Monday, March 28, 2011

The Ragged End of Winter

According to all the local markers, spring has now officially begun. Cabin Fever Theater on Deer Isle has finished the run of its yearly show, Isle au Haut's town meeting was today. The equinox came and went; we begrudgingly set our clocks ahead.

This spring has revealed little in the way of delight thus far- though lord knows I am open to the possibility, and keep telling myself it is around the corner- after this deadline, or that deadline. Choosing to be highly involved on this island, even though I spend most of my waking hours working on another island, has left me generally strung out and testy. Weekends evaporated some time last year, and I answer to a host of masters. Mine was the surliest face at town meeting today, no doubt, as I picked up another dubious town honorific (by dint of being a responsible young person). Well- perhaps Dave's was surlier, but it was hard to tell, because he is sick, and had his head bowed for the duration.

And as I do the work, and get more tired, more stressed out, and my outlook bleaker and bleaker- I end up wondering "is this how it is going to be?" That life on this island will entail commuting so that I can actually make a living (but not a full time living, as that doesn't jive with the mailboat schedule), and then coming home to the many hats being an "islander" requires one to wear. Though the funny thing is, many islanders opt out of wearing any official civic hats at all. It's not suited to their temperament, or they did their bit a decade ago.

Well, maybe despite my shiny education, my youth, and rapidly diminishing naivety, civic engagement on this island is not my style. How long do you have to be involved before you can retire to the more pastoral island life? Is it just a quota of years, or is it counted in years per committee? I work with other people who give a great deal of time to the town. 60-something men, the lot of them. They are pleased to have another in their number, and they are pleased to have someone to pass the bag to as they (understandably) also want to move on from the intense duties that come with trying to keep this place going. It's just tiresome that all the bags are being passed to me. Because we suffer from a dire lack of shiny young educated naifs. Basically we have one left, and she's crumbling. I have it on good authority. There's only so much multi-tasking I can do, only so many times I can cheerfully field questions and requests and play nice until I am thoroughly drained. I am not, by nature, an extrovert.

A comrade, a comrade, my kingdom for a comrade! Right now we are blessed with the quietly incomparable Margaret, but alas, most Island Institute Fellows are loaners, and two years is the limit. She will be moving on after summer.

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