New House, New Blog

My spot in cyberspace is directly related to my homebase on the terrestrial plane. 

New Blog.

The Boards, The Boat, and the Barn. 

Here's a New One

“When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is solitude.”

Okay, I lied.  There's nothing new under the sun, or on this blog.  So it's an old one- a bit from Wordsworth that a kindly NYT reader included in their response to this essay.  And it brings up my favorite life theme: Hey hurrying world, step off so I can putter around at home, in my slippers and/or muck boots, working on curious little projects as though I was an adult being home-schooled. 

Point being, I am drooping.  I have been parted from my better self. 

But since the hurrying world is not going to get less hurried, and I need to regain backbone, vim, and vigor, I guess I will need to find a way to spiff up my soul.  And so I will resolve to embrace the alarm set for Crazy O'Clock in the Morning, when I can soldier through a more regimented to-do list in gracious solitude. 

Finally, a question for future self: are you feeling better?  Less droopy?  I hope so.  I thought maybe if we made the move, you would be better able to pull our shit together.  Also, remember when (and if) you are scraping and painting 246, that back in January you were daydreaming about doing just that as a vacation activity.  That you looked on it as a blessed leisure activity.

So quit whining.

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. 

Home Again, Home Again?

Where is home again?

I write tonight from my rental house on the little island by the bridge.  The one where I grew up.  The name of the island even has Little in it, and yet despite its small size, it has distinct neighborhoods.  And my rental is not in the neighborhood I grew up in.  It is at least three miles and 15 years away -  it feels as distant, as alien as the moon. 

After rehearsal I hit the road for a walk for two very good reasons: it was beautiful out, and I was terrified.  I went to a familiar place, a public, quarried, graffitied, lookout, makeout place.  A safe place.  A palimpsest place.  I walked in the mossy lane, longer than I remember; I climbed up the rocky slope, shorter than I remember.  But at the top, the encircling view was- for all intents and purposes- the same.  The play of light familiar on the green of the bridge, the blue of the water, the reflective gray of the mudflats- the mudflats that had earlier caressed my nose as I crossed the causeway whispering "you would know us anywhere til your dying day and beyond and we are your childhood, and we will always be right here fragrant and exposed of a low tide, longer than you will live"- the spruce, the roofs, the sunset- all where I had left them.  Long ago and far away.

On younger trips up the hill, there was something I never noticed, never named, never saw from this vantage point til tonight.  To the south, beyond the big island, stretching its shoulders on the horizon- was a tall island.  Flattened by distance, it was still a profile I would know anywhere.  Home.  Across miles of crisp autumn air, and in the fast fading light, it was there for me to look at.   On that island, there's a red and white Ford pickup parked at the town landing by the tomalley shop.  There is a gray cat in a saltbox house at the base of another rock outcropping, a cat who is trying to figure out how to break into the new automatic feeder.  There's a black and white cat who will sleep and eat in the cab of a model T truck.  There's a journal and a box of chocolates on a table, that I forgot to take.  Tomatoes on vines in the garden- tomatoes I should have picked.

Two thousand miles- to the North, to the West, Dave is in a place I cannot even picture.  There's moss, I know.  And moose, he hopes.  I have neighbors here.  But I don't know them.  In that journal, on the table, Dave wrote "think of me, and I will be there."  (I paraphrase, since I can't refer to it, damn me and my rush to get out the door because of my reluctance to get out of bed)  So I called him to mind, and I walked with him a while.  Someday he will walk with me here, and I won't feel lonely.  He'll probably cook, and I will go to bed on something more nourishing than a Slim Fast shake and a frozen enchilada.  He'll talk to me, as comforting as the smell of mudflats, and the terror of a new job and life will diminish.  I will look into his face, and feel at home, because in his eyes I am not only known but welcome.

So yes, I came back- as many people don't.  To the same island, the same school- but for all that I might know some names, some faces, it is not comfortable, not home.  Not yet.  Sometimes home is provided (generally in a smile), sometimes home is something you just have to work at.  Again and again.

