Goodbye To The Isle Of Summer

To the editor: Ever since I first heard the name Nantucket at age 14 — nearly 20 years before I actually set foot on its sacred ground — I have thought of Nantucket not just as an island but as something closer to an idea.

To me it was always the Isle of Summer. The Isle of Light. The Isle of Possibility. An isle wallowing in romantic energy.

Long before I arrived here, Nantucket represented something almost symbolic in my life. It was a place where, no matter what else was happening — uncertainty, transitions, disappointments, or simply the weight that life sometimes brings — there was always the feeling that something good might still be ahead.

I can still remember every spring waiting in line for the ferry in Hyannis, preparing to cross that stretch of water. There is a particular feeling in that line that people who love this island understand. It is not just transportation. It feels like a threshold, like you are crossing from one state of mind into another.

No matter what else was going on in life, there was always excitement in the air in that moment. The sense that for the coming months, life might feel a little lighter. A little more open. A little more alive.

That feeling is part of what keeps many of us coming back.

Over the years, I eventually became not just a visitor but part of the workforce that helps the island function. Like many who return year after year, I found meaningful work, respect in my role, and a sense of belonging that is not always easy to achieve here.

Those first years were not easy. Like many who come here hoping to build something, I had to find my footing. Housing was challenging. Work was not always guaranteed and, in my particular case, sometimes very humbling. There were times when people suggested it might be wiser, or safer, to stay in Florida where I belonged.

Nantucket has a way of testing how much you really want to be here.

That is why, for me, returning each spring has never just been routine. It has often felt like a quiet personal victory — coming back when it wasn’t always certain I could, finding stability when it would have been easier to give up, and earning a small measure of belonging on an island that does not hand that out easily. Almost like crossing that ferry again not just as a visitor, but as someone who had found his way back.

Nantucket has a way of rewarding persistence. It gives structure to people who arrive looking for direction, and it rewards those who show up consistently. But it can also challenge you, chew you up, and spit you out, sending you packing back to the mainland.

But if you spend enough years returning, you also begin to notice changes — not just in yourself, but in the island.

On the street where I’ve been living, what was once a relatively quiet stretch is seeing new houses rise. Downtown continues to grow. Buildings are getting larger. Properties are being built to the limits of their lot lines to maximize profits. The crowds seem a little denser each year. None of this is surprising. Success brings growth. Growth brings change.

Still, for those who first fell in love with a quieter Nantucket, these changes can feel like watching a familiar landscape slowly shift.

This is not a complaint. Places evolve. Nantucket has reinvented itself many times throughout its history, from whaling capital to quiet backwater to world-class destination. Change is part of its story.

But atmosphere is also part of its story.

What many of us connected to was not just the beauty of the island, but its scale. The feeling that it was still human-sized. The sense that even in the middle of summer, you could still find moments of quiet. The idea that Nantucket was somehow both sophisticated and simple at the same time.

That balance is delicate. And perhaps that is what longtime returnees notice most when they sense the island shifting.

There is also another reality that those of us who return year after year come to understand. Nantucket is made up of intersecting worlds. There are those who come for a few weeks, those who come for the season, and those who make their living making the experience possible for everyone else.

All of these groups are part of what makes Nantucket work. But they also shape how people experience the island differently.

For many of us who work here, Nantucket becomes both a workplace and something more personal. It becomes part of our own timeline — a place where we measure seasons not just by calendars but by who we were when we first arrived and who we have become since.

I remember being here one winter and asking myself a very simple question: What am I doing here?

Because for me, Nantucket has always been something very specific. It has always been May through October. Long light in the evenings. Movement. Energy. The feeling of life unfolding outdoors. The Nantucket of winter, while beautiful in its own way, was never the Nantucket that lived in my imagination.

My Nantucket was always the Isle of Summer.

Perhaps what many of us eventually realize is that places exist in chapters of our lives. There is the Nantucket of discovery. The Nantucket of hard work. The Nantucket of friendships formed over shared seasons. And eventually, the Nantucket we see more clearly, without quite the same illusions we once carried.

That isn’t disappointment. It may simply be perspective.

Nantucket has given me more than I expected when I first stepped off that ferry years ago. It has given me experiences, stories, and material that has inspired me to write about my time here.

For that, I will always be grateful.

But perhaps part of loving a place honestly is recognizing when what it represents to us begins to change. Not because the island has failed us, but because time moves all of us forward.

For me, Nantucket may always remain the Isle of Summer. The Isle of Light. The Isle of Possibility. A place I will always associate with romantic energy.

That part will never disappear.

But maybe what changes is not the island itself, but what we ask it to be in our lives.

Perhaps Nantucket does not have to be everything forever. Perhaps it can simply remain what it has always been at its best — the place where many of us first believed something good might still be waiting just ahead.

And maybe that is enough.

Charles Dundee