A Prelude to Work

It is a long awaited Saturday! Now I can get down to business. After I have some tea, putter around my gmail, and write whatever this will be.

The week started with a most unexpected 5:30am phone call on Monday morning. At 5, we'd gotten up to feed the cats and go back to bed, Dave noting "huh, it's snowing." When the phone rang half an hour later, I assumed it could only be the school cancellation phone tree in effect, but was a bit astounded that they would be calling off the school day for a few flakes of snow. A few hours later when we had a few inches, my astonishment had worn off.

I am not sure who likes snow days more: students, or staff. I had hauled with Dave on Sunday, and had spent part of that time thinking "huh, maybe I should have actually taken a day off. Just to, you know, rest." So I was very appreciative that the universe saw fit to lend me an extra.

So that was the week, off to a productive start! Then- and I don't know if it was because I was well-rested for the first time in a long time (new mattress! snow day!)- Tuesday morning, I went to school. In a very good mood. A mood so good it made me stop to label it as such. Not even moody teenagers could swing it- instead I took them up in mine. Lo and behold, I was visited by another such mood on Thursday. Prior to this week, I thought perhaps I had reached a sad little plateau of effective burn-out. Where I could still help kids get things done and push through the work and wildness, even if I no longer ever felt bright and shiny.

But, much to my surprise and delight, fun found its way in from the edges. Is it having the wedding over? Was I right, that I really needed to be able to face life as a wife rather than a bride-to-be? Or is it that first real snow of winter- the one that coats the trees and crunches underfoot? Possibly the rise of cookies in my diet as we approach Christmas?

All I know is that my mind was back. I re-cracked logarithms, so can make some headway with my Algebra 2 students as they reach the end of the class; in going on a tangent with a geometry student, I told him that pi (as a written character) is not unlike the trilithons at Stonehenge, which is kind of geekiliciously cool, because of Stonehenge's generally circular layout. This did eventually lead to me impressing upon him that pi (the ratio) is really just the constant relationship between the circumference of any circle and its diameter. So often kids have a very shaky concept of what the hell it is- since it is not written as a number, it's a funky letter, they assume it is a variable (see also: Variables; other shaky math concepts).

Speaking of other shaky concepts in general, I discovered, and at first did not believe, that some of my students made it through eighth grade without ever taking Social Studies. This particular kid had been with me over the course of the semester making up work for the Contemporary Issues class he failed last year. Turns out, all through his grammar school career, he had been taken out of Social Studies to work on his reading, or to do alternative education classes. Worthy things, certainly, but it left a hole in his education so gaping that when we were discussing geography and I asked him to hazard a guess about the identity of a largest country in South America, he hazarded the guess "Africa?"

I was gobsmacked.

No shit he failed a class that was all about government and international politics. When my co-worker arrived after the last bell, she confirmed his claim that he had never had Social Studies.

Good thing we have a little over a month before the semester ends and he starts World Studies, which is taught achingly by the book, with a steady diet of map quizzes. Now I know what he will be reading. Maps. Oceans, continents, seas, countries, rivers, mountains... stories. Just talk with visual props. Quizzes as games, not as grades. Internet geography games (best edutainment EVER http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm). He's a lobsterman- it's just a matter of extending the reach on his mental chart.

Sigh. I want to be a Social Studies teacher. It's one way of being an everything teacher.

Midweek I had back to back meetings, which were not nearly as dull as that phasing would imply. The first I was a little pissed to rush off to (I was working with an Algebra 1 student in nearly teary frustration regarding exponents)- it was scheduled during Learning Center operation hours, so it was stepping on my time with students on the home stretch of the semester. But the meeting itself, was useful- figuring out how to start a student-run writing center at the school. A project I wholeheartedly support- and I really do love sitting down with our principal and other teachers to work on improving what we do. Seriously, it's soul food.

The second was the Friends of the Reach Steering Committee, which is the support for the Director of the school district's performing arts center. And this was the first meeting where the Director could talk all open-like about tendering his resignation, and the search process for the next Director. It only makes sense for me to apply.

So we'll see what happens. I guess I'll just go forward with an open heart and do my best wherever I end up- staying the course in the Learning Center, taking up the reigns of a theater space, or eventually winding up my Social Studies certification...

All I know is that I finally feel like I am coming back to myself, after a year of intense transition: I'm at my own table (the self-same from my first beloved apartment in Portland), with Janey-Cat sharing my chair, and I am procrastinating today's to-do list to consider future work. The more things change... The big difference is that now I share the table, the cat, the future with Dave. Good deal.

You've Got It

Pushed up the wedding so I could devote myself to other responsibilities, and now...

Here they come. It was at about minute 23 of the 158 minutes of the mailboat company's board of directors conference call that the president introduced me as a nominee to the board, noting "she is the new go-to person when you need someone on a board." And I thought "I really should have turned this one down..."

But I stayed on and listened to the collection of voices- some very familiar from other boards, some less so. Seriously, I spend more time talking/listening to wealthy white men about money than I ever imagined I would. Between now and the 14th I need to go about writing my own contract for the Island Community Development Corporation's executive directorship- and that's just the start there. Then I need to get my shit together to actually manage the damned thing: getting the money to build new houses, getting the content together for a website to market the island, manage the current properties and microloan program, etc.... I think the worst thing about responsibility is the whole prospect of disappointing people. It's worse when those people are your neighbors. That said, they effectively volunteered me. So I guess they get what they put forth. And I was their best bet. Yep, I'm the least busy, comparatively young, well-educated warm body on an island of about 50 people.

Not yet experienced enough to say "no."

The way I see it (having now imbibed the greater portion of the neck of a bottle of Stella), it's not unlike having to direct the Xmas show out here. A painful rite of passage that I will survive and then grow out of. Hopefully won't even be tarred and feathered. We'll see. Just need to define what bits I am responsible for then see them through.

My only growing concern in this muzzy beginning of increased responsibility is the quality of life I'll see for the next year or so. As it is, I feel like I only ever see islanders across a committee table, never a dinner table. The things that drew me to the island are more like memories than realities- which I guess is part and parcel of no longer being new here, of commuting to work off-island, to being a part of some serious social change on the island (becoming involved with Dave made me the target of Opinions and the cause of Some Awkwardness- so it goes).

A task at a time, I suppose. Am rather assuming that my thirties will be about working my ass off, now that I have some confidence in my abilities (and more to the point, other people do and will pay me for it). The good news is that at the beginning and end of the day, Dave is now legally bound to be there for me through it! And thanks to the generosity of friends and family I have a comfy new mattress with lovely new sheets, a comforter, and quilt to ensure that I sleep well when I do get to bed. Now hopefully to get some land and a house to put that bed, paid for in small part by creating houses for future islanders.

