Exit Interview- or a Crazy Break-Up Letter to a Community

 So that thesis I wasn't going to write because it would be tiresome?  Some stories you have to tell even if they are tiresome, because they are still important to you.  So here's the choose your own adventure (in estrangement) tangent that I broke off the last post: 

In the last three weeks of rehearsal for the show I spent about one day a week on this island, which I consider home.  And we pay rent on both islands.  At the end of the day I actually do want to see my husband, my cats, my house, my garden.  I prefer to greet them here, at the foot of Black Dinah.  It's true.  I love this island, its moods and geography.

But I never see it anymore, except fleetingly.  In passing.

Loving the island socially?  That- that would be a theis, or a roman a clef.  And one that would be tiresome to write, because it has been tiresome to live.  And the island has been written by every other person in town.  And by people on every other small island.

 The stories written about islands are invariably about pulling together, cohesion despite the differences.  The stories that aren't written are about the finality of alienation, the very wide chasms of class, modes of living, and priorities that separate neighbors.  How we live and let live for the most part- yes.  But then get caught up in the juicy judgment of how everyone else is choosing to live.  This is fine when one is flying high, and things are going well for a person.  But when things break down and get messy, and grey, and difficult...  That is where the islands fail.  We are wonderful in a good old fashioned black and white crisis.  Give us a fire.  Give us scurrilous villains.  Then paint a picture.

And sell it. 

We sell it to ourselves, we sell it to the mainland public.  What we keep to ourselves, and learn over time is that like most humans, we don't handle the messy slow burn domestic disasters at all well.  Divorce, abuse, alcoholism, drug addiction, the betrayals of friendship- all the don't ask don't tell aspects of life.  The mess doesn't even have to be abhorrent, it just has to be uncomfortable.  Let your rough, graceless face show, and you end up a pariah, then evolve into an isolationist (though admittedly, most isolationists occur in couples, sharing an exile).  The uncharitable reactions of your neighbors turns you away from the social landscape, and then the beauty of the island itself sustains you for as long as you can focus on it- and as long as you have that one person who still loves you in the rough.  The one person who lends you grace when you don't have any of your own.     

Some people are semi-charmed, and do have a fulfilling social life here.  There are bumps and bruises, of course, but the sense of community endures.  Money helps.  A second house, off island helps- you can keep the rough bits of yourself to yourself, you can foster other relationships, the esteem of your island neighbors becomes less important.  A natural tongue and mind for dealing in gossip also helps, since such attributes are excellent for structuring and selling a narrative, and generally guarantees that you and yours will come out more or less on top.  That's the root system here for the pillars of the community.  Perfection also helps, if you can swing it.

So here's the circumstances of the people who drop out, at least as best as I can guess by examining my own.  Dave and I were dropped from comfortable society, and we didn't fight for control of the narrative.  Didn't wrest our way back in.  He's impatient, and I am an introvert who doesn't generally speak up about herself- because to fight for a story, I need to believe it is true, that it is right.  But who am I to claim that my perspective about my own actions can ever be true or right?  I may believe in my beliefs, but I am not going to ask others to.  I would be better suited to this life if I were evangelical about my own awesomeness.  And about Dave's.  But I think talk is cheap, so I rely on actions to speak.  Course when you behave as less than a paragon, that will mess you up here too.

Finally, at the end of the day, you don't want to socialize with the people who are carving you up over the dinner table, who have thrown their hands up because you aren't consulting them about your decisions.  And it is very difficult to open up to people who have gone frosty from disapproval or plain old squidgy social discomfort.  Much less are you apt to open up to people who just fish for the dishiest details that they can elaborate on later- big fake howdy-style smile, and an immediate opening question intended to wrest the most information they can, because information is power and they love to spin (it also passes the time in an entertaining fashion).

Now plenty of people still manage to bear up.  They circle the wagons with family.  They hold fast to the one or two or three people they still trust.  They cast their eyes to what they do control.

They hole up in their own little kingdoms- their bit of land.  Their stake on the island.

