Where Next, Matinicus?

Where to start. Maybe tonight, as I was sitting in Megan's truck on the wharf looking out past the harbor and ledges to the horizon. Maybe how Ellen was courteous when I first looked at a property here. As to being on the island for more than a short summer vacation, she said something like 'it all depends on what you're willing to do without.' Other phrases come to mind. "It's so isolated." "There's no store." "There's no reliable transportation." "It's too expensive."

Those things are all largely true and even more largely complete bullshit at the same time. Yes, we are two dozen miles from Rockland. Shopping opportunities are limited. Transportation is a constant wild card.

As for isolation: our suburban culture has unfortunately infiltrated Maine during my lifetime, wherein we know the Kardashians better than our neighbors. Not so on the island- for better or worse. I've met more interesting people from more far flung places and made more connections with people from all over and been more connected to my neighbors while on this tiny speck in the ocean than I ever did living right outside the state capitol, or in Portland or Boston. It is expensive here, but not really any more so than inland, just different. Transportation is a bear, I'll give ya that.

In my gut, I feel it's not the expense, the distance or the logistical headaches that have drained off the population. Instead, it is a narrowing of what people expect or want in their lifestyle. There is a coercive pressure to be in the suburban big-box (or Little Boxes) social environment. There is a fear that kids will be stunted if they don't do team sports, and have 30 peers in the same grade from the same town and take  the right lessons so they achieve some particular merit badge. If instead they work on the water or garden or learn to hang with kids of all ages and adults or learn to fix machinery or engage with nature, they are bound to be island-queer and incapable of coping with society. I do not believe this is true. At all. All of the things that may seem like deprivations or hardships end up creating more adaptable, socially aware and better rounded young people.

I am afraid for the community. The community is what makes it possible for us to be here and live. There are people who ensure the phones work, that the power works, that there is emergency medical response, that town business gets done. Often, these tasks are all done by one person, or two or three. At one point, I helped; in the school, the town office, on a couple of occasions as a gopher during work on power lines (it was wicked fun to run the bucket truck). Now, I mostly just play a few songs on the dock in the summer, but that may be a dubious contribution depending on where you live and what time you want to start sleeping. Last winter, I was not here to help when things were very tough. I wasn't here to help share the infrastructure costs for our public utilities. There is a valid concern that since the school closed and the population thinned out there won't be a critical mass to support essential services such as the air service and power company.

I'm scared, but also bewildered. There is a big disconnect. I am here on Matinicus. It is not northern Greenland. I have reliable internet, indoor plumbing and a machine that washes dishes for me. I am sitting on a very comfy two seater couch next to the wood stove. I am not feeling deprived or isolated. On the other hand, I also have an utterly magical environment where I can bike to one work site down a gravel road with a grass median, walk to the harbor when it's time to get on the boat to work, and can feel the aliveness that only comes with a lot of physical activity outdoors, while at the same time producing legal work online and over the phone.

From my viewpoint at the harbor, here by the stove on my internet, and on my bike on the grass medianed road to the land tending job, I wonder why the place isn't swarming with people.

There are really only two possible explanations. Our society has become soft, unimaginative, totally chickenshit and missing out on the beauty, struggle and spontaneity of life, or I'm a nutjob. Don't answer except among yourselves.