I’ve lived on this bridgeless island for twenty-one years now, with the first seven years spent on a dirt road on the northern end of the island, and the last fourteen years on a dirt/rocked road more towards the southern end of the island. During those years, I’ve seen lots of changes taking place. Major employers have closed down, beloved members of the community have passed away or moved off the island, and once-vibrant places now sit abandoned. Yet at the same time, fantastic new community members have settled in, new businesses with lots of personality have opened up, and dormant places have been revitalized. And on both of the roads that I have lived on, there are now twice as many homes on them as there were when we first moved to the island.
This is not a convenient place to live. The logistics of getting anything and anyone here from the mainland can be daunting and, at times, nearly impossible. Everything costs more here, and there’s less to do. We seem to be at the bottom of the list when it comes to public infrastructure spending, even when we are simply asking for routine maintenance. As visitors come and fall in love with our island, we do our best to dissuade them, encouraging them to spend six months or a year here renting to find out what life on a bridgeless island is really like, experiencing the realities of doctors’ appointments and pharmacy visits that are always a boat ride away. And yet, people keep buying up vacant lots and building houses.
Admittedly, this is a stunningly beautiful place, with sunrises at the beach and sunsets over the intracoastal waterway and marshes, maritime forests with majestic live oaks, and plenty of wildlife roaming about. People routinely inconvenience themselves around the world to experience the sort of environment that we live in, and that goes a long way in minimizing the negatives when calculating the cost of island living. Yet the thing that seems to seal the deal for so many who opt to move here is the sense of community. Those of us who have lived here for decades have enjoyed a tightly woven fabric of neighbors, new and old, upon whom we can depend and whose company we can enjoy. In many ways, the inconveniences of island life afford us opportunities to come together and share experiences that rarely occur on the mainland.
With the inevitable changes that occur from the unstoppable march of construction, the one thing that we stand the best chance of preserving is that sense of community. Someone will build on the property that they own near you, infrastructure will be upgraded at some point, and traffic will become a thing here too (albeit on a very different level), but we will always be island people who do our best work when we are working together. Therefore, my prayer for my fellow islanders is that we will continue to be the kind of neighbors that others are drawn to – even if it means that a few more folks decide to call this place home.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron