"No Man is an Island..."
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
From “To Be of Use,” Marge Piercy
Living on an island the size of Deer Isle, one thing is certain: Everybody knows more about you than you think they do. Like high speed Internet, word travels fast. When we bought our house seven years ago, it was March, the month the island is just beginning to unzip its winter parka. By the time we arrived for the summer in late May, there was hardly a person I had to tell we’d finally bought our own place.
If it’s anonymity you’re after, best live somewhere else.
Life on an island, though not exactly beneath a bell jar, means you can be pretty sure someone somewhere will talk about you. And, as elsewhere, fiction often embellishes fact. What’s said may be touted as bonafide truth, but in the adult version of “Pass It On,” such truth, when it gets back to you, often comes as surprising news.
Gossip is as much a part of the texture as fog in August. Whether passed on behind closed doors, over phone lines, or, more publicly, in the lines at the farmer’s market or tables in a crowded restaurant, it’s both a recognized past-time and an art form. Indeed, some islanders may see little difference in the talents of oral historian and exquisite gossip. For a long time favorite subjects of island talk were the wealthy newcomers building houses the sizes of which this island had never before seen, folks “living at right angles to the land” as writer Lawrence Durrell would’ve said. And spending big bucks to do it. But who knows for sure, as it was alleged, that one such newcomer paid landscapers hundreds of thousands of dollars to haul in some trees?
It’s not always clear how rumor gets started, or why, though it may be the result of envy or of unsettled grievances or disputes running back generations. Obviously, gossip can be cruel, even maliciously false. On the other hand, what gets ignited by some over-the-fence small talk often arises out of concern. “Why’s Tom so thin?” someone asks. Or, “Doesn’t Margaret seem a bit off?”
A lot of islanders just enjoy talking about their neighbors and, like passing on sports scores, do so in mostly benign, if not necessarily generous terms. The old-timers, often as laconic as Mainers (as though they’re a homo sapiens subspecies) are generally touted to be, seem to prefer being direct in their observations and appraisals. Even a refusal to comment reveals.
Warning: Drive the same vehicle long and its make and color become widely recognizable. Park it in the village on a Saturday night and your neighbors will know you’ve beaten them to a good table at the Whale’s Rib. Drive past the house where a party is being thrown and you’ll know by the cars there which of your neighbors, unlike you, were invited and from whom, later, if so inclined, you can get the dirt. Of course parking in other discernible places can have more compromising repercussions.
But make no mistake. At any time of day or night, word also goes out for essential purposes – death, illness, an overturned car on the causeway, a capsized boat, a lost lobsterman. Government officials could well learn a few lessons from members of the island’s fishing community and their response to catastrophe. No political concerns or red tape hinder them. Rather than cooling their heels on the shore while waiting for state or federal agency boats to arrive, they’ll hop into pontoons and join the local volunteer fire department’s bucket brigade attempting to put out a fire on a small nearby island. To the radio reports that a lobster boat has gone missing, the first lobsterman likely to circle the waters and be the last one to give up the search may well be the same fellow who, as the result of an old feud over disputed territory, hasn’t for years so much as tipped his cap in the direction of the missing man.
Many of us have been known to quote poet John Donne who back in the 17th century famously wrote: "No man is an island entire unto itself.”
Said another way: no island is a man entire unto himself.