I'll crawl into bed tonight with a book, my faith (work+time=it'll be okay), and the image of this Friday when I will go home to the patient red truck,  my cats, the tomatoes, the journal and the chocolates.  Glad to see the neighbors I know.  And I will dream of next Friday, when Dave will walk toward the baggage claim in Portland- coming home to me.


      

Sleeping In

When I woke today, it was already light- all quiet but for the rain.  No alarm, no cats.  No Dave making coffee in the kitchen, singing nonsense songs about having become an indentured servant to a woman and two felines, or about how his sternman (me) needs to get out of bed.  Instead, he is still asleep, somewhere on the outskirts of Calgary, dreaming of his imminent moose hunt.

When I woke today, I didn't even need to get out of bed.  It's one of those weekends.  I could sleep through it, read through it, see no one, run away, watch the entire series of South Park, surf the internet until my eyes fell onto my keyboard- in the words of Terry Pratchett, the world is my mollusk...or, judging from the introverted options I listed, I am a mollusk.  No deeds to do, no promises to keep.  Not the sort of weekend you get very often once you qualify as an adult.  

So then there's the question: What to do with it?

I did roll out of bed, originally intending to crawl back into it.  I fed the cats, bade farewell to the contents of my bladder, and then turned to head back to bed.  And I probably would have made it back, except I compulsively looked at a clock.  6:25 am. 

The borderline. 

I could get up, have a nice pokey morning with coffee, and puttering.  Or I could sleep in.  In my nice bed, on a rainy morning.  But if I sleep in, will I ever get up?  My actual stated goals for these Daveless weekends were along the lines of "Oh, I am going to thoroughly clean the house" and "well maybe I will treat them like writing workshops..."  All very proper and productive. 

But there is a certain allure to sleeping in, even with the knowledge that going back to bed and sleeping until, say, 8am- would probably set a pattern whereby I would spend the weekend in some horizontal position, doing nothing more strenuous than producing oil with my scalp.  I know- I make that sound terrifically enticing, don't I? 

Clearly, since you are reading this, and since my foreshadowing kept no secrets, I did get up.  I have made it all the way down to the couch, with a rest stop at the Keurig.  Unfortunately, I have found my way under another comforter, and the cats are ostentatiously advertising the joys of napping. One has moved to my side, to transmit the sleeping sickness through touch and the lulling vibration of his purrs.  Why have I taken these demons into my home? 

Will I ever keep my eyes open long enough to burn the trash, take out the compost, vacuum and wash the floors, and totally reorganize the office?  So.  Much.  At.  Stake. 

So.  Sleepy.

Post-It from My Lighting Booth

Well, I have been in my job for about 6 weeks now, and have yet to have either technical training or the financial training necessary to pull off the full scope of my job- but I am undaunted in the dim!  Or perhaps mildly daunted and in the dark, but I persevere. Tonight is a bit of a trial by fire- a reminder that not everyone in the community is rosy kind and helpful, not everyone on the island has the kind of joie de vivre, live and let live, things will work out- imperfections and all- attitude.

In this job I am not to ever burn any bridges that might lead to support and programming, so I am afraid I will have to bite my tongue until the red behind my lids abates.

Yes, You Can Go Home

You can't assume it will be the same as when you left, but most of the pieces will be there.

I left school last night to go up to Ellsworth to hang out with my grandmother, mom, uncle, and aunt in the hospital. Another fall and another crack to the head has sent Grammie to the ICU- not because her condition is immediately dire, but because she needed to be where she would have the most attentive attention. When I got there, she was all bandaged up and looked like Yoda in a bathing cap. One of the nurses had finished off the dressing with a pink gauze printed with purple hearts. The result was actually quite fetching and cheerful, and Grammie generally rocked the adorable old lady look. She was also mellow and pretty chipper, all told. Because her short term memory is so poor, she didn't realize she'd fallen, and wasn't really fretting much. The Zen of Dementia. She had her family kicking around, some hands to hold, and a good dinner. On a sixty second loop, or really any loop, that's not so bad.

