offline, on island

finding the gift in everything

hi friends,

It’s been a little over a week since I arrived on Monhegan, and oh, what a week it has been—I had intended to send this a few days ago, but the island had plans all its own, so buckle up for an adventure, but first let’s have a moment with my peonies! For five straight years, June travel, coupled with finicky Western New York weather, has kept me away from seeing the abundance of peonies in my yard, but not this year!

For six straight days, I had the pleasure of cutting their stems, creating overflowing vases for every room in my home, then offering bouquets to friends on coffee dates, to my parents over lunch, or simply sharing for no reason at all. Amid the ceaseless insanity known as 2025, oh peonies, you were my balm.

Now, back to Monhegan.

Since I don’t own a horse trailer, it takes two cars to get to Maine, one for each dog, plus the necessary gear needed for six weeks out to sea. John and I drive the 578 miles from Rochester to Port Clyde with Gertie and Violet, load three twenty-seven-gallon totes, two Ray Donovan-approved black duffles, one forty-eight-quart Coleman cooler, a thirty-five-pound Vittles Vault for said dogs onto the Elizabeth Ann, say hello to Captain Scott, and then we’re off!

The journey to Monhegan always begins in the ritual of the crossing, in the slippage between two shores and the spaciousness of open sea. It’s the moment you feel the entirety of your life inshore sink into the ocean and become open to the spell of emptiness. On the drive up, I listened to this podcast about escaping the modern world and our noisy minds. One segment with Lehua Kamalu, a third-generation captain, really spoke to me as she described the process of learning to navigate traditional Hawaiian voyaging canoes across vast distances, guided only by the constellations and the currents of the sea. No GPS or compasses allowed.

As she recounts her time on the water, she speaks of the experience as an act of reverence:

Everything that you do is up to you out there, you know. There's no one here to dictate how you need to respond to, you know, the winds or the squall that's coming in. I consider it an escape because I think it takes you away from what we may see as the only way to live our lives and the only way to think about how we're traveling on this beautiful planet and allows you a space and a time, even if it's just for a few days or a few weeks, to see yourself in a different light, to see yourself in a different environment where your focus is so completely removed from the daily grind, if you will.

This is why I return to Monhegan—year after year after year.

On this twenty-first summer, the packing and preparations felt easier, or perhaps my lists have become more intentional, or I’m getting better at trusting that I already have everything I need, and really, my true needs are few. Regardless, I no longer rely on memory, but rather write exact inventories at the beginning and end of each season, then check things off—what’s still on island, what should be replenished or replaced, what supplies are required to complete various house projects, writing projects, because once I’m here, I’m here.

And that’s the gift: to define one’s days by things so simple as walking down to the rocks to cast last night’s lobster shells to the gulls, to be rewarded by a wealth of Blue Willow (and the sweetest cast iron butter warmer) at a house sale along the road, to bake bread in a Pyrex bowl, to write morning pages at sunrise, or find myself completely gutted, weeping within the words of Landslide at the Jamboree. Of course, I can do this anywhere, but it takes me coming back here to remember.

Still, as much as the above paragraph epitomizes the magic of Monhegan, not every day is exactly magical…which brings me back to the entire reason I’m late sending this newsletter.

It began last Monday, when I thought it a bit odd that not all of the power was functioning in my house, even though none of the circuit breakers had tripped. On Tuesday morning, everything was back to normal, although I did overhear others at The Mooring Chain remarking about the same thing, so I thought nothing of it until the same thing happened on Tuesday. However, when I awoke Wednesday morning, there was no power at all, and not just in my cottage. Based upon the number of incoming texts, I quickly ascertained there was no power anywhere across the island. To be fair, Monhegan experiences power outages all the time, but they typically don’t affect everyone and usually last no more than an hour or two. As I began to hear the hum of backup generators outside grow, I realized this time might be different.

And so began an elaborate game of telephone—of walking down the road, piecing together something someone had heard about a “part” being flown in from Michigan, then taking a few more steps and being informed that a “man” was coming from Boston (or maybe California) to fix the turbine so there might not be power until the next day. At three o’clock in the afternoon, signs were posted outside the Post Office.

The irony is, that I was one of the last houses on the island to even get electricity, which doesn’t mean being out here was like being on Survivor; rather, I had a propane fridge, gas lighting, enough solar power to charge my phone or laptop, and internet through the landline, but it did mean I was pretty off the grid, and I liked it.

