Remembering JFK Jr. At my approach, the heron rouses itself in a cumbersome fluster, and rises in the air and flaps off in prehistoric, slow-motion grace, topping the red pines. Coming home, I settle down at the computer screen and read the news on the Web. The National Transportation Safety Board has decided that John Kennedy Jr. probably became disoriented in the night sky almost a year ago off Martha's Vineyard.
Time is elastic.
That weekend seems either two days, or possibly 10 years, ago. On that evening, by chance, we were having dinner with a friend at her house on Martha's Vineyard. The sun had gone down. We ate dinner in the afterlight, looking out over Vineyard Sound. Only when we looked higher, into the upper air, did we see vestiges of light.