Driftwood & Anchor
Finding Place Between the Tides
At the edge of the world, the wind doesn’t just shape the sand dunes, it shapes the people too.
Some arrive with sails full of certainty, others like driftwood, softened by distant storms. But one thing is always true: no one lands here by accident. You either get called, or you get spat out.
The newcomers, bright-eyed, well-meaning and sometimes weary, bring with them different ideas of how things should be. They question why the supermarket shuts at 12:00 pm on a Saturday or why everything costs so much. They ask why we still do things the way we do.
Locals watch them like they watch the sky before a weather change. Careful. Not unkind, just cautious. They know the wind here shifts quickly. They’ve seen plenty of big plans and bold ideas blow out to sea.
But they also remember their own arrival, maybe not in this lifetime, but in some other one.
Their own awkward first weeks.
The wrong questions.
The wrong answers.
The silence that met their enthusiasm.
Living here teaches you that not everything needs to be fixed.
There’s tension in the meeting of tides. Some locals mutter about mainlanders “trying to change the place.” Some newcomers whisper about “backward ways.” Both are wrong, and both are right. The truth, as always, sits in the space between.
Sometimes, a new idea takes root like a rogue pumpkin vine, curling through the fences and over the scepticism until someone shrugs and says, “Actually, that’s not bad.” Other times, it rots in the rain.
Still, the Island is patient. It doesn’t rush. It weathers personalities like it weathers storms, testing their edges, seeing what holds. It’ll make you humble, if you let it. It’ll make you useful, if you’re willing.
The ones who stay - really stay - learn how to carry their ideas lightly. They bake them into cakes for the Lions Market. They fix something quietly at the Community Shed. They show up to Museum working bees and at funerals. They learn to listen, not just speak.
And little by little, the line between newcomer and local fades, not through time but through trust.
Out here, community is not a right. It’s a rhythm. You learn the steps by sweeping the floor, not by reading the program.
And maybe that’s the heart of it: not all change is loud. Sometimes it’s as quiet as someone learning the pull of the tides, and choosing to wait for the right one.
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