The island in me
Islands are my things. Even as I am posting this, I am on my way around Block Island, which is shaped suspiciously like Samsø, almost as if someone made the mold and it was so good they just had to do it again. I wouldn't be half surprised.
I like the feeling of being on an island. Especially one small enough that I can explore all in one day, maximum two, though it takes months to get to know it all. It’s the same feeling I get in a hotel room: everything is visible to me, but only to a point. There is potential, openings, things to figure out, but it is not overwhelming and vast.
I try to square this feeling with my love for New York City, which — while much of it resides on various islands — certainly is vast. I can’t really. It is work for me to shrink the city to a size I can relate to. Biking helps. So does walking and sailing and sitting. But at the end of the day my love for the city has to coexist with how overwhelming I find it at times. I am reminded of this one time when I was trying to tell my daughter how wonderful our hometown is. “You know how New York City sucks?” I started. She laughed. “I know,” she answered. “I love it too.”
In some ways, I think there is an island mentality here too. First of all, there is this sense that we are different than the rest of the country. Then there’s the fact that it literally takes hours to leave New York City, even if you are just going further out on Long Island. But most tellingly, people make a distinction between real New Yorkers and those of us who moved here later in life, as E.B. White famously captured in Here Is New York. If you’ve ever spent time on any island, you’ll know what I mean.
But to be honest, my love for New York City is at best irrational. I think of the time I retreated to Block Island after a terrible break-up. As I got further away from New York City and closer to Block Island, I felt a weight lifting, like I could breathe again. At the time, I needed to physically move to find that place in me. But I think I can do it now, just by sitting.
Every morning, as I breathe in silence, I try to return to the island within.
