Do you ever think, “There’s the real world, then there’s Vashon”?

In The Mists of Avalon (a top- 10 trashy novel for neo-pagan Islanders), Avalon, the Isle of Priestesses, gradually disappears into the mists, even as they await a great king (Arthur) to bring lasting peace (and effective governance) to their land. Just like Vashon.

Is it real, or do we exist in a parallel universe?

When I’m traveling and say I’m from “an island off Seattle,” people invariably respond: “Oh, Mercer Island, Bainbridge?” — to which I retort, “Those aren’t islands, they’re gated communities.” Whatever. Nobody gets it.

People outside of the Puget Sound haven’t even heard of Vashon; they don’t know we exist. We only make national news in warnings about our unimmunized feral children, or when 98 percent of us show up to pummel the Department of Transportation about the idea of a bridge.

In Wikipedia’s entry on Vashon, “The Bike in the Tree” is listed as one of the (three total) Places of Note, along with Wolftown and the Russian Orthodox Church. (Uh, Granny’s, hellooo!)

The Bike in the Tree is not a place; it’s a symbol of RVWE — the Rip Van Winkle Effect, that well-known phenomenon giving our little rock its “alternate reality” quality. We come here, take a nap and wake up 20 years later, hairy and confused.

It happens to us all, don’t deny it.

(Unless you’re Emmett Sherman, age 8, a 32nd generation Islander, whose forebears came here as the original, mid-14th-century Vashon Kazoo Marching Band and created some of the earliest known choreography for the Shopping Cart Drill Team — allegedly.)

See, Reality is the state of things as they actually exist, in contrast to what is imaginary, or delusional, abstract, false or fictional. And I had become convinced that Vashon was a Reality-free zone, a modern-day Avalon, a place increasingly less known, harder to find and further from the Real World.

But recently, I spent time at SeaTac, Las Vegas and the Oregon Country Fair, and let me tell you, I got perspective.

I booked a red-eye to Minnesota and got to SeaTac early. TSA had one chatty guy checking IDs for a line of 300 people. Everyone fuming, I actually called out a manager to complain. My daughter would have been mortified.

Fully half of us missed our flights, me included. Adding insult, they lost my $8 hair product in the X-ray, and I had to retrieve it by going headfirst into the huge trash bin out front, legs dangling, literally. A guy with three teeth told me it was unseemly to dumpster dive at the airport.

I pined for my user-friendly, hair goo-respecting isle, where my homies at Studio 101 would feel my pain.

Then I went with three friends to Vegas for a couple days of personal retreat and contemplation. Boy, was that hard to do, what with the neon, the gunfire, the dresses way too short for ladies that shape and the great sucking sound emanating from my wallet.

Oh, bring me home to barter-economy Vashon, where it’s dark at night and women wear Tevas.

Then to the Oregon Country Fair, the hippie-village-in-the-woods that time forgot, where I passed a group of wild-smiling barefoot revelers singing “We are dandelion fluff, we are the golden people of light.” I must have looked scared, because they came to comfort me, and I ran. I longed for our sensible, corporate hippies.

I finally get home, down my quarter-mile driveway: smooth, divot, smoooooth, pothole, smooth, smooth, crater, smooth, ditch, bump, stop. Bark, bark, lick, slobber, throw the ball!

A real road, and some real affection. I get out, smell the trees. There’s someone shooting next door at the Sportsman’s Club — but at targets. Nice. Home.

Next weekend, my daughter and I  go to Strawberry Festival for the rides. Everything’s sopping wet, but the ancient contraptions at the carnival seem, weirdly, more appealing. After the ride, I get her the long-promised cotton candy. It’s melting in the rain. She gives me a bite, I cringe, she laughs. I look around, and notice there are 20 friends within 100 feet of me.

It’s a quintessential Vashon moment. I feel like Dorothy after Oz. Nothing has ever felt more real.

— Kevin Joyce, a father, singer, emcee and frequent contributor, is a Vashon humorist.