I got home from a week away to find a small notice tacked to the back of the post office bulletin board…there was to be a contradance on Matinicus, and in just a few days. A band was coming, a real string band, with a caller, and we'd feed them breakfast in the church basement because now we had running water to do it, and make doughnuts, and… Oh, sure…like the weather's going to let that happen. Somebody's being optimistic; we'll just see. I did have my hopes up, quietly. Live

The fishermen who live on Matinicus come and go from this island aboard their own boats, and although they have hefty fuel bills and plenty of worries when the weather turns dangerous and the storms push a good mooring chain to its limits, they do have a certain degree of freedom.

Those of us who do not own a boat live with somewhat less flexibility.

There are enough days out here when even the larger lobster boats shouldn't try the trip to the mainland, and occasionally there is no

Life on Matinicus Island is simple. It must be so. They tell us so all summer.

We know this is the simple life when we try to do simple things, like get ready to leave town for a week. Other people do such as that all the time, over in the "real world," which, we also are informed, this is not. People come here to spend their two weeks vacation, and assure us that we live in a permanent state of relaxed contentment, as there are neither traffic jams nor need of dry-cleaning establishments

We were watching a program on Maine Public Television that showed footage of a hydroelectric dam on the Saco River. My television-watching buddy, who had once been a Central Maine Power Company substation repairman, recognized it.

"Cataract," he said. "You can't make power at high tide. The tail race fills up."

"It's tidal that far up?" I asked, this being typical of the sort of idle conversation in my kitchen.

"It's tidal that far up."

Then, a moment later: "It's just

The word happily goes around the island each time the Sunbeam is in, tied up alongside the Steamboat Wharf. People begin wandering down aboard for a cup of coffee or a look at what Felicia's got there on the counter for cakes and cookies; perhaps Mike the captain has made a gingerbread again. It beats just collecting your mail and heading directly back to the woodpile or the laundry or the paperwork.

The Sunbeam has been coming to Matinicus and to many of the other islands

Perhaps you live where cell phones work just fine.

By mid-December nearly everybody on Matinicus Island is concerned with one of two things; Christmas plans, or getting the heck out of here. The weather forecast is the 500-pound purple gorilla in the living room, the sword of Damocles, and is the perpetual footnote, caveat, or disclaimer attached to everything. Quite a few of the guys are taking up traps; many haul out completely and go away for a couple of months. It makes sense to get the boat hauled out, maybe get some work done, protect the aging

Should I suppose you would want to read about an island Christmas? It is not my intention to pour on the romance and the syrup, and the holidays, so-called, may be called over (to some people's great relief) and besides, steely industry and swashbuckling anarchy is generally more engaging.

As I write, it is New Year's Eve. Can it still be that the celebrations of a tiny isolated community remain of interest to anybody? Certainly, on an island, there are no last-minute trips to "the mall" (that

December 5, 2007

As I write, we've just had the first snowstorm of the season, and it wasn't that big a deal. The guys went around with each other about whether or not to plow the roads; some thought it a waste of money as it wasn't really necessary, while others wanted it done, and it was. In the end, it was probably good for the town truck; it got a work-over and some maintenance. Some of the guys just went out with their own trucks for the heck of it. I confess with some sheepishness

As I write, it is Monday December 3rd, and the first big snow of the year. Eric called early in the morning from Bethel, as delighted as a little child. It takes a lot to make a seventeen-year old get all bubbly. The promise of a foot of fluffy snow does it.

Such is rarely the weather of islands.