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.