The Days Are Just Packed

All apologies to Bill Watterson for stealing his title. Summer is upon us, and what more proof need I put forth than the shiny new boat and store schedules which provide us with services seven days a week? And in only nine of those full-service weeks, I will be done with the Fellowship (ready or not).

School got out on Friday, and the last week was an event-intense one for the community: Wednesday we had a graduation ceremony for our lone 8th grader; Thursday was the school's spring concert; Friday was the end-of-school picnic (and report cards), and there was a contra dance in the evening; Saturday was a big double-elimination volleyball tournament, where six teams competed for the Stanley Buoy.

I am still aiming to stay on the island. Tomorrow I have a job interview at Deer Isle-Stonington High School for a part-time position. It was to be full-time, but some of the duties ended up being parceled out to a recently hired English teacher to make his/her job full-time. The down side is obviously a decrease in salary and the unlikelihood of benefits. The up side is potentially increased flexibility in hours (making my commuting easier to pitch), and perhaps the time to work on writing my thesis and taking classes to finally get certified to teach. Maybe even just write for the love of writing..?

As to housing, the Institute is fine with me staying on in my current housing situation and living with the new fellow. The owner of the house basically sees me as an important fixture here, like the kitchen counter, or hot water heater. As he sees it, he gives me a house to live in, and I make it a home for him. Which is pretty much how it works. He's been on-island now since Thursday night, and we operate under the system that he buys the groceries and I make the meals. Being an independent type who tends to forget to feed herself, this whole "must have dinner made" thing is mildly stressful, but it also gives me a compelling reason to drop my worries and spend quality time in the kitchen. In good news, he more or less remembered that he is not allowed to be in the kitchen while I am cooking, or else I get cranky. I may have to remind him once in a while at knife point, but for all intents and purposes, he is containing his extroversion. Tonight I am choosing to ignore the implications of his comments about the Swedes and how great it is they don't consider age difference when it comes to attraction, and how he thinks getting me drunk on Kentucky moonshine would be a great project.

In light of all that I need to do to wrap up the Fellowship, the added challenges the Institute throws at us that was never in the original job description, and the added responsibilities that I have taken on far outside the scope of the Fellowship... I might already be looking forward to the fall. I will, however, say that I had the opportunity to take two wondrous walks Friday night- one at about ten, when the world was alight with stars and fireflies, and one at two in the morning, when a fog bank was just settling in to rouse the ghosts and obscure the moon. I will get things done, and I will deal with the parade of builders, daughters, dogs, and the home owner as they buzz in and out of this house in the style of French farce (it has 5 exterior doors, after all). I will also find a way to steal some summer for myself.

My first swim of the season (May 31st) will not have been my last.

You Thought I was a Hermit?

I am an introvert. It doesn't mean I am entirely shy or retiring, or that I somehow lack social confidence. It means that in order to function, to replenish the stores of my soul, I need solitude to process the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I need to write long-winded blog posts and journal entries. I need to run away into the woods, to be where other people are not.

I have chosen to live in a place, and in a manner that is inherently highly social. From banter in the store and at the landing, to a culture of game nights, community volleyball, and pot lucks- my days are packed with human interaction. I've come to an island where anonymity is not an option, and while secrets may fester for years, they will surface. And the effects will spread. Because- to some extent- we all work together, play together, fight and grieve together, there is no escaping the joy or the pain that comes down the pike.

In the course of a week I will literally babysit my students, and stage their spring concert; swap baked goods and jokes, pour coffee, explain the new library system; I will cuddle kittens and pitch kitten-ownership to any likely taker; I will take a woman abused (who has had enough) to see a lawyer, and then play volleyball wildly well with her abuser- who I'd loved like a brother; I will hold the hand of their young son when he slips his in mine, and I will also give him five minutes in at recess when he is being a little shit; I'll welcome back the snowbirds, listen to the talk of a lobstering conservation zone; I'll gratefully confide in and seek counsel from a minister; I'll open up my house to builders, and then ready it for the owner's visit, and show it to a new potential occupant- I will eat, drink, laugh, weep, speak in coded language that would put Chekovian subtext to shame. I will keep secrets, but work with determination for their release...

These are the bizarre and varied things I am actually good at. And before my fragile little human mind cracks from the speed of the spinning, I stop the world. I lay in the sun with a book, I dive in the thoroughfare, I run away to the island's interior. Island time, and autonomy, I think, is the upshot of this intense interaction.

This blog is a constant exercise in the elucidation of what this life means to me, or what it is that I am deriving from the island that keeps me here- and I think the best answer is simply that it demands I just be unapologetically human. I may need to have time to myself, but there is no hiding from the infinite complexity of my friends and neighbors. I am learning (to borrow from that much more regionally famous island author, Elisabeth Ogilvie), how vast are the demands (infinite), and how wide the heart (infinity-plus-one).