Caesura

And, breathe.

A week ago was the bridal shower. A week from now we will have rehearsed, and will be just starting the rehearsal dinner, currently the part of the wedding I am most able to look forward to.

This wedding thing? I guess it is just a crucible.

And I can make my peace with that. A week ago I couldn't. In a little over a week it will be a story- memories, with the mementoes and photos to back them up. But tonight, all is quiet. Dark, cozy, and quiet. Dave is off to attend Abigail's sports award banquet and to pick her up for Thanksgiving break. They'll be home tomorrow on the late boat. The house (at least the first floor) is in still in some semblance of order from when I cleaned last weekend for company. There is still a certain amount of wedding cultch: the boxes from the shower I haven't brought to the burn barrel; the very heavy box of tablecloths and runners that just came in today; the dress in its bag lounging on the love seat whispering "attend to me..."

The place is slowly taking shape, actually, in the way that houses do. It's now about 338 days since we moved in here. And the place was pretty spartan. Today I came home and realized that it now officially looks like I live here. Those of you who were around for the Spinster Pad probably know what I mean. Variations on the theme of tea. The major differences being the gun cabinet, a TV, and the impressive assortment of commercial fishing outerwear about the place. Eventually in some other house I will probably find a way for Dave's three stuffed and mounted bears to look genteel.

At any rate, it was nice to come home and feel a bit more at home- and we do now have the amenities of a washing machine and dryer- and, thanks the the generosity of island women, matching towel sets. Don't even get me started on the matching glasses. It's funny, as slightly weirded out as I was by having a bridal shower- attention and gifts on any kind of large scale discomfit me- I think the shower was a turning point in how I felt about this whole awful process of having a wedding. Yep. People will gather around to and look at you. And give you presents.

And it will be okay.

I was raised with the "it is better to give than to receive" ethos, and have more than a passing affection for the prayer of St. Francis. So this recipient stuff freaks me out. That's part of why the wedding planning bothered me. If it is for my benefit, I don't like to ask much of anyone who is not blood family or friend family.

So asking for help, and asking people to abruptly make plans, and then to create a registry of stuff for people to buy for me? The people close to me saw my beastly bits- not only do I not like to ask people for things, but I am also pretty introverted, so don't have much of an internal drive to have people bear witness to anything. Plop that combo into the position of bride and there will be crankiness.

But then Heather fed me wine and showed me on graph paper that things could indeed work out. And the best possible housing opened up, despite a very strained friendship. And people I love reminded me that the people I love are really, really good people.

Tonight finds me home, in peace. Dave and Abigail will be home from New Hampshire tomorrow, and my adopted Abbigail (teach and you are bound to accrue children from time to time) is due home at eleven, or there will be hell to pay! Over the course of the week I was elected Executive Director of the affordable housing/economic non-profit for the island, and accepted a position on the board of the mailboat company. The big reason I moved the wedding was to better be able to focus on this kind of community work- happily settled, on the other side of this rite of passage.

Islander?

This weekend we took what was, to my mind, our honeymoon. Dave wasn't sold on the concept, but it was retreat enough for me. We registered for the Sustainable Island Living Conference that the Island Institute was holding in Rockland. Splurging (only a very little) we got two nights in a bed and breakfast rather than in the cheap rooms.

Checking in the first night, we came to the surprising realization that we were assigned to separate restaurants for lunch the following day, which put a crimp in the togetherness, but all in all, it was nice to be off island.

I like ideas, I like listening to people, new knowledge. I am also very fond of the staff of the Institute. The first night, we listened to Woody Taasch give a presentation on the concept of slow money- and it was pretty much the first entirely free-associative power point presentation I have ever seen. The man was clearly a Very Intelligent man, which meant you needed to make the connections on your own because he wasn't going to spoon feed them to you. Peace be upon the wiry-haired geniuses of the world. And upon the concept of investing in people and meaningful products of use and value... harkened me back to one of my favorite Puritan ideas- competency, which is to say earning "enough." Not a killing, but a living.

The next day there was another speaker, a wonderful reconteur from Ocracoke, NC. Then break-out sessions broken up by a really good lunch. The theme this year was island-to-island connections and conversations, so there were islanders from Oregon, North Carolina, Block Island, and Prince Edward Island. Whenever we talk about the islands in Maine, there's always a strong sense of solidarity, but equally strong understanding that each island has a lot of very unique circumstances and challenges. The solidarity, I believe, comes from knowing that there are very definite limits to what can be sustained, and a feeling that stewardship and restraint is always paramount. You have to think, you have to care, you have to plan, and collaborate. And the stakes always seem so high, the place so dear.

And oh, how seriously we take it all; how continuously we can talk. Get islanders talking, and they can continue on into perpetuity. I suppose that is the one infinite resource we can claim.

So we chatted away the time, over good food, and with the easy connection that comes from the shared identity of "islander."

And how did I become one of these hard-headed folk? Why did I pick up on that as an identity? My friends went on to other places, my family moved back to their home town on the mainland, and I bounced my way back to the the same bay. Wrapped myself back in the mantle of a way of life that is just plain difficult.

Because the only guarantee is that there will be a lot of work. Which may be futile, and will likely be thankless. And the reward, it seems is the identity. Hey, look at us, tough enough to survive on the edges. It is not romantic, or noble. It is a collective of people who are addicted to uneasy, who get accustomed to the idea of nowhere as the only where.

That said, I very much enjoyed the intimacy of the weekend, the ideas, the comradery. The conversations, the passion for place. I don't know why I ended up an islander, I don't know that it is a choice, or that at this point I could change.

And still I wonder, which island will win out.

And on especially long days, I think the mainland seems like heaven. Surely I could find a nice piece of nowhere there.

Belong

Tomorrow is a red letter day, at last, a meeting I am highly excited about.

Dave and I will meet with Rob, the minister we've asked to perform the wedding ceremony, in order to begin shaping the proceedings and vows. I am a words person. What's been odd is when I sit down to formulate what I would like to say on the occasion of the wedding, I don't draw a total blank, but I am not quite as facile as is my wont.

What am I promising, and why? How did I come to the conclusion that I would throw in my lot with this one person?

In large part, through much of my life, I've felt like a kid, ever on the verge of sitting down in a school cafeteria. A new kid, a marginal kid, a doesn't quite fit in kid. There's ever the agonizing choice of trying to decide where you might be tolerated, that you are- more or less- a stranger to every table. As an adult I have learned to assess, make a choice, and fake confidence, trusting that comfort may come in time. Have also spent enough time with myself that hey, I can belong with me, and that's okay for a time, too.

But there's nothing quite like the loneliness of knowing there's no place for you.

And there's also nothing like knowing someone is saving the space next to them, just so they can have the pleasure of your company.