Everything changed when I got power in 2020. I did my best not to light the house as much as I might inshore, but things certainly got brighter. Then came a new, more energy-efficient electric refrigerator, then (island-wide) WiFi. Fortunately, I still have my solar, but the reality is I’m as reliant upon electricity here as I am in Rochester.

So, like everyone else, I had to wait it out. When I took Violet out at 2 am, I saw two beams of light atop Light House Hill—one from the lighthouse itself, the other next to the power station—so I was hopeful, but in the morning, we were still literally and figuratively in the dark.

I tried to remind myself that one of the reasons I appreciate being on Monhegan is to be (more) cut off and out of range. However, when every conversation seems to circle back to power, it becomes a little harder to do. Without accurate information, we were all learning to navigate without a compass. As we approached the twenty-four-hour mark, I began to Google what food might still be salvageable because of course, my fridge was fully stocked with everything I’d brought over in that packed forty-eight-quart cooler. I was running out of hope, not to mention ground coffee, when just like that, the power was restored! First things first, I opened my freezer, checked my chicken (miraculously still frozen), then immediately ate all of my ice cream, or more accurately, cold cream, Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough and coffee Heath Bar crunch, because I’m no fool. Then, another text:

Do you have any water??

And just like that, the next phase of our adventure began—rolling blackouts and no town water from 10-2, or at least until the tanks were full again. As the week devolved, one of the inns began urging guests to delay their arrival, the store rationed water to two gallons per household, and rumors began to circulate that it could be this way all summer. Meanwhile, the daytrippers continued to arrive, blissfully unaware. As of today, I do have power, and the word on the street is that the island is operating on one, possibly two, backup generators to keep the water pumping up from the meadow. Still, I put out pails at night to collect rainwater to flush toilets, because I don’t think the island is exactly out of the woods.

In my study of yoga, one of the foundational beliefs of Tantra is that we receive life as an exquisite gift—one we didn’t ask for and can’t give back, so the question becomes, how do you receive the gift regardless of what you are offered? How do you choose to dance in the world?

With everything else going on in the world, and the cruelty and incompetence of the US government, intermittent power seems more like a minor inconvenience than a real problem—how fortunate we are that this experience happened during the week of the summer solstice; how lucky am I to wake up to this view out my window every day.

I don’t know what tomorrow may bring, and truthfully, I never did, but today, I’m choosing to receive everything as a gift. To express my gratitude for all that is offered and savor every magical moment in between. To simply be. On island.

Tell me, how are you learning to dance with the world? With or without a compass?

Thanks for reading!

xosew

ps

If the idea of finding yourself on Monhegan speaks to you, there’s still one more space for September’s retreat, Braiding Sweetgrass: Breathing Stories—all the details below the fold.

gathering (in grace) notes • writing circle

Begin your week gathering in good company!

Every Monday, 7:30 - 8:30 am ET, I host an online writing circle to encourage a creative start to the week. Each week, you are invited to come as you are. We greet one another before sitting in a moment of silence. I’ll offer a poem and a prompt for those days you don’t know how to begin, and then we write for 60 minutes with our screens on or off—that’s it!

This is a free offering for all. If you find you are attending regularly and wish to make a donation in support of maintaining the space, you can always buy me a book. register once, and the link is yours forever ✍🏻

one more space…. . join me on retreat … .. …. .

Braiding Sweetgrass: Breathing Stories

September 17-21, 2025 | Monhegan, ME

For the fifth year, I invite you to join me for an intimate retreat on Monhegan. Our program is an embodied book group, journeying and journaling through the wisdom and words of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s memoir Braiding Sweetgrass with the magic of Monhegan. I’m thrilled to consider the possible ways Kimmerer’s storytelling will become the guide to writing our own. Together, we will write through the island's topography, the geography of our senses, and our storied experiences. There will be ample time to search for sea glass and hike the trails through Cathedral Woods to the rocky shores of Pebble Beach.

Through writing, ritual, and restorative yoga, we will meditate, celebrate, and honor the variations of our authentic voices, as can only happen when you find yourself on this artist's island 10 miles out to sea.

lingering line… . ..

It’s only by having some distance from the world that you can see it whole and understand what you should be doing with it.

Pico Iyer