The sky was blue, which we are learning this summer to never take for granted. The new teacher was visiting the island for a few days in July, prior to beginning her tour of duty in September. One always wonders what notions of island life a new person might have assembled. Has she been reading Elisabeth Ogilvie? Robinson Crusoe? Perhaps, with trepidation, the “society pages” out of the local papers? (That, by the way, means the court news.)

She sat in an Adirondack chair on a

Damn, what a year.

I heard about the fire on Swan's Island through their telephone man, Steve, who speaks most weekday mornings with the other TDS Telecom guys, including Paul from Matinicus. The night before, we'd been up listening to the thunder, thunder which followed awfully close to the lightning, worrying that our phone would ring with something wrong on Matinicus, or that the power would go out, or that one of the pagers would alarm… his about utilities, or mine for medical

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

As I write, I'm sitting in the cab of a rental truck, with the notebook in my lap. It is Ferry Day, and it is Dump Day. Matinicus Island is served by the Maine State Ferry Service, but we get only 30-some-odd trips a year. No matter how many times we try to explain this, there is always somebody calling up from the mainland and asking "So, what time's the morning boat?" as if every morning we…well, you understand. Sometimes this question even comes out of the mouths of reporters, writers,

It says in the DownEast website heading for this column (for I have never called it a "blog" myself) that I write about nearly "all things Matinicus." Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

I have put myself up front, writing my little bits here and there, and people ask me questions from time to time which I am not qualified to asnwer. There is a great deal about this community that doesn't belong in the newspaper…or on the Internet. I am not a reporter. I am not under

The little kids at school are growing increasingly restless, noticeably wiggy and impatient; the teacher and the ed-tech are perhaps even more so. Nobody wants to go back inside after recess. Kindergarteners flop belly-down across the swings and hang, almost dosing, limp and comfortable like a big fat cat over somebody's forearm. Adult staff and passers-by park at the picnic table and grow roots, imagining the comfort of staying put, breathing in an outdoor warmth not felt in many, many months. Spring

As Rob, the minister from the Sunbeam asked in church the other night, "What the heck next?" He asked that question on behalf of all of us, as he stood in the middle, on a random weekday, beside a cluster of burning candles stuck in a casserole dish full of beach sand, before a dozen or so congregants, Christian and heathen, Catholic, Quaker, skeptic, straggler and regular, in rubber boots and work clothes (except for one first-grader very dapper in his tie.)

"What the heck next?"

That,

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