Are You a Visitor?

On the surface, that seems like a simple question, and it's one I get asked a fair bit when I'm on island.  And I must confound people with my frozen response—it's a simple question, isn't it?

Well, actually, no, it isn't simple (at least to me).  I honestly don't know how to answer the question.

My first steps on the island, in the summer of 1983, as a day-tripper with my soon to be ex-husband and two toddlers in tow, yes, then I was a visitor.

My next visit, in the fall of 1985, with my future husband, again a day trip, yes, then I was a visitor.

Over the next few years, our family growing to a total of six sons, we rented houses for a week's  summer vacation, and the question didn't yet confuse me. 

The yearning for this island grew and grew.  My heart just wanted to be here.  I felt a sense of Home, a connection to the land and the spirit of this island.  In 1995, I recovered from a serious cancer—and am convinced that I felt it let go of me while standing on the Gay Head Cliffs, staring at the ocean, and breathing in the beauty and the healing of this island.

In 1999, we bought our house in OB and began a life with a foot on either side of the Sound.  At that point, the answer to the visitor question definitely became "it's complicated."  We work as software engineers off-island, and sometimes do work at home days here to extend our weekend visits, year round.  Summer may find us here for a block of a week or two at a time, or one of our boys working here for the season.  Sometimes work or life means we miss a few weekends.

So I don't live here year round (though it's certainly a dream I hope to realize someday).  I don't know what it's like to have to buy gas here, to get through an entire winter here, or to have to figure out how to solve the crisis of needing basketball shoes by 7:30 the next morning when told they are needed the night before at 9 p.m. (something not easily solved on the other side of the Sound, either, but I can vouch for it being possible there). 

I do know where there's a chance of getting parking on a July Saturday afternoon in Edgartown.  I do know that the only reasonable time to go grocery shopping in the summer is after 10 p.m.  And I know I love the island best in fall/winter/spring, when the crowds subside, you can drive right through the Triangle, and the silver light of the ocean makes the air shimmer.

The island is my home, but not my only home.  It will be my chosen home someday.  Am I a visitor until that day when I live here year round?  Or will I still be a visitor even then?  What is "enough" to call this place home?