When we first adopted our daughters we lived on Martha’s Island. It was a wonderful, safe, sea-bound nest. One thing the girls quickly learned was that whenever we went somewhere that required traveling on a ferry or a plane, we were heading “off island.”
Even after we moved back to the mainland, they would still talk about going off island. It was a funny, quirky remnant of island time.
One thing we found when we moved to the mainland is that there were many, many roads. Not just North Road, South Road and Middle Road. (There are others, but you do travel the same paths a lot.) I spent the first couple years, meandering. Particularly after my Mom died, I would leave the stable and just drive – the Hudson River region is endlessly beautiful – I got deeply lost and I loved it. It was a way of working out my geography – the new landscape of where we physically lived and where I was in the world without my parents.
For me, off island has come to mean other things. I feel that my work is taking me off island. That I am headed out to open water, sometimes without any sense of purposeful navigation. Perilous, adrift. Mostly though, going off island feel pretty exhilarating.
My writing, which has been focused for the past few years on writing a book, is starting to morph and shift, and I find I am bringing more of myself “on the mainland.” Meaning I am writing in a public forum, and am hungry for a different kinds of connection. When I started planning the blog, my friend, Jon Katz, said “Do it.” And I am doing it. Every day.
What is taking you off island?