Finally meeting Dave, was when I found my place. I'd only ever interacted with him in passing, and I recall thinking he was kind of fun to be around- a novel face at library hours it might be nice to see around more frequently. When we finally ended up sitting together at the cafe one morning, we picked up a conversation as old friends do. And that conversation just kept going. Easy and joyful as breathing.

In the morning we share our coffee, then work together or apart, and at the end of the day, I put my plate down next to his plate, my pillow next to his pillow. Go to sleep pleased that for the next day and the next, that process will repeat.

We are for each other.

He, me, now we. There's a stability in that, yes. It's something I always wanted, but never expected. The fast friend, willing to make room for you in their day and work out an infinite number of compromises, until it's time to pick out the urns.

But now, where is the space for us? The whole that is now more than sum of the parts? Where Dave was once welcome, and Morgan was allowed, is there room for DaveandMorgan?

So back to the entrance of the cafeteria...

Pick an Island...

We need to pick an island. To go all in, one one side of the water or the other. For the last year and now into this one, I have straddled the breach between this outport and the main- straining into a split, to make ends meet. While this makes one more flexible, it doesn't allow for much in the way of repose.

Dave is, quite literally, at square one. Renting the same house he started in when he first came to the island 18 years ago. The same house, almost two decades later. One could argue it hasn't aged as well as him, though he might argue they aged apace. At forty-one, he could echo his mid-twenties: buy a piece of land, and build anew while renting this house. Buying an existing house isn't an option, since the starting price for the current "for sale" crop is $600,000. No, I perjure myself. The house we are in is for sale, at a price less tempting than a better piece of land and a home constructed with our own mistakes, more lovingly maintained. Financially, this means paying rent while trying to make enough money to build a new home in a location that requires all materials to be barged out.

Needing to investigate the alternative, we took a day to tour homes on the other island. As we talked to the Realtor about the realities of life on the outer edges of the coast- the costs, the lugging, the sparse services and minimal employment options- it made us wonder why anyone would choose that life, a life that doesn't serve their better financial interests. We looked at homes- our major requirements were a bit of land, a bit of privacy. There was one house, just off a busy street, that sat surprisingly secluded down a drive of disrepair, among the kindest copse of hardwoods one might ever meet. The land was grown up, the house somewhat ashamble- but it was ineffably sweet. A place you could pump money, sweat, and love into, and be repaid tenfold by quality of life. While we were poking and prodding, and walking about, the sky blackened, the clouds cracked, and the rain began to pour down. Sheltered beneath the canopy of the maples, we barely felt a drop. I left not just a little in love.

The visits were somewhat downhill from there, each one a reminder that this was a bigger island, with more people, more conveniences, more cars, more everything- except for what was less. Less quiet, less forced intimacy with the neighbors. More wildness, less wilderness.

It felt- suburban. Downeast suburban, but suburban nonetheless.

After two years on the unbridged island, my sense of scale shifted. After a year of living on one and working on the other, I feel I've lost my equilibrium altogether.

Astronomical Aberrations in the Island Microcosm

Funny thing about assorted town duties- they pile up and preclude the composition of personal essays (especially in Junejulyaugust).

It's now September.

Now normally, summer blazes by: all the energy, work, and closening quarters compressing, compressing into the blue streak fury of August... then

Red Shift.

It takes the island eight or nine months of dormancy to recover.

This year, September did not bring the shift. Yes, the weather changed- the longed for clarity is here. The crowds are less crowded. The day affords fewer hours of light. The season is changing as is meet and proper.

But there is no sense of island-as-sanatorium. Every evening a meeting; every day still some to-do. The summer schedule persists. The frequency of meetings is no less intense.

And we persevere (grumbling) saying "surely in October..."

red like the leaves, the cranberries...

The Idle Ides of August

One of the best fishing laws in this state is the one that disallows lobstering on Sundays in June, July, and August. One. Blessed. Day.

We went to bed on Saturday night, delighted at the prospect of sleeping late: we did in fact revel in our dream time, until the cats woke us up extra early. I myself passed the hours from 4am to 7am pondering town politics, the logistics of getting bags of compost from Barter's Lumber in Deer Isle to my garden, thought about what sort of house design (not mansard-roofed) could carry off a cupola and still suit its surroundings, among sundry other things. A small percent of the time was spent jockeying with Dave about who should be getting who coffee.

Predictably, we waited until 7:30, when we could stumble out of the house, across the yard, and into our neighbor's cafe. The win/win solution is to have Kate (or Steve) make the coffee. Pepe, who had been launched outdoors sometime earlier, immediately joined us on the trip next door- though being furry and prone to curiosity that manifests in surface climbing, he is not allowed into the cafe. So he settled in on the steps outside the sliding screen door.

The magic of Sundays on Isle au Haut is this: the whole time frame of the day is shifted forward by two hours. Locals crawl out of bed at seven instead of five: summer people stir at nine, not seven. This allows for a window at the cafe, from 7:30 to 9:00am, when we can congregate and actually spare some time for talking to one another, rather then just shooting sympathetic glances. Today was a particularly nice gathering, as it was the first wedding anniversary of one of the island's long-standing couples.

Conversation meandered, like it does but its core was very current- the seasonal topic is seasonal visitors. We dissected their pedestrian patterns, their mooring habits, their fascinating expectations about what amenities will be on an island that is generally advertised as amenity free.  Of course, summer people (of every category- day tripper to six monther) come in all of the same stripes as locals- some are gems, some are jerks.  Now's just the time when we're facing a density of them, and some are more dense than others, which makes for good stories. 

Skiff Sunday

They got one regulation right. No fishing on Sundays, June through August. Unable to work, we took the day for ourselves in the skiff, to see what we might salvage. Picked up the traps on Trial Point I hauled off the rocks last October, scanned the shorelines for Dave's buoys lost to knives, props, and other circumstances. Ended up finding two bundles of gear belonging to other fisherman, but not a whole lot of Dave's, so those'll wait on his float for reclaimation. Did find a lobster crate though, which is the universe bringing balance- someone recently stole one of Dave's. A very nice time, though it ended up being the death of my camera, which fell victim to the water in the bottom of the skiff.

The Right Words

Like most people, I find learning something new to be semi-fraught with frustration. Looking at it superficially, sterning is not the most obvious thing for me to be trying my hand at. I am smallish. Have generally worked at some sort of desk. I didn't grow up around boats, really. Oh, I'm an old hand at rowing- but running an outboard, tying knots, slinging around traps... ha. Welcome, Morgan, to the shallow end of your aptitude pool.

