family and friends on mornings like this into the back woods or onto the beaches to commune with nature and each other. Even in fall, when it was apt to be windy, the mantra was, “Ev knows where to find a lee.” The picnics, cookouts, and assorted hijinks were fun. We set aside politics and war and whatever other bad news was brewing and let a sense of serenity reign. That’s what I was feeling on Sunday.

I was among the last to leave the field house and found myself driving very slowly. I was a bit bemused to think that I was not headed for an afternoon of camaraderie in the great outdoors, but for King Kullen. To soften the blow, I stopped first for a visit and a latte at Java Nation. 

Once upon a time, many of us considered a morning like this perfect sailing weather. If the wind became too strong, we knew how to reef and make the most of it. It was joyous to be at the tiller. There were October mornings on Napeague when the cranberries begged to be noticed. I liked to sit right down in the marshy spots to gather handfuls.

Of course, the news of the world was terrible on Sunday morning. It could not make anyone feel good. But I had a sense of calm and was aware of my own good luck in being where I was. 

The lyrics of the final song in Leonard Bernstein’s version of “Candide” have resonated since the Choral Society’s summer concert, in which I sang. On Sunday morning, I couldn’t get Voltaire’s words, or Bernstein’s music, out of my head. 

“. . . . Let us try,

Before we die,

To make some sense of life.

We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good

We’ll do the best we know.

We’ll build our house and chop our wood

And make our garden grow . . . 

And make our garden grow.”