It just happens that Dave lost his stake.  And our bit of earth is controlled by the community that semi-rejects us.  We are welcome to sit on committees, or to large scale parties, but not to the quiet companionable dinners that mark an abiding friendship.

Dave is the only close friend I made here (I tend to make very few, but very true friends).  The people who had been his best friends, and buoyed him through his wife's infidelities, dropped him when part way through the divorce proceedings, he scandalously shacked up with a young blonde.  The one friend who accepted and cheered on the relationship (one night, comfortably eating at the kitchen island) then later lied to him about business.  She is first and foremost an excellent businesswoman, but it sometimes mixes very poorly with friendship.  Dave was expendable, a business liability.  In her view, business is business, not personal.  In Dave's view the personal trumps business as a matter of morals.  And so that friendship quickly, and publicly dissolved.

I never really had a place here, but then it takes me a long time to make and gather a group of friends.  I am reserved, and it often makes me a stranger in this world.  I've never been and likely never will be popular.  I'm generally cool with that- I don't have the right kind of energy reserves to keep up with a hundred really amazing and lovely acquaintances.  But in general, Dave is easy, gregarious, lovable and loving to a multitude of people.  He has, in the past, actually enjoyed popularity.  He is just generous.  And while he is not always nice, he is thoroughly good.  Which is why people always ask him for help, even as they closed their homes to him.  I expect they saw me as his crazy irresponsible midlife crisis, and expected better of him, especially since he's a father.  By the time our relationship had (maybe) gained legitimacy in their eyes, the wedge was already driven deep.        

If we did have our own house and land (or could realistically afford to buy and develop a piece) we would probably just evolve into a generally contented isolationist couple.  Time would pass, and things might get more comfortable socially, if we wanted to work our way back in.

But it would require ownership.  And a strong desire to rejoin the community.  Two things we don't have.  If we felt a part of the community, and this was just about housing, we might hold on.  If Dave had good relationships here, the nights when I worked away would not look so dark for him.  My time here would burn brighter.  But now, when the invitations trickle in more often- it is too late.  We don't really want to rejoin, because we don't like what we saw in the crowd.  This is the thing about exiling people.  Sometimes, isolation becomes the more appealing option.  See you later St. Petersberg, this corner of Siberia is charming.

Except in this case, it's more like we were exiled from Siberia.

At any rate.  Still love many a thing about the island.  Will grieve over leaving.  Coming back is not inconceivable.  I never, NEVER thought I would return to Deer Isle.  I am still going to dream of living the dream life out here.  When you feel a part of something larger than one household.  When you have employment on the island, and don't commute.  But for now the reality is that on Deer Isle, we're a part of something larger than our own household.  That's where we won't have to commute.

That's where we can have a house, and land, to actually own a stake on the island.  And that particular place has room to do all of the domestic things we dream about- serious gardening, forays into keeping fowl and small livestock.  A house we are actually allowed to dream about, and love into good shape- no vote from the town needed!  A laying down of the arms of this island (because someone is always up in arms about something).  It's probably the gentler isolationists I will miss the most.

So.  That's the crazy rambling break up letter, which in true me-fashion, I wrote, and share with the friends and family who read this (and the strangers, who are comfortably not involved).  But won't send to the ex, because what's productive in that?  Just because a story bubbles to the surface, doesn't mean it needs to be spread.

For my individual part, the islander I meant to be was lost when for financial reasons, I had to work the week off-island, and for civic reasons felt I still had to work for the island when I was here.  I wanted to be useful- and fun, a light, not a drain on the system.  I spread myself too thin.  All work and no play makes Morgan a snippy, closed off girl.  Hard to win friends when all you ever do is work.  The civic work I could have been capable of, I never had the energy to do well, or completely, so I continually felt I was failing the community.  Should have said no to more board meetings, and yes to more bookclub (beautiful and open to all comers).

The things we'd have done in hindsight.


