Since I was two years old I've spent at least part of every summer of my life on a small island in Massachusetts called Martha's Vineyard. My parents first visited then returned as assistant house parents at the Youth Hostel. At a sleepy time in island history they purchased a ramshackle cottage for $2,000 which is now in its fourth generation of our family history. From the moment that I land on Martha's Vineyard by sea or by air my Ballard life is swept away by different birds singing at 5 a.m., a different ocean, voices from my past.

Many mornings a childhood friend and I walk up the bluffs past the harbor, to the lighthouse that sits out on the East "Chop" of the island. We touch the lighthouse sign and then retrace our route, crossing with other walkers, bikers, runners. Just offshore, boats are passing, the boat that brings daily newspapers over to the island, the boat that takes families to fish, early sailboats. The first day back in Ballard I am always torn between the two worlds; my skin still silky from the soft water of the outdoor shower, soon to be reluctantly rinsed away by the hard water of Seattle. I return to my Golden Gardens walk and try to sum up a month of experiences for my walking partner.

Even as I try to describe the wildflowers on the walk to the lighthouse and a sunset as dramatic as the Northern Lights, I realize that I am still walking in beauty. Down by the Golden Gardens pond Red Wing Blackbirds are singing from the cattails. The smell of warm ripe blackberries is in the air as we cross over the railroad tracks and down the hill to Shilshole. Even as I try to describe the magic of swimming in the ocean at night and the Perseid meteor showers the images are eclipsed. The sound of the sailboat riggings and the crisp blue sky above the Olympics is more real, more beautiful because it is the present.

I can never pretend that I don't live in a place of beauty no matter how much I first miss the outdoor shower and waking up in a cottage where there is always someone within earshot. After the humidity of the East Coast and the flimsiness of the cottage the sheets are crisp, the walls so solid. I'm lonely for the constant interruptions of cottage life, one neighbor borrowing eggs, the other neighbor wanting to go clamming, the spilled milk, the propane running out on a weekend, the passage of acquaintances past our front porch. But each September I get to fall in love with home again.

The Ballard neighbors are always so happy to see us and the garden bursting with ripe tomatoes and Heavenly Blue morning glories; the cat slowly forgives us. It is pleasant to be able to walk barefoot in my kitchen without the sandy grit of a cottage filled with children. It is dishes for two instead of nine. Yard waste and recycling containers can be wheeled to the curb, instead of weekly treks to the dump. There's enough hot water for showers, the swimming suits dry instead of mildew. Instead of a front porch with rocking chairs there's warm sidewalk where we sit and talk with the neighbors. School buses make practice runs; after all vacation has to end for everyone.

As long as there's an Internet connection there's no excuse not to keep working while on the Vineyard but there are so many distractions - the hubbub in the kitchen as my daughter and the boys from next door accidentally use tablespoons instead of teaspoons of baking powder in the carrot cake recipe or a skunk chasing a cat. Drying one niece after another as they emerge from the outdoor shower, making pancakes from scratch with Maine blueberries and baking powder that was purchased in 1995.

I meant to get up really early one morning to work but I was sharing a bed with my youngest niece the night before her fourth birthday. Her mother had to leave the island for a few days, to return on her birthday. Grace is so adorable that her cuteness is almost a curse. With quirky eyebrows and tiny white teeth she is petal-like, but a flower that you can hold and cuddle. She has little freckles on her nose and in the absence of her mother she turns to me. My voice is similar to that of her mother. My smell is similar. If I try to sleep in a separate bed she tracks me down.

In the darkest part of the night I woke to Grace snuggling into my arms. She whispered, "Tomorrow is my birthday."

So I didn't get up early this morning to write but instead lay underneath the skylight that leaks in my parents' old room, watching Grace sleep. I looked at her eyelashes and the bangs that I trimmed badly. I studied her small hands, one was curled - one splayed, the pink nail polish of yesterday already chipped. Four years ago we waited in a heat wave for Grace's arrival, alternately wishing that her mother wouldn't make it off the island in time and wanting her to get back to her own doctor. When the call came that Grace Margretta had been born at 6:47 p.m. her older sisters and I danced in the street.

I didn't sweep the stairs this morning. I haven't wrapped Grace's present or helped my mother to hang out the wash, but since the moment that I woke next to Grace I have been thinking about the things that matter. Trimming the privet hedge will wait. The At Large column will wait; the moment when Grace opens her eyes will not. There are many things that really matter and one of them is sleeping beside me with freckles on a tiny perfect nose.

Peggy is on vacation this week. An earlier version of this column first appeared on her At Large in Ballard blog at SeattlePI.com Her e-mail is atlargeinballard@yahoo.com