Hopefully that superannuated Buddhism will serve her well as the family moves her to a new nursing facility, where, we hope, she will have a higher level of care. Her former home is, as are most old-age homes in this country, a for-profit establishment, which wrests earnings from Medicare by underpaying staff, and under staffing the facility. Not the best recipe for quality care. So we will try another home, run by another company. Mom would prefer to keep her at our real home- the one run by our family, but the family can't afford to have a household member not working. As far as aphorisms go, "money makes the world go around" does, all too often, hold up to scrutiny.

But I am home- have been for a while. And the evenings, generally few and far between, spent under the florescent lights at the Ellsworth hospital, are a big part of the reason why. I remember the fall of my first year on IAH, when Charlie had had another heart-related complication. I took the evening boat off, and as the light faded during the crossing, I was glad that while it did require a boat ride, it was a relatively easy matter to get where I needed to be. And last night, packing up Grammie's room at the old old home, it had just been a matter of a familiar drive through the familiar fog. The world has gone green, and springy, and soft the way that it does, and the conversation in the car spun around the axis of education, the way that it does. Mom also pointed out to Uncle Vern what I had also been thinking: "at least we're not packing up her room because she's dead." Then we all thought, but no one said: "this is a dress rehearsal." For her passing, and then for our own.

But many hands make for lighter work. And every season comes back around.

Reckoning I am Very Lucky

Seems I didn't have much to say for myself in April. Turned 31, which was kind of pleasant, since I like prime numbers, and by the mathematical definition of "happy" 31 is a happy number.

In the wins/losses categories: the island successfully got a new fellow placement to help with ICDC and town business; we did not get the Community Block Development Grant for affordable housing; I did get that theater job, the one so serendipitously dropped in front of me. I even have secured rental housing on Little Deer Isle (my very home island) of all places, for the overnights that the new job will require. And I am very humbly gratified that the new job will pay a comfortable middle class salary, with benefits. As someone who entered the workforce with a B.A. in Theater, making a dependable living wage with benefits was my pie in the sky. Nothing fancy, just the economic clout to be stable, in a job that meant doing some good in the world. Through some wild quirk of the universe, this job- one requiring a Theater background- came into being in my own backyard and ended up being structured and supported in such a way that- even in this time of financial crisis- it wasn't cut.

So let's actually chalk that one up to stupendous good luck.

Now I will just have to make sure I do good work, and am worth those pennies, many of which come from private donations.

The job will start on July 1st, shortly after this school year ends (June 20th). I have to admit, while terrified of the learning curve of the new job, I am looking forward to a measure of clarity it might bring- allowing me to be more one thing (an arts educator) than so many things (tutor, volunteer theater director, non-profit part time executive director, selectman, chairperson, blah, blah, blah....). Granted: I will still be a selectman. I will probably still serve on the ICDC board. But there is a certain amount of divesting that could be done, and that I welcome. I harbor secret dreams of getting my weekends back. And not in a naughty "I am seriously shirking my real work by deciding to work with Dave on the boat" sort of way, but in a "this is my leisure time and I can do whatever the hell I want with it, guilt-free" sort of way.

The stuff I love doing? Problem solving and working like a mad theater geek? That will be my day job. Organizing a rehearsal schedule, planning the blocking, developing lessons, etc... they will no longer be tasks that need doing on the weekend, or on week nights after work and before a meeting. That's the stuff that will actually make up my work day. I will get to do what I love because I am supposed to, because I have been given the keys to a theater and I am contractually obliged to make it come alive.

Mwaa haa haaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! Being brainwashed by the Protestant Work Ethic (or- just as likely- having no economic alternative to hard work) is not so bad, if you love your work. I can't believe I will get to do what I love in order to make a living. And because it is administrative, I actually get a large degree of independence. If I want to do Godspell as the next community theater production, and it seems like it will work, I get to make that call. Holy Smokesies. I get to say "hey guys, let's put on a show!" And then I have ability to make it happen.