Last Friday found us setting two loads of traps- high tide was running at about 5 am and 5 pm, so those hours found us at the town landing, him in the boat receiving traps, me on the dock unloading them from his truck and passing them down. The traps are fished in pairs, and the order in which the traps are loaded makes a difference. At this point I had helped him take up most of his 800 traps last fall, and had then helped him put in the few hundred we'd managed to make time to set this spring. And yet. I still couldn't tell sink rope from float unless they were different colors. And I couldn't remember which had to be loaded first. It was all chicken and egg to me. While he can be very impatient with himself, fellow fisherman, his boat, and his gear, Dave is generally very patient with any sort of student. But at this point, at 5 am, on the third load of traps, after god knows how many seven-day work weeks, his patience was wearing thin.

"I'm sorry, I just don't know how to explain it better..."

My mood wasn't any better- I was feeling utterly inept. In almost everything academic, I've been a quick study, but all things mechanical, I am a drooling idiot. I don't know the jargon, I might get the big picture, but the little things escape me. I forget things easily if they aren't repeated daily.

After a while he says "The ones without the toggle in them. I need the ones without the toggle in them first."

No matter my trap dyslexia, no matter how bad I am at telling float from sink, I can definitely identify trap with a toggle attached to its coiled warp. I can also identify a trap without toggle.
We didn't say much, but quickly the process was smoother.

Later that night, dead tired, and about to get in some curative cuddles before dinner- the ones we were hanging on for all day, the phone rings. Cue the ex-wife ranting about how Dave needed to go find out who took her leaking propane tank- and why didn't he already know? For twenty years he has been letting her method of communication roll off his back. Her bizarre demands (it is still his job to deal with her problems?) coupled with her tone (strident puts it lightly) just raises his eyebrow and cues his selective hearing. I haven't had the time to learn that response, nor do I think it would ultimately be my style. I heard, as loudly as if the phone were up to my own ear, completely irrational demands. Which a.) makes me irritated and defensive, and b.) makes me want to set very clear boundaries. As to point b., I worked with a lot of poorly parented kids, so what can I say?

I wanted him to tell her exactly what she could do with her expectations. The more I listened, the more any sort of potential for an evening of relaxation slipped away. By the time he got off the phone, having somewhat placated her, I was strung out in the very special way that can only be brought on by intense ex-spousal contact. They are his boundaries to build, but they affect me, whether I like it or not. And whether he likes it or not.

I was, perhaps, visibly riled up. Which engendered his question "are you mad now?" One for emotional honesty, I replied "yes." So he rolled over to go to sleep. And I took a breath, and asked him to fill me in on whatever information he had managed to glean about his daughter who was having boyfriend trouble. That was what prompted the call- she was returning one he had made concerning their daughter. The opening line opening was literally "oh, whatever, she's fine- you need to find out who fucking took my propane tank..." To my overtures, he ruefully responded "nope, you're mad at me, and you don't want to hear it." And rolled over to his sleeping side.

Awesome. A long day, all we wanted to do relax together at day's end, and because of one phone call, we end the day unhappy. He is tired, and falls asleep, leaving me alone with my mood. I am tired, and do not fall asleep. Because now I am even more upset that Dave has ignored my attempts to move through my mood and to bring the evening back to normalcy. Pretty much all I wanted was for him talk to me, and to get back to sleepy limb-entwinement. Even when discussing the stressful stuff, we can generally do it well, in a mellow and reflective style. But we can't do that with either back turned.

I got up. Moved to the couch with my iPod and a comforter. And my cat. Contemplated going out for hike but realized I was way too tired physically for that to be a good fix. So I cocooned myself, and waited for my mood to go through metamorphosis. And for Dave to wake up.

He woke up just as I was beginning to doze. Comparatively puny as I am, he did not see my shape in the crumpled covers on the couch, and thought I had gone outside. He grabbed a beer and went to check the garden, and by the time he came back in, I had moved up to the bed where I hoped to get actual sleep. The cat (who had been giving me the requisite cheering cuddle) had left me when Dave had opened the door, so the couch had lost its charm.

So there we were. Me all catless and tired, him with a broken beer bottle. Both miserable. We curled up again and worked on definitions.

Prior to this night he assumed that when I am feeling any negative emotion he is to absolutely leave me alone. Sadly, I have two modes of crankiness, each needing opposite antidotes. When I am "annoyed," as when he repeatedly asks me what I writing (invariably I am writing something long-winded, so each time he asks, I am still writing the same damned thing I was writing when he asked five minutes prior), he should leave me alone. Or possibly he could put food in front me, and quietly back away. Irritability on my part has to do with tiredness, low blood sugar, and yes, repeated questions. It is trifling, and given a little bit of space (and a snack), I quickly swallow it. I don't like being irritable. When I am upset, it is over a particular and generally important issue: I want to work through things, preferably sooner rather than later. I don't like being upset.

So that was that. Is Morgan annoyed? Leave her alone. Is Morgan upset? Don't leave her alone. As to determining which diagnosis applied, he need only ask. When I am annoyed, he does get that one free question.

We quickly fell to being glad we were done with miscommunication for the day, and joined forces to determine the much more pressing matter of what in god's name we'd have the energy to prepare for dinner. Then to sleep, then to another 5am load of traps.

As to the propane mystery? A new friend of hers had loaded it onto his truck, so he could load it onto his boat, to take care of it for her.

Staring at Uncertainty -or- Rubbernecking at Wrecks

On of the potential side-effects of being a stern person is bait-box vision. Which is somewhat like tunnel vision, only bleaker. Yesterday was like that.

Technically, I could have been working at my job on the mainland- it was the penultimate day for teachers and support staff, but as it was make-up exams, I was able to convince the principal that it would be much more sensible for me to be out on the water (joining the ranks of the sprung students who stern) than to be sitting in an empty classroom. So it was a bonus day, hooky, a stolen trip.

And it was a gorgeous morning. Clear, calm. On the ride down to the dock, however, we did come across what one citizen now calls "an event that marks the beginning of summer on IAH": a vehicle totaled in some overt act of drunken driving. We passed this year's stellar example- a truck belonging to a construction crew. It had the appearance of an abandoned wreck, but we backed our own truck up, to check and make sure there wasn't anyone in it. They'd run well off the road, fetching up on a boulder. That was good, because it slowed the impact of the tree. So the hood was only dented in about a foot and a half. It was, as we suspected, abandoned.

The blood wasn't too bad, some soaked into the passenger seat, some spilled on the ground. Dave, a born story-teller, instantly assumed doom. I diagnosed a busted nose on the part of the driver. Unpleasant but hardly fatal. The fallout would be more about public humiliation than harm.

So we tisked, wondered if the driver (we could guess the culprit) went off for treatment, and headed back to work. We did meet Ed (awake? Sober?!!) at the landing and shared the news- Dave talking about the blood everywhere, me hedging his description with my theory. Later in the day we saw Ed at the store (awake, not so sober), where he crowed "Girl, you were absolutely right! Broke his nose!"

