Life on an Island: The Orcas Experience

I was recently asked about my experience on Orcas Island...
This was my response:

"Hmm... My life on the island? Wow... You're actually a lot closer to the island than I am, currently. Have you heard of the San Juan Islands? I was on Orcas Island, it's about 3 to 4 hours to the island from Seattle, and that includes the ferry ride from Anacortes to the island. I could plow through a myriad of adjectives describing my experiences, and none would be adequate. It was breathtakingly beautiful and a wondrous place of adventure; a peace I had never experienced, yet there was an overwhelming feeling of being isolated from the world. (I actually enjoyed that feeling for quite some time, as I'm originally from L.A. where "the path less traveled" doesn't exist.) 

"There were times, though, where I became jealous of the water... That probably sounds incredibly odd, but I was so aware of the ebb and flow, the fact that the water surrounded me, and yet could go and be anywhere that body of water touched (as in, other lands) and I was imprisoned by the very water I envied... During the winter, the resident population was between 2000 to 5000 people , so it became a weird melding of the theme-song from the 80's TV show "Cheers" and the Doors song, People are Strange. "People are strange when everybody knows your name."The summer population, including tourists, estimates a much larger number, approximately 60,000 people on any given day. Living on an island allows you to develop close bonds with people that would otherwise not know one another, the lines defining age-appropriate relationships and friendships blur and eventually fade; mortal enemies be warned, there is no escape from one another... 

"There were spectacular views from any area of shoreline, and a mountain that extended above the cloud-level, yet on a clear day you could see Canadian lands... I have quite a few extremely entertaining, shocking (some very extreme experiences), and wonderful stories from my time on that island, and have been back three times since moving... I have a few really good friends there, and immensely enjoy going back for short periods of time."

I don't know exactly how I felt about it two years ago, but that was what my response was after two years of having been away from the island. At the time I was living there, I can remember comparing it to the movie, Wickerman, with Nicolas Cage... Creepy. Yet, there were so many positive experiences and bonds that were formed, that I cannot exactly regret my time there, regardless of what occurred on that rock... It is my experience, and I grew from those things that I was exposed to, and that I experienced. They are my memories.