I was sorry to learn this week that Adam Taylor is making his exit from the island, even if it’s only temporary, and even if he will undoubtedly be back regularly to visit his family and many friends on island. As such a community minded person, with a long history and deep knowledge of this place, he’s been a real asset to this newbie Bowen Islander and editor.
If you don’t know him, he’s worked hard for years on Bowfest as well as my personal favourite Bowen-event: the Nature Dive. If you have yet to read his departure story, you might not know that his personal history on this island stretches back four generations.
I keep thinking about something he said in our conversation, that he repeated in a few different ways, and it’s this: the fabric of this community is coming apart.
For Adam, a drastic decline in volunteerism is a marker of this.
I think “fabric” is the perfect metaphor for community: each life is a thread, and with every interaction, every babysitting gig, baseball game, every meal train… these threads are tied together, over and over.
Having never experienced the Bowen of Adam’s memory – the Bowen of 1978, for example, when more than 200 people participated in making Bowfest happen – I carry no personal sense of loss, but I do have theories about why community participation isn’t what it used to be.
First off, there seem to be so many volunteer obligations these days. From pre-school up, the expectation for parents to participate in fundraising and attend meetings is ever-present. Even in families where one parent is at home full-time, these efforts can be exhausting.
Perhaps if more of us had extended families on-island, we would be signing up for more committees. Still, even the families I know with grandparents around seem to be stretched thin- both for time and money.
What has changed since 1978? The cost of ferries, and the cost of food, and of course the cost of housing –which at this point is both out of reach and beyond compare.
Through my interactions with people on the ferry, parents on the playground, and through interviews on housing done for this paper, it is absolutely clear to me: the economics of this little paradise bubble we are living just don’t make sense. And with every family, every couple and every individual that moves off-island because they can’t afford to be here, the social fabric doesn’t just fray, it rips.
Our municipal council recently delivered a pamphlet on their efforts in local mailboxes. The final heading of points to “steady progress.” I can’t knock that, but it seems what we need these days is damage control. We need to sew up our community fabric before it comes apart completely.
If you’ve got ideas on what needs to happen, send them this way: [email protected]