But writing about wrecks was not my point. My point was that it was a beautiful morning, and that new bait bags suck to work with. The way Dave purchases bait bag material, the mesh is machine made- one infinite and compact length of bottomless bag, cut by the company and spooled, then cut into shorter lengths by the fisherman, and clamped with a hog ring at one end. The finished product is a royal pain in the ass to open for the first time. I like my bait bags like I like my jeans, a baseball glove, or apparently my men- nicely broken in. But since it was my job, I got to it, keeping the thought "this fucking sucks" to myself. Dave said it for me a few minutes later when he came back to bait a few.

The bait itself was a good news/bad news sort of thing. It was getting a bit old, but being Canadian and therefore not as stringently regulated for size, the herring was comparatively little, and easy for small hands to shovel into the stiff pockets with their narrow openings. The bags began to pile up in the fish box beside me, which was satisfying, but peripheral. My main view was the bait box.

Incidentally, for a country that seems to quietly have its shit together, Canada's fishing regulations are miserable and almost non-existent. As a disgruntled American, I want to hold the place up as a utopia, but their lack of fishing regulation, be it for herring or lobster, pisses me off. More bait into the bag...

One thing I have noticed while working with piles of dead fish, is that bait juice is actually kind of pretty. Stay with me here- I swear it would make an excellent nail polish color, as long as you didn't name it for its inspiration. It's a shade of taupe, and because of the fish oil released, when it eddies and whirls it looks like a molten precious metal.

Though today, this oil, full of fatty acids people buy as health supplements, reminds me of other oil, increasingly unfit for consumption. When work gets tedious on the boat I lose myself contemplating the bait- the patterns in the juice, the iridescence of the scales, the geopolitics and ecological/economic ramifications of herring: when work gets tedious on the mainland, I lose myself in the net. Where I recently looked at images from the blowout in that other Gulf.

It was about the time my mind cycled around to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, that we reached our first pair of traps. I was reminded that my job is not just about baiting bag, after bag, after bag. The point, and the payoff, is finding out what is in the traps. The shift in my duties brought my gaze out of the bait box, back at our bay. Where the sky and water is blue, the spray off the boat is crystal. I can't fathom our shores draped in a deadly sludge. And none of us can understand how a government which can fine fisherman around 25k for an apparent oil sheen around their boats and disallows Dawn on board (though everyone still carries it for cleaning up at day's end), does not seem to have paid much attention to off-shore drilling risks, and allows emphasis on chemical dispersant (Dawn). Wells vomiting up crude do NOT get dry heaves, unless you take a geologic view of time. Dismal thoughts for a bonny day. Switching my attention to the traps was a welcome distraction.

Our first pair offered up a male hard-shell lobster- a monster just on the legal side of the gauge- not quite so big that he had to go back for breeding stock. I kissed him on his salty carapace. This is not the good part of the fishing season, and what little we do get over the course of the morning is primarily v-notch females, eggers, and shorts. All go back over the side, curses from Dave and well-wishes from me. We probably got more sculpin than lobster.

We kept three of them, Dave slamming their heads against the boat for a quick kill. Near the end of the haul, when we've wound our way up to Moores Head, we feed the eagles. Between Moores Head and Trial Point, there's a nest, and both eagles flew down to Dave's whistle. The day's setbacks (a lost pair, cut by some anonymous jerk's prop, and unsuccessfully grappled for; another pair dragged and stove up by careless neighbor) lost their grip on his mood. "We fed two eagles!!!" With that, the storm clouds were swept from his face, and his day was once again on better footing. We went into Stonington to sell while the price was still on the high end of low, and before there would be two prices, one higher for the shippable hard shells, and one lower for the more delicate shedders.

My mood did not improve greatly, except to be glad that Dave's cleared up. The fresh air, the sunshine, the pleasure of having the boat under me, and my mind free to wander was all undercut by where my mind was wandering. Here comes summer, like a trap up through the water- I guess we'll just see what it brings.

The Soil and the Dirt

It is Spring. After the equinox. Beyond April, even. There are million pieces of empiric evidence to back me up, here. It is the grand emergence of all things- eyes wide to take in the verdure, pupils narrowing against a strong new sun.

When old the year has run its course, and the next is newly, truly born of the remnant muck- it is always a shock to me. Newsflash: the world can be soft, warm, and full of colors from pigment, rather than light. Old friends show up, friends who seem like they stepped out of a book, or a fairy play: Snow Drop, Forsythia, Quince, and Daffodil. Apple Blossom.

I step out the door and don't believe my nose, I don't believe my skin.

Maybe this is hard for me to believe because this year, spring actually matters in material ways. Traps to be got in the water, plants to be got into the ground. Plans to bring to fruition. And the saying, "work is love made manifest" suddenly applies to my life.

But to everything here, there's the inversion. There's the soil and the dirt. Every season new seeds of delicious suspicion are cast, watered by slavering tongues, and allowed to bloom, damaging weeds in a delicate garden. Rumor, doubt, disdain. Yes, who in a small town doesn't also have a long acquaintance with them? Diverting to cultivate, perhaps, until they ruin the soil.

Dark thoughts for a sunny day, no?

Would there were a ready tool to pluck those weeds. But since there isn't, I will focus on these fleeting friends, who are kind enough to drop by.

The Sundries of a Winter's Weekend

February is a month that fascinates me, because more than any other month in Maine it is a month for dreams. After all, what else is there to do? The days just begin to get discernibly longer, and it is perhaps one of our sunniest months. No fog to contend with- just winter storms, which leave the world smothered in snow, intensifying and optimizing the light we do get, direct from the sun or cast back by the moon. While the temperature doesn't climb much beyond 25 degrees, all the sunshine gets a person thinking about summer, about growing things, productivity, recharged batteries. One can only hope to plan.

I have on my hands a peculiar sort of weekend. Dave left on Thursday to get physical therapy for his arm in Portland, and then continued to New Hampshire to spend the weekend with his family, helping to run the Model T snowmobile rally. I had to work both Thursday and Friday, and finances being what they are, it made no sense for the weekend to necessitate two car trips. So I came home to the island, a bit at odds and ends. I've always been a solitude-loving soul, so to come home to a house empty but for the cats, and seem at any sort of loss is a bizarre twist. When I left the island earlier in the week I was dreading the days, but by Friday I was pleasantly run down enough by work and rehearsals (I am playing Maria in the Sound of Music) that 48 hours of unstructured time appeared to be the greatest blessing in the world, even if Dave wouldn't be there.

