November 7, 2026
To: Scott Williams, Bethesda, MD
Dear Scott,
For the last few years I’ve spent May through October more or less at Comfort Island and November through April in Atlanta. This arrangement allows me to avoid the oppressive heat of the Atlanta summer and the brutal cold of a Comfort winter. Spending a winter at Comfort would be impossible anyway without an ice boat, but you get the idea.
The wonderful result is a double spring and double fall. Spring starts with February jonquils and daffodils in Atlanta and progresses through March and April with a weekly amazing array of colors. I’m constantly amazed on my walks with Duke by the flowering trees and early oak leaf hydrangeas.
When I arrive at Comfort at the beginning of May, the trees are still bare and most folks won’t plant their annuals for fear of a late frost. Late snowstorms in the north ARE a thing.
It’s not until my birthday at the end of May that the lilacs start to bloom. (A side note: when I bought Comfort it was overrun with wild lilacs. We’ve since cut them back into proper bunches and stands. But it’s still a fight to keep them contained.)
When I left Comfort this fall, the leaves were in full color. And now fall has marched south and with the cooler nights the trees have started to turn and are shedding their leaves. John and Maura’s big beautiful Ginkgo tree sits across the street from me and every year, seemingly overnight, it turns yellow and drops a beautiful carpet on the street.
Fall in Atlanta also means I get to reclaim my dead lawn with beautiful green rye grass and people stop judging the dusty thatch that pretended to be my front yard in the hot summer. Having been here for only two years, I still haven’t figured out the lawn situation.
This double season life means I get to witness the beauty and power of change a little longer each year, but it comes with a trade off. My summers and winters are shorter. Atlanta winters are blessedly brief…and Comfort summers are much too short for my liking.
Every year as the summer folk at the River pack up, we always remark on how short the summer felt. My sister used to count the days down on her calendar until she could get back up to the cottage. I find myself even now, not three weeks gone, planning next summer and the weekends where I’ll fill up Comfort with friends and family again.
I know you love it up there Scott. Please come up to Comfort again next summer.
Stephen