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.