I gleefully fell into Ruth Moore's Spoonhandle on the boat ride home, and stayed adrift in it until the boat bumped into the landing, pausing only at the beginning of the trip to discuss with my Former Neighbor Charlie the many merits of Ruth Moore. Prior to Spoonhandle, I had been reading her letters, which was also pleasant winter fare- so pleasant that I ordered a copy to be shipped to Ms. Beauregard in far off Californ-i-a. I do miss Neighbor Charlie- we never talked much except on the mailboat, but we share an abiding love of felines, and he would always whistle for my wave. It was a cordial system. I know my new neighbors much better, yet have seen them less than ever I saw Neighbor Charlie.

Here on the island, each winter has a different social cast than the winter that preceded it. The first winter I spent on the island was awash in public pot lucks and private dinner parties. The second winter eschewed the pot lucks (we were so tired of them! setting up all the tables and chairs, staring at each other under the dull lights of the town hall), and instead focused home-hosted game nights, knitting club, book club, and the volleyball nights that thrived under those dull town hall lights. This winter seems to have drawn many of us further into ourselves- the gaiety of last winter not being of a sustainable nature. This winter, it has just been difficult to dig out, mentally. Of course the complexion of a winter does in large part depend on who is doing the viewing- everyone on the island has an individual sense of how the time is passing. But there are trends, and this year, the trend seems to be inward. There have been a lot of changes, and I daresay many of us are introverts.

I certainly am, which is why I have not taken the opportunity this weekend to seek out company, and have only enjoyed the interaction of errands- the post office, the store. The latter afforded me the chance to talk to Former Neighbor Ben, and Ed our alcohol-errant yet erudite mechanic. We discussed Dave's broken radius, which gave Ben and Ed the chance to tell me their falling-off-of-ladders stories. This happened to solve a mystery I had been chewing on for some time. Ben works as a cashier at our store. Now, the store is laid back and friendly, and one does not expect anything on Isle au Haut to move in a manner that even approaches efficient- but goddamn, Ben is the sloooooooooooooowest grocery bagger of all time. Glaciers have been known to make faster progress. I have watched him at it for a while now, and noticed the tremor in his hand as he lifts and lowers the items. I even asked Dave (my partner in island detection) if Ben was ill, but Dave, even with his years on the island, had no answer.

Come to find out, Ben had long ago broken that wrist falling off a swing. Ever since, he's had that tremor. And now I know. And knowing is fun.

So while my socializing has been limited this weekend, it has been fruitful. I had not been in the store for a while, and it was good to see Ben and Ed who I rarely see now that I commute to work and live in what is winkingly called "the projects." I got my milk and eggs, and Old English furniture polish; a guilty quart of Gifford's chocolate ice cream; I fed Jeep 4 gallons of gas at $3.90 a gallon, which nudged her up to a quarter of a tank. I might have put more in, but she's got a slight leak, and I prefer to keep it slight. She also has a leak in one of her tires, which is the bane of my existence. Also, her muffler needs clamping back on. As I backed her into the store's drive, I got my first good close-up view of Ed's current vehicle, and it was the first time I'd seen the rear end of it since he'd christened the new town landing with its rear windshield. I am not sure which condition contributed the most to that collision of automobile and piling- the unsanded ice on the hill or the booze in the blood. Either way, no major harm was done except to the poor vehicle. It did give people a show, and we did get to shake our heads in satisfying appreciation for predictable behavior.

The other big event of the weekend was getting the mail. It was not particularly social, though Dottie did come out of her house, leaning comfortingly on the new rail that runs from her house to her entrance to the post office. By the time she was half-way there, I already had my mail underarm, and she just checked to see that I had all I needed, and we wished each other a good day. In the old days of General Delivery (dating all the way back to last November), I would have been entirely dependent on her to hand over the goods. Now I peer into the little window for affirmation of my (or more often Dave's) postal worthiness, then fiddle with the little lock on box 58, which springs open at my touch now that I have conquered its combination which includes an "8 1/2."

I went through the mail with Dave via Skype, and it proved to be a fairly interesting batch- worker's comp check, bills, and the resheduled date for the theoretically final hearing for his divorce. Incidentally the divorce gods set the hearing on the exact time and date of his next physical therapy appointment, which will now have to be rescheduled.

Partnering up with someone at the tail end of their long-dissolving marriage has been educative. There is a such a heap of accrued assets, debts, personal patterns, and material things. A division that must always be difficult on the mainland is doubly difficult on such a small stone dollop of an island. Imagine having your office in the front yard of your ex. To work on his fishing gear, Dave must go to his shop, situated in front of the house he built and has since vacated, so that he can keep his boat and said gear. The physical space is small on the island, the social space equally tight. But we'll muddle through.

Onward and upward, as the saying goes. Which brings me back to my weekend in reading. After devouring the remainder of Spoonhandle, a feast lasting into the wee sma's of Saturday morning (I then slept in until 8am!), I went from the post office to Library in search of more Moore. I picked up Candlemas Bay, and also happened upon Onward and Upward in the Garden, by Katherine S. White- wife to the famed E.B., and an editor of note in her own right.

I was so drawn in by Spoonhandle (which had me spitting nails by the fifth page), that I could not yet bear leaving the Stilwells and Freemans, Sangors and Osgoods of Spoon Island for other similar but not-yet-introduced Mainers of Candlemas Bay. White's book offered an introduction by the ever genial voice of E.B., and is a collection of essays written about- of all things- gardening catalogs. The cover is a pleasing fading pink with leafy green borders, and in the center is an illustration of that Maine native, the rugosa rose. A very handsome volume, all told.

It is February, and the light is streaming in the huge, cheap windows of this house. My azalea is in bloom (is there a more generous winter houseplant?), and geraniums thriving after some intense pruning. Since moving in, Dave and I have been dreaming about having some sort of garden this summer, even if limited. Given that context, it took me very little time before I cracked the cover of a book which is a compendium of such dreams.

Gardening is more or less an alien world to me. By the time I got old enough to help rather than hinder in the vegetable plot, our family no longer had the time to devote to it. My mom did always keep a flower garden, but beyond the very occasional weeding session, and infrequent Q&As, I learned little of planting and nurturing- I was too busy with friends and books. I did at least grasp the difference between annual and perennial, and had a vague idea about bulbs needing to be planted in the fall- I certainly discovered the deer's proclivity for eating tulips.

Other than that, over the years I just grew fond of certain plants. Roses I loved from birth, as a namesake should; snowball bushes were a welcome home; quince was a riotous prickerbush with beautiful blooms in the underbrush; snowdrops, crocuses, hyacinths, daffs and tulips, lilacs and lupine the greatest harbingers of a softer season. There too were forget-me-nots and sweet william, lavender and globe thistle. Hostas I never quite understood the appeal of, but they stood near the unpretentiously pretty lily of the valley (how could a plant so prim be so poisonous?). There were the bleeding hearts necessary to the Democrat's domain, and fushias hanging in planters from the sumac, columbine, bachelors button, even some edelweiss.

