My first home on Vashon was a nine-month winter rental.
I have to say I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the fact that there are folks out there who can own a house and not live in it for most of the year. But maybe that’s just me; I grew up with four people in a one bedroom apartment in New York and thought that was fine. And frankly, if it weren’t for such folks, I wouldn’t be on this Island now: the winter rental made it clear I’d found the place where I belonged. Okay, okay, maybe falling in love with someone on the Island helped, too.
At the end of those nine months, we started looking for a place to buy on the Island — a place that would be, well … forever. Even with the real estate slump, though, the places we found that felt right were out of sight, at least financially. So I looked for a long-term rental.
Almost nothing was available. And I’ll admit, I was a bit picky. Architects and anthropologists will tell you that human beings need two things to feel “at home” in a dwelling: Refuge and prospect.
“Refuge” isn’t just about shelter; it’s about something more subtle. It has to do with protection and comfort, I think. “Prospect,” on the other hand, is more obvious. We feel more at ease if we can see some distance than if we’re hemmed in by forest. This primitive emotion dates back eons, to the days when we had to keep on the lookout for predators of both the four- and the two-legged kind. And the instinct hasn’t left us. It’s hard-wired. It’s also fiendishly expensive. That’s because “prospect,” in real estate terms, is a view. And views don’t come cheap.
So as spring edged toward summer, and neither refuge nor prospect were in sight, I got just a teeny bit troubled. I like to think of this as DNA-level species protection. The lady in my life, however, was untroubled. Maybe it’s because she’s lived on Vashon for many years — is “mellow” — something that comes in the water here? Maybe she’s more in tune with her inner Zen. Maybe she’s just nuts. I dunno. Anyway, her position was that the perfect home would drop out of the sky at just the right time.
Can you imagine such insanity?
Of course, that’s exactly what happened. I was hanging out at the Burton Coffee Stand when a neighbor took me aside and asked, “Aren’t you going to have to move soon?” (It’s amazing, and a little unsettling, how everyone knows everything about you on this Island.) “Come by and see me,” she said, and the next thing I knew we were being offered a house for which she was seeking “mature and responsible tenants.” I begged her not to check my references. And thus it is that — thank you, Vashon gods — we now have a home, a splendid one, on the water. And terrific landlords.
I was in the process of moving in — a process that feels as if it’s taking approximately forever — when a next-door neighbor came by. “So you’re the new newcomers,” she said. “We’re the old ones; we’ve only been here since 1974.”
And here’s the thing about Vashon: if this were, for example, Maine, that’s how you’d be branded: Newcomer. For at least three generations. Maybe five. Not so, Vashon. True, in the neighborhood where I live, families have been here for generations. But they don’t shun you, and they don’t lord it over you. You’re here, you’re part of the community, and you’re welcome.
I like that.
But I’m not naïve; I also think newcomers get a quiet once-over, the substance of which is, “Do they fit?” Think about that. That’s one heck of a lot different from, “Do they belong?” The latter implies suitability; the former enquires about compatibility. One is class-driven; the other is based upon an interest in preserving community cohesion while welcoming difference. Both, of course, are exclusionary, and I may be pushing the distinction too far, but my sense of this Island is that it is inclusive, not exclusive. You are welcome here, no matter your quirks, so long as you understand that your job as a member of the community is to …
Keep Vashon Weird.
— Will North is the author of more than a dozen books. His latest is “The Long Walk Home,” a novel.