So yeah. Consider this blog post as the official "Morgan goes into shock about the prospects of her new job" post.

At any rate, the whole package is a really nice thing to have on the horizon- a very solid idea of how the bills are going to be paid, the knowledge that if I get sick I can get whatever it is taken care of, and that there's a good 48hrs or so a week that I might reasonably use to decompress and just hang out with Dave. At this point I would have been happy with those three. Throwing in work I could see wanting to do for a long time...

31. Very happy. Very Primed.

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.

Remember me? I'm you, too.

When I was sixteen I left my home town on an island. Packed up, headed to a new school in the Northern middle of Maine's nowhere. To study Science and Math so that I could also study music, dance, and theater. Surrounded by potato fields, I damn near pined for the water.

Then I went to the landlocked heart of the country, in Iowa, again for theater. My Freshman advisor looked at the name of my high school and told me I needed to major in Biology, not Theater, so that I could actually get a job when I graduated. She was a philosophy professor, and that was her philosophic take on my future. Theater could be my spare time gig, my gal on the side. When I went to my advisor from birth, mom rolled her eyes and said to declare for theater, since it was what I wanted all along.

I am not blessed with a surfeit of sense. So I did. For four years I lived in a box believing that most things are possible (though perhaps not staging Artaud's Jet de Sang), rubbing shoulders with all sorts, and living for and through the work. I only mustered a semi-respectable GPA, but then the classroom never held a candle to the theater, unless the theater was the classroom. I very seldom got the roles I longed for, but I developed a rich friendship and appreciation for the girl who did (I always enjoyed her performances, but friendship came out of late nights hand washing and ironing silks when we ran costume crew together- thank you For Colored Girls). And yes, when on the last leg of that four year journey I finally got the role- success was counted sweetest for never having been Juliet. Especially because I shared the stage with her, and the other Top Girls in the program. I never did play opposite my other, dearest friend- except for scenework: Arkadina and Trigorin. It was not the right scene for us. I just cherish the one audition together for Desire Under the Elms (the only authentic Yankee auditioning, I didn't make the cut).

Later, when we all dispersed to our ends of the earth, I came back to Maine. To get back to being an authentic Yankee. Which meant I decided to turn my back on Theater, more or less. I wanted to be dependable-ish. To be fully human in the real world, not just in the black box. I wanted to finally be home. I would fit in community theater as I could: but working in theater, using the degree I was now sorely out of pocket for...? I gave up that ghost. Cause there are a lot of things in life I love. Being there to pick blueberries when they are ripe. Soldiering through the seasons; loving the light on the water, on the rocks; spending part of most every day on a boat; being within a few hours' range of my family's kitchen table. And now, Dave.

I think the skill that served me well and got me through school, was that I could make myself enjoy or take interest in most anything (except retail sales). It's a survival skill useful for only children. So I could let a big love go (it could be ravenous- four years taught me that), knowing that I would be able to pick up and put together other smaller loves. Was it islander pragmatism? Too much Chekhov in the Grinnell curriculum? What was slaving in a city for the love of theater and spending almost every minute wishing to be elsewhere compared to living and working in Maine and occasionally longing for theater?

For a decade I pretty happily repressed the whole theater thing. I figured it was completely over when I moved to the unbridged island. But then I had to get a job, and the one that showed up was in my hometown. And since I had to spend more time on the mainland, it wouldn't hurt to audition for Maria in the Sound of Music- since now the town did have theater. So I got to stand on the stage and sing those songs- catchy and wholesome, and learned by heart long ago: before I had any training; before I had built any pretense at a resume; when I was just a kid singing on a septic field because it felt so damned good to be bursting with song that it required the highest elevation on our property.

And that landed me here. Now. Two weeks out from- forgive the phrase!- my directorial debut. I will not be singing this time around- not on stage. I will have brought people to a place where they get to sing their hearts out. It's a new place for me, and it may even lead to the unimaginable- that I make a living with that theater degree. Here. In Maine.

