Finding Myself Creating Community

Seven years later...

I’m sitting on the plastic-flowered outdoor couch in the bunkhouse. It’s from a gelato shop I had in Seattle, a couple of lifetimes ago.

The view from here.

I adore it, broken as it is. Most things here are adored, many of them worn down from the loving. My garage door (wall) is open, onto the warm summer evening. You can see a small pinch of Mystery Bay at the bottom of the driveway. The tide is filling it up again, after today’s low tide. The lowest of the year, they say….

I am in my happy place. One of my happy places. I’m at Little Hill, a small farm property where my husband Bill and I lived before he died, seven years ago next month. I’ve been renting it out since. But this year, I was ready to reclaim it; like the couch, like other parts of my life that I had let go, or put on hold while I had to sort things out.

I wish you were here with me right now. It’s lovely, and you might help me figure out how to do this scary thing of writing my first Substack post. The thought of jumping into unknown and more public waters for me is like the first time you go to the public pool at the rec center — as a preteen— when all you’ve done before is play in the ponds and rivers outside of town. Now, like then, I sort of want to be normal/part of the mainstream.

Gulp. Taking a plunge. Not like there’s one plunge. Maybe it’s more like stepping stones or building blocks; things we can do to find our way. Substack feels like a larger pool and community I’m joining. And I think connection is a big part of why I write, or do anything.

You see, sigh…there was this time in my life, and maybe yours, when I was an innkeeper in the Caribbean, at La Finca Caribe, a sort of magic place that doesn’t exist anymore. I’d write easy breezy little email ‘newsletters’ to my guests (maybe you) about upcoming discounts, or retreats, the status of the ferries, or other tropical newsy bits. Those emails became chapters of my book, until my guests, became my readers and friends. Then…for all sorts of reasons that all ended.¹

After being here at Little Hill for two months this summer, I see my coming back was more than turning it into my “summer house”. More clearly than ever, I am recognizing my love of creating space where folks can come and share their gifts and connect. And they have. It has been a rich full-time for that. It felt like running the Finca again.

But this summer, the universe surpassed even my wildest expectations with its response to my “putting it out there” — looking for folks to share it with. Filling this place has taken a wildly global turn, even here in our tiny town, on this out-of-the-way little island.

I am at home.

In addition to the friends and family who’ve passed through, I found two wonderful people new to the U.S.— a middle-aged man from Kenya, and a young man in his twenties from central Mexico, both were looking for rooms to rent, and liked the quiet and remoteness.

Sharing Little Hill with them has been sort of magic; way, way beyond fun — but there’s been lots of that too. Our fingers are tired of using translation apps to toggle back and forth between Swahili, Spanish, and English. We now all know hakuna matata means no hay problema; jambo = hola. Creative gestures and laughter help us share best practices in gardening, dishwashing, or hammock-hanging techniques. Living in this microcosm of cultural diversity has been more rewarding than I could have imagined. I’m pretty well used to stepping out of my norm and embracing the unknown — but that usually means crewing on a boat or joining an adventure. This has been so different.

Our Little Hill team

I think the takeaway lesson this summer has been more about giving and witnessing firsthand that wonderful reality that the more you give, truly the more you are rewarded. Try giving part of your home, and your time to others who are new to this country, who have maybe never been in a Gringo home. Try comparing, and integrating international versions of the hacks it takes to get through the day. It certainly has made life more interesting.

Like all of us in the summer, even the table wanders outside.

Yep, as I wind up my time here with these guys, (along with loved ones, birds, coyotes, deer, stars, and now full moon passing through) I know to my bones that my fullest soul, inner child, and best self have been nourished, and have flourished.

Ha! It dawns on me this is what it feels like for grief to be “over”. That bad guy in the rearview mirror, is so far back I can’t make him out anymore. I am just here. But with any luck, here and community can be anywhere — bunkhouse, a boat, or traveling in between and around.

Maybe our happy place, or community it’s just the sharing and connection and not a place at all. Let’s hope so — because it’s clear that we need to figure out a way to create at least a sense of community “out there” — anywhere we are — like never before. In fact, with today’s news with Kamala Harris now in the running, I'm sensing optimism and hope that maybe will connect us again.

And now, on even a smaller, more personal scale as wonderful as this all is, this place will be theirs now. Until next summer. I’m off to those other adventures of mine— and the remote corners of Alaska on The Endeavour come August (!). Talk about the extreme opposite of everything homey and cozy here. I will be off playing first mate on a research vessel, hosting educational and scientific research groups in the extreme wilderness — hopefully through the fall.

To say I'm excited is sort of an understatement. (!!!) I’ll be writing from there next, and I’d so love to have you come with me — if only to connect in this odd sort of virtual community of ours.

Adelante, with love & crossed fingers, corky

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1. That story, dear reader, is chronicled here on Substack under The Finca, or through my book (or audiobook, which was a finalist in the Audies!): La Finca, Love Loss and Laundry on a Tiny Puerto Rican Island.