 

Ghost Flowers

It is a wonderful and wild November day here, the wind shrieking through the trees, vapor softening the view to Black Dinah,  the rock outcropping that looms just to the East of the house.  I've been working from the unbridged island- recouping from that first fall musical directing a horde of kids, and from the strains of the holiday in a not yet very well mixed family.  Dave's been off in New Hampshire, and I have vegetated in the house going back and forth between work for my job and all-engrossing wall covering research- paint is so modern and easy... but wallpaper is so expressive.  And hilarious. 

This morning I woke, made coffee and went up to the office to thumb through what back issues I have of MS Living, in search of this one article about this one garden that I know I saw... somewhere.  Despite my liberal use of the snooze button, it was still full dark when I got out of bed.  The outside world consisted only of wind.  The sky has since lightened (I have not yet spent enough time looking at paint palettes to be able to tell you the precise shade of violet grey now in existence with an appropriate Benjamin Moore product number and name) and I can watch the trees limbering up.

Pun intended.

I haven't found that article.  Just the bottom of my second cup of coffee, and a sore spot in my soul.  When we first moved in, rental be damned, I went to the Home Despot and selected paint chips to my heart's content.  Then reality sank in: divorce + poorly paid swordfishing + messily broken arm + my goody-two shoes service career = hand to mouth living.  We never have painted.  We have gained ground economically, and then gained ground literally- we invested in fencing, soil, and plants.  Finally, this fall I completely rearranged the house to the point that it is comfortable, functional, and increasingly charming.  The house, after all, was more or less the only feasible option for us to stay on this island, if we could buy it.  And yes, I have reams of graph paper dedicated to the renovation of the house.  I am a builder's daughter, and let's face it- this house was built for $40,000 to be a rudimentary starter rental.  If you are a lover and dreamer by nature, you will love what is at hand, and strive to bring out the best in it, even if that means a little replumbing and a few bumpouts.

So I have spent two years loving and dreaming about this house.  Of looking at the loveliest bits.  The wind through the tangle of spruce, the play of light on Black Dinah, that one particularly sculptural pine that reads like a Joshua tree from afar.  The larch, boulders, and blueberries in the back yard.  And I have softened the clumsy septic site in the back yard that never did get topsoil above the sand.  We created the garden off to the side, where the old septic was.  Our compost pile has in fact- turned to compost.  This year, flush with a real job and Dave's return to lobstering, I splurged and bought spring bulbs.

When I was young I could never quite understand how a person could have the foresight or patience to plant flowers for the spring the previous fall.  It's crazy.  There is a whole very looooooooong winter before you are going to get anything for your efforts.  Planting is a springtime thing.  Period.  Like in kindergarten when you plant beans and radishes to see something germinate.  Immediately.  With bulbs it is ridiculous.  You put them in the dark ground, and then there's nothing to see.  For months. 

Now that I am at the age my mother was when she was planting those spring bulbs, I do get it.  Time goes a lot faster now.  By fall I need the assurance that something lovely will await me in the spring.  From the time I plant the bulbs to the time the snow starts to recede, I will hold a picture of potential in my mind- of daffodils, hyacinths, and lily of the valley skirting the house.  And it is also a gamble.  Will they get enough sun?  Will they actually survive the deer?

So why the sore soul?

(and here's an odd lashing of rain on the window, as if on cue)

We are moving.

The reality of our lives moves one way, and this beautiful, infuriating island moves another.  I have spent the last few months splitting my time between islands.  In the last three weeks of rehearsal for the show I spent about one day a week on this island, which I consider home.  And we pay rent on both islands.  At the end of the day I actually do want to see my husband, my cats, my house, my garden.  I prefer to greet them here, at the foot of Black Dinah.  It's true.  I love this island, its moods and geography.

But I never see it anymore, except fleetingly.  In passing.  And this is a beauty that you should live with fully, because if you don't the rewards will not outweight the costs.  (For the tangent this spawned, see "Exit Interview.")

So we will move on.  And there will be pleasures and irritations in the next phase of our life.  And I am going to miss this house and I will carry with me a picture of the potential life here held, because I could see ways in which life was finally getting better.