On my own, I have been an indifferent keeper of plants. It's part and parcel of being itinerant in one's twenties. Every couple of years I would uproot and move to a new space with different windows, different square footage. The only living thing bound to survive the move was my dear cat, Janey. The last couple of years I'd been blessed with a large porch, so attempted wider container plantings, but found little success. Summers found me dodging the domestic sphere when it under the chaotic reign of the home's actual owner. Anything I started from seed paid the price of my frequent absence.

So now it is February, and I am in a home that, while still just a rental, is at least going to be run season to season under the more predictable auspices of myself and Dave. How much in the way of gardening materials we will actually be able to finance is highly questionable. Isle au Haut has little in the way of soil, and a remarkably dense population of deer who do not read seed catalogs, and therefore do not know what plants they are supposed to resist eating. As a result of these conditions, every garden on the island requires intense soil improvement (or importation) and must be fenced in to a substantial height. Divorce renders all parties but the lawyers poor, and I am poor by dint of personality type (on a scale of average household income, INFPs rank last... of course they also rank last by percent married, so their households often only have that one lowly income). February also brings an unpaid vacation's chunk out of my income, while also wakening me to the tax bill that will come due in April. Good thing dreaming does not require rich soil!

On the bright side, there is home improvement that requires little in the way of capital, and makes a substantial difference in domestic satisfaction. Once I get my head out of pipe dreamt garden plots, I am moving on to the practical and cheap means of creating one's own cheerfulness: cleaning. Yesterday it was the bathroom, today- god and energy willing- the office, bedroom, and kitchen. Family members will laugh at the thought of me cleaning for fun, but really, there's much less room for mid-winter misery when the corners are uncluttered and the baseboard is dust-free. As to managing to have a garden this summer, I will just put my faith in reusing planters from seasons past, and Dave's ability to scrounge and jerry-rig. The end will probably not be extravagant, but then, I am only looking for a start.

Awake With the Wolf Moon

I remember exactly when I stopped fearing the night. I was at a slumber party to celebrate a friend's thirteenth birthday. Restless, feeling our oats, we went for a late night walk- only to find there was no need of flashlights. Though cast in silver, the world was still familiar under the full moon. Walking confidently abroad in the small hours, some sort of adult understanding switched on in me, and I changed- my child's fear of the dark dissipated. Never again would I want a nightlight.

Indeed, since that fundamental change, I have needed the dark to sleep well at night: so while I appreciate the luminosity of the full reflecting moon, it is ever and anon the bane of my slumberous existence. Like Macbeth, it murders sleep.

Which is why after some fitful dozing, followed by much tossing and turning (mind and body), I gave up the ghost. I explained my predicament to Dave when he surfaced slightly at my movement, then tucked him in to make up for the lack of my heat.

There is, of late, much to keep my mind occupied when I would rather it rest. What ultimately wrested me out of bed was a preoccupation with town politics. In two month's time, we will assemble, some forty or so residents, to vote on town officers and budget items for the year, among other things. The last two years saw little in the way of controversy, or change. This year will be a very different story.

We have known for some time that our second and third selectmen, young men both, would not be standing for office again. What we have recently learned is that the first selectman, a widow in her sixties, will not be standing for re-election. For years now, she has held the office. And no one would dare run against her, because lacking the income from the position, she would be unable to stay on the island. She's done her job as she sees fit, but cannot check email to save her life and is not willing to embrace even expedient technology. It's problematic for running a town in the 21st century, but who is going to vote against a long-time resident widow whose economic mainstay is that job? I cast my vote for her last year. This is how welfare works on the island.

Recently, she has decided that it is time to move on- on to the mainland. She won't be accepting nomination this year.

So now there are one, two, three selectman seats open- and who shall fill them? The pool of potential candidates is a quickly shrinking puddle. It was going to be a chore to fill two of the three places, and those were the seats with the (supposedly) smaller workloads. Add in increasingly tense dynamics socially, and the task looms Herculean.

I have a million other things to worry about right now, but this was the preoccupation my mind picked up as the moonlight poured in the bedroom windows. Sun light or dark of night, I guess I can't know what's around the bend.

Two Crossings

Not a soul in the state wanted to get out of bed today, and I was no exception. Our Martin Luther King holiday was whumped with snow: heavy, wet, sticking snow, the kind that will break your back if you aren't careful. The snow that could build a million snowpeople and sculptures.

I did not want to get up.

But up I got.

After hitting snooze a couple of times, and perhaps maybe after Dave had rolled out of bed to start the coffee.

I am, once out of bed, a morning person. Which is good, because by the time I was out of the flannel and into the chill air, it was about a quarter to five. Some days, I have to be at work at 7:15- and whether staying with my parents on the mainland, or (occasionally) having Dave bring me uptown in his boat, this necessitates being out the door by 6 a.m. So it was in the last moments of the pitch black night, we arrived at the town landing. Dave's skiff was full of snow, full of water. The outboard was about as excited to get moving as I had been. The easiest task, untying the painter from the float, was mine. Despite Dave's assumptions, the rope had not frozen, so I didn't have to fight the structure of ice.

This easy task was my only task for this first step. Dave bailed out the boat: Dave got the engine running. Makes sense since he's the boat guy and I'm the greenhorn. Unfortunately, Dave recently fell while doing carpentry, and fractured the hell out of his left radius (look it up: he's got the second or third type). So Dave was doing this all one-handed.

Funny thing about your hands and arms- you don't notice 'em until you can't use them. And you don't just use them for obvious things, like oh say... work and chores- you also use them for balance. Which is always helpful when on a boat, right?

He didn't fall in.

I know, that's where it seems like I was going. But he didn't. Every time it seemed like he would topple out, he would shift his weight quick enough to recover because, sling or no sling, he knows what he is doing. In my mind he did fall, of course. I was raised to be a worrier, and after my uncle almost kicked it during dinner last fall, my mind floods with contingency plans whenever I sense any risk, or potential for major injury. So I ran through how I would need to respond- not a terrifying mental exercise when it's low tide, you're at the float and there's not a lot of water under you and only a little more distance to the shore. It gets exponentially horrific as you move away from the float. Having the visuals from the movie Titanic in one's shadow archive really does not help.

But the chances of capsizing in the middle of an iceberg-less thoroughfare on a flat calm morning (as it was this morning) are pretty much zilch. I know when I am being needlessly paranoid. And I was being needlessly paranoid.

Once we were on his lobster boat and well underway, I relaxed. The freezing point isn't actually unpleasant when the wind is not there to throw it in your face. It was still enough that we didn't close up the winterback, and I spent much of my time toward the stern of the boat with my travel mug, just watching the water splay out behind us as the dark slipped slowly to light. Nothing but the wake and the softly waking world. Ocean, islands, and clouds: a display of infinite greys.

