It's a lot to get here to the island. Logistics, weather, cost, fear of getting stuck, fear of having to go back. The year round island community has dwindled, and friction escalated as fewer individuals take on more responsibility. The power system I rely on in order to write this has been overdue for collapse, and been coaxed, band-aided and willed to continue generating power, with success most of the time and appliance-frying brown-outs at other times.
The flow of society is away from such unique and challenging locations and in the direction of a closer Applebees and a possibly false sense of predictability.
When I'm away, I become slowly seduced by the convenience factors, the perception of safety and the handy grocery stores the mainland offers. Every year, I feel a resistance to the first trip out where I get the wood stove going with newspaper that's lost combustibility due to being in a dank unheated house for 6 months, and charge the water system, hoping for the pump to come up to pressure, and then hoping for silence rather than fissing of water escaping from where it should not, such as into wall or ceiling cavities. There are prayers for trucks and lawnmowers starting after dormancy, and devotional gratitudes for battery chargers and starting fluid.
The seasonal get your-ass-out-there anxiety syndrome peaks with the launch of Compass Rose and the first push of the ignition button. Because I am, frankly, an idiot with boats and diesel engines, I'm always terrified of the engine not starting out of spite or a mean sense of humor because it knows I'm an idiot. Then it does and part of me is certain that at some point, one of the gauges will get way out of range and something will start smoking or leaking or an alarm squealing, most likely when I'm halfway across the 18 or so miles of Atlantic Ocean between Spruce Head and Matinicus Isle.
Despite all my efforts to mentally manifest some problem into existence, here we are. We've set two boatloads of lobster gear after an easy first crossing. The apple tree where the kids swung and played is a busy community of chickadees, warblers, hummingbirds and bumblebees. Rhubarb pie from the back yard, crabmeat and lobster from our work this morning, upgraded with chive from the dooryard. My limbs are sore, but it's a good sore after months of office work where the brain is the sore part.
I'll take the sore limbs, thank you very much. .
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