Tonight I have survived another rehearsal- directing takes more preparation and improvisation than acting ever did.

The performance of this role lasts nine weeks, and then ends on opening night. My family and friends won't have seen even a snippet of it, just the echoes. The tunes are in my head, the acting beats in my heart, and the rhythm is in my body- but. My job is to speak, not sing; to stage, not swing. I have always loved the process- bringing the words and notes from the page and breathing life into them. So I enjoy directing. I get to be constantly helpful to a lot of people- problem solving for actors, cutting extraneous numbers, set pieces, and props to make life easier on the cast and crew, etc. I hope I solved exponentially more problems than I created, at least!

But I confess, and only to this page, that I feel slightly as I did when I didn't get the part. Turns out that while I love the process, I also love being a part of the product. One of the bodies on stage physically striving to make the thing come off. The heart bursting with song, the head wrestling with life, the soul seeking satisfaction. Part of the humanity burning under the heat of the lights.

Next year (if there is one) I will have the brains to at least cast myself in the chorus.

Over the past couple of days, I have been talking with my students about what it means to be a geek. That, original definition of a carny who would eat bizarre things aside, it simply means one who is passionate about a certain discipline- unabashedly. To the bone. On a daily basis in the course of my job I flirt with various forms of geekdom. I thrill to the Pythagorean Theorum, I deliver the goods on photosynthesis, and obviously- discuss definition drift. It's fun, more or less. But the thing that makes me scared, the thing that gives me insomnia, the thing that is so perfect so natural so mine is still that sublime black box.

So imagine all the demons that could come pouring out with this job opening. And at the bottom, the scariest.

Hope.

Just This.

For seven weeks I have been racing toward this day. This early morning moment when I can feel like my own woman again. As a kid, by nature I was not the one who would pitch in to clean, make myself useful, or generally take on any work that hadn't been assigned by a teacher (excluding the ones in my family). I was the one who conveniently went missing into a small space with a book. Or whined so much about doing anything, that it made people less likely to make me do it again.

I am not sure when that changed me from that comfortable shirking narcissistic creature. I suspect it might have been what was in those damned books I ran away to read. Or that family full of educators who were constantly taking on the responsibility of partially raising other people's kids, among other things.

And then there was moving to the island. Where the reward for work well done is more work.

So whatever happened, I am now one of those people who has the "Stop me, before I volunteer again!" cards hanging on the fridge. Dave shakes his head at me and my naivete. And keeps waiting for me to learn to say no and to step back when the others step back, so that I won't be the de facto volunteer.

But it is still comparatively early days yet, so I haven't. Which is why I am on so many boards and will likely be on more. Which is also why last weekend saw me semi wild-eyed and hysterical in front of my computer screen wondering where the hell my autonomy had gone, and how I ended up answering to so many people on so many different accounts. On every day of the week.

Now. I know that in many ages and in many areas, the weekend is just a quaint concept for soft people. That said, many people aspire to be soft people who have the weekend "off." Because then you can fill the weekend with the work you want to do. Or even... leisure. The key to leisure is being able to secure time to perpetrate it. A clear window in the work schedule, so you can snowshoe, lounge, craft, read, theater-go, see friends, etc... without a dark tower of clouds above your head threatening to rain consequences and thunder repercussions if you don't get through the to-do list.

Today is my day. More or less. The important deadlines have been met. I got through the week without failing the members of my cast- they did not leave the theater in worry or disgust for the process, but generally with a smile from a good time had and a certain amount of confidence that they won't be hung out to dry in front of their family and friends on opening night. Thanks to my friends and family, three sheets of paper will be motoring their way to fair Augusta, where they'll find a home (and preliminary judgment) at the Office of Community Development (yes, gentle reader, that's OCD for short). Now I just have a few more wisps of website content to weave before Monday.

So this weekend, I'll to my family, my friends, a show not my own, to the ice. And a whole week will follow with no commute. Not so much work at risk, so less room to flail and fail. A clear window on the calendar. What I have wanted for age is- just this.

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.