The recent snow was piled on trees and shores, acting as snow often does in the world of Hallmark greeting cards- as it can even in the real world. It offered a benediction. The world- for this stretch of time, over this stretch of water- was in a state of grace. The spruce on the islands whispered stories about the wind direction of the night past. They stood in variegated groupings: the trees were blown bare of the snow to the Northward and on higher ground; the trees tucked in hollows, or sheltered to the South were heavily enrobed in white. The effect was a greater visual depth, the woods did not flatten to the eye as so often they do with a little distance.

It was, you might gather, a nice kind of commute. I moved forward, kissed Dave on the cheek and thanked him. He glared, replied "Never again-" dimpled "-until the next time."

And here, there'd be a tidy end to this snapshot of a snowy morning. But life doesn't end tidy, does it? And the working day seldom comes to a full stop at 7 a.m.

I went to my job, and Dave went home, and we passed the day. Life is also bad driving conditions, lost wages, having your vehicle plowed in. By the time I got to the mailboat for my commute home, I was in what I only ever described as "tired" mood. Nothing to do but slog through til you can go to sleep, and wake to scrape the bottom of Pandora's damned box for a little hope.

I'd arrived at the boat landing early and rather than wait in my cooling car, I borrowed a shovel and set to work unearthing Dave's truck. I'd not had a chance to communicate with him much over the course of the day, and what I had heard was not good news. What I hadn't heard was whether or not he was still going to go off to Portland tomorrow morning in the teeth of another winter storm. He needs to see the doctor again, to find out if his arm needs surgery, or if we'd have another week of "wait and see." So I shoveled. And it'll just snow again tonight. But six inches fresh will be better than fourteen accumulated.

Incidentally, shoveling snow does not make a weary person less tired! When I got down to the boat I was hot, out of breath, and my chest hurt in the way peculiar to sucking in a lot of very cold fresh air. Hot was the worst of it, so I stayed out on the stern. And wouldn't you know other people did, too? So I made nice, and I talked about musical theater, and chit chatted. Somehow I got to making snowballs- this happens as a matter of course when it snows in the upper few degrees of the snow making spectrum.

One day I will write a paean to the mailboat captains, but today I will simply state that they are the sort who will indulge in a snowball fight. This afternoon's patrons were somewhat genteel, so we kept it mild and mannerly. We had plenty of time for the high jinx, since we waited 20 minutes past departure for an island resident who proved to be late beyond reason- incidentally this was also the man who is contracted to plow the island roads... When we were finally underway everyone went inside the cabin.

I stayed out. The snow was a little dry for perfect packing, but I began clumping it together on the bench that runs the length of the Mink's stern. Two long hillocks parallel next to each other, perpendicular to the seat. On the back third of those, against the rail that serves as a bench back, I mounded and patted, mounded and patted, until there was a torso. One of the captains came to get my ticket.

"You making a snowman?'

"Yuh, looks like it's gonna to be a parapelegic one."

I shaped its chest, then added arms to each side, sloping in toward the lap, joining in a mound like hands clasped. Breathing against the snow to make it pack harder, I made a small ball, scrounged on the deck for wetter material, made it bigger. Along the rails the snow was wettest- an icy slush, and I used that to set a nose onto the face, pressed my finger in for eyes, used my thumbs to define cheekbones. I smoothed the head onto the shoulders. It was about this time that one of the students commuting on the mailboat nailed my back with a snowball. Taking the interruption as an opportunity to step back and assess my artistic process to this point, I realized I was sculpting a Buddha. His legs, originally cropped at the knees, I modified into a sort of lotus position. Satisfied, I slung my arm around him and watched the scenery pass by for a while, before returning to the cabin, where I was instantly interrogated about whether or not I had a ticket for the frozen passenger. I told them to talk to him.

We were a few minutes from the dock, and I chatted with the kids- one wanted me to be on the panel for his senior exhibition, the other wanted me to look over an essay if we have a snow day tomorrow. By the time I hit the ramp, I was still tired in my body, but my spirits were in better shape.

What events (or "what fresh hell," as Dorothy Parker would put it) tomorrow will bring, I don't pretend to know. Possibly a quiet day on the island, perhaps a trip to Portland, maybe my long awaited first rehearsal for The Sound of Music.

But there will probably be snow. And maybe a boat ride. Best content myself with that.

Shedder

For the past two years I was lucky enough to be living in a big ol' house overlooking a nice piece of water. On a clear day you could squint at Stonington. It was comfy, and luxurious, and temporary. I learned a bunch, including how to drive a Model A, how to roll start a Jeep Willy, how to make a mean lemon curd, and the rudimentary means of navigating my island- socially, geographically, personally. The two years of steady pay, housing, and opportunity to gain a foothold on the island was an unplanned advance in my life.

I was looking for a decent job in the Portland area, where the young and the chic of Maine abide- where I would stay with my alpha-careered boyfriend. Then a job that I had applied for and envisioned carrying out on Peaks Island (fifteen minutes from Portland), was available only on Isle au Haut- a mere seven miles over water from Deer Isle, where I'd grown up. Isle au Haut is also three hours of shitty roads distant from Portland, followed by a forty minute boatride.

The job market was tight. And I am particular about the work I do. More particular than my partner could understand, which is why I moved forty minutes beyond the end of nowhere rather than work intake at the hospital where he doctored, which was a convenient five minutes walk from his apartment. I spent a year straddling the divide between the two places, then shuffled off the commitment coil. He could understand the island as a smart real estate investment, but he couldn't appreciate my immersion in the community. "For this to work you will have to make some sacrifices." He was right. Once I sacrificed the relationship on the alter of my identity as a downeaster, I felt much better. The second year, I was able to grow accustomed to this place- a year cataloged on A View of the Thoroughfare.

My view is no longer of the Isle au Haut Thoroughfare and Merchant's Row beyond that. I've grown out of my original island digs, which were tied to a two-year contract with AmeriCorps. In December, I moved to a new house, with a new partner. In the course of the move, I was even able to get my hands on what was previously the holy grail of island amenities: a post office box. It is no longer my job is that keeps me on Isle au Haut; quite the opposite- my current job is on Deer Isle. It's now my life that holds me fast here (at least as fast as one can ever cling to a place where economic survival is marginal).

Up to this point, I always saw time in chunks of a few years: two years for boarding school; four years of college; a few years in the work force; a couple of years in grad school; two full terms as an island fellow. Each enrollment or employment meant a new home, new schedule, a new host of duties. Once again, I am in state of metamorphasis. I've sloughed off the shell of the Island Fellowship. Now I just get to be an islander.