We’re used to islands off of islands. In fact, they’re some of our favorite places. Whether it’s Zamami Island, Ie Island, Molokai, or Bell Island the other day, there is a feel to them that inspires immensity and other worldliness.
On Ie Island, off of Okinawa, there were farmers on those small islands that had never lived anywhere else. They considered Okinawa (80 miles long and 6 miles wide) part of the big world, where their children went to college, sometimes, if they were adventurous. And if their children made it all the way to mainland Japan? That was just beyond imagination.
On Molokai, people were fiercely independent and proud. Why wouldn’t we want to come visit there after all, the lady in the coffee farm inferred? She did not care where we were from or who we were, but at least we had enough smarts (barely, her expression showed) to make it to The Best Place on Earth.
On Bell Island, the convenience store lady asked where we were from. (No possibility of misidentifying us as locals on an island this size.) When she heard she asked, shocked, “What on earth are you doing here?” “It’s beautiful here,” I said, and her expression softened. “Yes,” she said, quieter, “it is.”
Adding to the distance from everything is the ridiculous feeling of getting on a ferry with your car, among a pile of other cars, realizing that crossing the sea was the only way to get to these places and that, as you wait above, your entire car is being boated over rough grey waves.
Or, in Molokai’s case, a tiny 8 seater plane, buffeted around by the winds. Such lengths have to be taken to come to the big islands in the first place, Okinawa, Molokai, Newfoundland. Never any straight flights, and hours out of the way of the mainlands. And then there is still more to continue to these small places. And after we do that, after we have done all that, come all that way to what feels like the tiniest corners of the earth, there are still people, still houses, still trails and history and roads like anywhere else.
And the same people live on all the small islands. Some are there because they love it, I mean, they LOVE it. They have been there their whole lives and have a huge pride in their place, or they have come from difficult, busy places, and need to be surrounded by water and peace. We love islands off of islands, because they seem barely a part of the world we inhabit every day.
But there are always people there who hate it too, and no places are never idyllic. Some people, in small places, fill up the space, grow until they have reached every corner, stretch out comfortably against its boundaries and love the way it feels. Some don’t. It is easier to get trapped in small places after all. And you can always find where the trapped people have been. There are always drinking places, run-down houses, and graffiti.
These islands are just a microcosm of our world, after all, of the small places we live in every day. Our jobs, our habits, or our likes and dislikes. People are born into the places that they are, or integrated into habits, and some choose to embrace them and cling to them. And some just can’t make themselves comfortable there. And some are sure that even though they choose to stay there, there must be something better out there.
Whenever I see someone who loves these small islands, like the farmer in the convenience store who looked at us curiously but without an ounce of envy, I wonder what that’s like; to be able to stay here for that long and not ever want to leave. When I taught in Okinawa and asked my students where they saw themselves living in 5 years, only one of twenty saw herself off the island. Such a deep contentment with their place was a beautiful thing to see.
But whenever I see the vivid trapped despair on small islands, I feel for these people because I hate feeling trapped in anything, and I have felt that panic. (Hating being trapped in something is a great quality for a life without responsibilities. It hasn’t yet worked 100% for me in a life with small children who demand routine.)
So when I see this despair, I’m reminded of things that I’ve been stuck in before. A particularly bad job in college, a few toxic friendships, some terrible classes, an apartment with bugs. And there are ways out, if you really want them. It takes work, and it takes some bravery, often it takes asking for help, but there always are. There are ways out of habits, out of bad jobs, out of bad relationships. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.
And after all that, after the escape, it doesn’t have to be a permanent thing. There are ways back home too, as I am reminded by the college age looking guy in the corner of the ferry, his airport bags still with the tags on them, clearly on his way back home. Sometimes, after you’ve made the change, after you left the place, you can still come back home.
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