It’s that time of year again. The time around Labor Day, the time when the Island’s frantic pace becomes less frantic. The time when you can make a ferry reservation for almost any time you want. The time to take a breather, the time to drive on Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs without six stunned tourists stepping off the sidewalk in front of your crawling car. The time when white-knuckled driving becomes ordinary, but still watchful, driving. I hope.

This time of year coincides with my birthday. I am a senior now. I wonder when that happened? AARP has been sending me stuff since I turned 50. Last fall I went to a movie in Edgartown, alone, around this time of year.

“Are you a senior?” I was asked by the ticket seller.

“Yes,” I said. “Only a senior would go out in a blinding rainstorm like this to see Robert Redford.” The movie was A Walk in the Woods, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Redford and I have aged together, or so it seems.

This year, along with the rest of my Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School class of 1970, I am 64. Like beef, we have gone from prime to aged with the turn of the calendar page. Remember the Beatles song, When I’m Sixty-Four? Man, that was a long time in the future when I first heard that song. The future is now. I wonder if it will hurt?

This morning I went to Shirley’s Hardware Store to get some light bulbs for my mother. At the checkout, I was asked if I was a senior.

“What’s a senior in here?” I asked. “Sixty-two,” was the reply.

“Yes, then,” I said, without any extra banter. I got a discount on the lightbulbs, and wasn’t asked for identification. Maybe it is because, at our high school reunion last year, I decided to stop coloring my hair Revlon’s medium golden brown. It doesn’t look that much different to me, but then, I only see myself from the front most of the time. I’m sure I will turn gray overnight pretty soon. I wonder, if that happens, if I will chicken out and start coloring it again.

Also this morning, I went to visit my husband, Jerry, at Windemere. He’s on the memory unit, has had Alzheimer’s since 2010. He just moved to Windemere after 15 months at a nursing home in Hyannis. It is good to have him home, though I doubt he knows where he is. We have been married 41 years, and I don’t think he knows who I am. I am glad he is 15 years older than I am. I would hate to deal with this disease when I am 80.

After I left Windemere, I let the tears drip for a few minutes. I suppose I should lay off the mascara and eyeliner too. It’s hard to hide the fact that you’ve been weepy when your eyes look like two burnt holes in a blanket.

This is a breathtaking time of year near the sea. The shades of blue between sea and sky are eye-popping. It is hard to hide the fact that your eyes are popping. I guess that is what sunglasses are for.

Last night someone was setting off fireworks near our home in West Tisbury. I sure hope they did not scare away the young deer who visit us in the early mornings and around sunset. I love to see deer grazing. I hate to see them dead, lying across the hood of a car. Just a personal preference which has not changed with the decades.

I checked the backyard garden, which my cousin Sandy Fisher and her daughter Connie Toteanu planted again this year. Just a few green tomatoes on the vine, nothing else. Just like last year, imagine that.

Just a few more days before I can go to Lambert’s Cove Beach any time I want. I have a new hip and have not tried it out on the path to the beach yet. But that is familiar territory. And I will take a cane.

It is the first thing on my list which I absolutely must do. When I’m sixty-four.