Someone I know on Lopez Island, the place I am now calling home, uttered the words in the title of this blog post to me a few years ago. "An island is a powerful entity," she said. We were both standing staring out over a wide open hay field backed by hundreds of acres of farmland, grass, and the Olympic mountains in the distance. I couldn't help but feel swept away by the beauty surrounding me. The aesthetic was open and expansive, yet clearly bounded. And though I'd just begun spending time on the island, I felt like I knew exactly what my friend meant by those words. They made me smile and shudder in equal measure. As did the tales she proceeded to tell of all that people had gone through who had decided to move here (or ended up here inadvertently).
These stories weren't exactly glamorous: People losing everything and everyone in their life before or after moving here. Struggles alone through dark winters before coming out the other side of a long period of darkness. Complete financial devastation and loss. Death of family members necessitating a safe space for healing and renewal. These stories aren't the shiny, romantic glimmer those visiting allude to with dreamy eyes when talking about how wonderful it seems to live here. At first glance, they don't seem to map onto the palpable allure of a simpler life, an ability to be instead of endlessly do, and a deeply creative community that many immediately notice when comparing the island to the mainland. But thinking of the island as a powerful entity makes me wonder about its influence on the lives of those who are here, including me. And it also makes me wonder about the connection between those shiny desires that speak to so many, and the challenges that often unravel the lives of those who decide to inhabit this place.
I'm still coming to terms with what living in this new place means for me and my life as my dear partner and I go separate ways, promising to remain friends and be continued supports in one another's life, and as I move into a beautiful, light-filled timberframe rental on the island and out of the home I've known and loved in Bellingham for years. Leaving behind all the gardens I established and cared for has been one of the harder parts of the process. As has removing each item I'm carrying with me to the island from a home I shared with someone I still love dearly. I feel like I'm experiencing first hand what my friend was trying to explain to me about the power of islands several years ago: They're the type of being that will inevitably be a force for reconfiguring one's life! They almost necessitate it. And while I didn't necessarily intend to reimagine or overhaul my life when the island captured my imagination a few years ago, that is exactly what has been happening one step at a time ever since then.
This past week, as I moved my beastly latex mattress (that can only be moved by taco-ing it with straps then dragging it into place because it's way too heavy to lift or carry) from Bellingham to Lopez, something began to feel solid, real, and final in a way my previous experiments with Lopez hadn't. The bulk of my life was no longer in Bellingham, in the beautiful home Mike and I created together, it was here. On the island. Removing myself from the home insurance felt another significant reminder of this. At the very same time, any illusion I'd been clinging to that I might be able to have a non-traditional partnership instead of a friendship with the person I've loved better and more than anyone yet in this life began to shatter. Living on an island that one of you doesn't want to be on most of the time will do that (along with many other factors outside of our control that, if willing to listen to, point in a direction of letting go).
These realizations aren't anything I've readily accepted. They've taken days of wading through grief and hard emotion to make sense of. And days of asking myself a series of questions that I already know the answer to, just to be sure I want to keep taking steps in the direction of this new life: What if I went back and found a place in Bellingham and focused primarily on my work at the university? Immediately, I know I cannot go back. That I have already come too far. That going back is not only the wrong choice, but isn't something I can even imagine. These aren't thoughts in my head as much as feelings in my body that remind me of my new direction. Could I just be more open to a traditional partnership even if it's not what really works for me right now? The answer to this question is just as obvious as the first when I sit with it in my body. I know we're too far down this road of going our own way for that. It's obviously a bad idea (both of us agree on this). Which leaves me staring down one difficult truth: There is no way to go back. The only way is forward.
This feels like standing at the edge of a vast desert, alone, with very little sense of direction or conviction that I'll make it to the other side. But the reality I've just created for myself by moving into a home of my own on the island means I am now under the island's influence, dancing with this powerful entity as it acts upon and shapes my life, unraveling what was, and holding space for what is to come.
"It's like you just won the lottery!" It's what almost everyone says when I tell them I have a longer term place to land that just landed in my lap. In the good moments, I take in with gratitude the abundance and ease of this gift of a home: An offering from the island. A smaller step than buying a place, a gentler step, one that's allowing me to digest and move through many emotions and practical challenges with some time to learn and gather more information. And in the good moments, I remember to say yes to the powerful influence of the island I have chosen to allow into my life at this moment, even if I have large parts of each day and week feeling alone, unclear what to do next, and wobbly as all get out about my experimental decision to try life here.
This means saying yes to moving far more slowly than I might like. And yes to the many creative challenges required to live full time on an island that take time, relationships, and out of the box solutions to resolve. It also means saying yes to becoming more comfortable being alone. This is one of the harder challenges at the moment even though I already have many lovely connections in the community here. Perhaps most importantly, it means saying yes to my creativity, which loves being surrounded by this incredible community of artists, visionaries, and deep, wise humans. I'm sure there will be other things I need to say yes to. But for now, I'm curious where this powerful entity of an island will lead me and my life.