We moved here six years ago for the peace. The tranquility. The relative isolation. Orcas Island is slow paced and visually stunning. Unadulterated natural beauty is what makes it so unique, unlike most of the rest of the world that is busy building and building.
We’ve realized that Orcas isn’t immune to growth, and we have seen some gradual yet fairly big changes in our short time here.
The library, a beautiful high-ceilinged building with wonderfully warm woodwork, was the kind of place you felt at home inside of. Its airy-ness let the sun’s light in without giving any feeling of vacuousness, and the cozy children’s room embraced you in a wombish kind of way. I grew up with a school library so institutional that its cold environment led me to assume that reading was equally as dull. Because I abhorred stepping foot in that place, I never read books when I was a kid. Spaces and the way they make you feel are important.
The Orcas Library is now about double the size it was when we arrived. Before the addition was built, we spent lots of time there. It just felt good. I’ve enjoyed reading now for decades, and I’d been reading armloads of books each week to our boys since our first was several months old. So the library, for me, has been a home away from home.
Not so in its new state. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nicely built and I’m more than grateful that it’s there. I frequent it; it’s my go-to whenever I’m in town. I always have books in mind and interlibrary loans to pick up. I rely on it for extensive homeschooling and for my own continuing education. I just don’t linger there anymore. It’s clean, modern, and nice looking, but there’s some quality that’s missing, which the old half had in abundance. The old half now feels relegated to the back where the action no longer is. I now swoop in, do a swift perusal, load my arms, and head out. Not once have we gone in as a family and felt the desire to spend time in the new children’s area. Where we once felt a little magic in the cozy charm of the old, I now feel a cold, clean geometry in the new. I don’t blame anyone for it. I just think things like this happen when things get bigger. I was afraid it would happen when I heard the library would be growing, but I will always continue to enjoy its contents and staff.
I had a similar feeling about the new dog park. We heard that the forested land that abuts the skate park would be felled to make a place for dogs to fetch their balls. I didn’t like the idea, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t be too bad in the end. I watched from start to finish, as it’s along my daily walking route. At first, when the trees were cut down and the low brush was burned and cleared, it resembled a mini-armageddon diorama. Now that it’s complete, its simple unobtrusiveness and green lushness are easy on the eyes. What I love about it is its effect on our island children – shaky sorts no longer hang out behind the skate park – it is now open territory visible to all dog park visitors. That’s a fantastic plus in my mind.
Lots of changes have happened just in our little town of Eastsound in the last several years. Our favorite pond at The Outlook Inn was fenced off. We used to catch frogs there every spring and watch life live in its various seasonal states. After extensive landscaping, it was transformed into a little paradise of a place that’s now more like a secret garden of visual eye candy. I just love that the owners decided to keep the gate open to the public during daylight hours.
More obvious change is the complex of four housing units sitting next to Body Boat Blade on one of the main drags (Prune Alley). With its hard, square angles and hospital white paint, it conveys nothing of the quaint nature of downtown Eastsound. At a quick glance, you might mistake the units for oversized refrigerators, laments my husband. The insides are very clean, colorful, and modern, but the exteriors could use a strong dose of earthtone paint.
The newest construction sites are hard to miss.
Where there was once a low-profile blufftop shack on Main Street across from The Outlook Inn, with rose bushes climbing its corners and moss adorning its roof, there is now a vacant view to Indian Island with an ever-rising cement framework. I have yet to opine on this one. What I know about The Outlook Inn’s owner is that she has an eye for beauty and quality. She adorns herself with thought. She artfully beautified her pond’s garden. And she has maintained the 
clean yet quaint character of the Inn itself. She has always seemed conscientious toward others and strikes me as thoughtful about the aesthetics of land, environment, and sea. A megalithic monstrosity of modernity right in her plane of view from inside the inn? It doesn’t square with who she is. I hope that in the end it will be a humble gem adorning the street but not detracting from the natural treasure beyond it. New builds on our main road – a stunningly beautiful road unlike any other in the lower 48 – affect everyone. I’m guessing that isn’t lost on her, and I give her the benefit of the doubt. We might all very well congratulate her and her family on the beauty and design of their new creation, just as I’ve been meaning to tell Ron for a long time that I like his new dog park.
Closer to home, well, my mom’s house, is a fairly shocking uprising. A hop, skip, and a jump from Windermere Real Estate on Main Street is the tranquil step into the heaven of Haven Road. It was aptly named. It leads nowhere – a wonderful nowhere – and almost goes unnoticed. Trees almost form a canopy over it and it’s like walking into a place that time overlooked. Well, someone noticed it, and I suppose it was just too pretty to leave alone. A haven no more, perhaps. Unless the owner somehow helps it blend into its forest, or the forest that used to be where it now is. I was up the road near The Trading Company the 
other day and it hit me that I could all of a sudden see the tall units jutting out of the trees from that distance (see the top left of the photo at right). My mom rents across the street from all the construction, and they loom into view in her once-private piazza. While I’d hate for all of that building to happen so that wealthy people could own a two-week-per-year getaway, I’m sort of hoping that will be the case. It’s the lesser of two evils. The contrary is worse – that lots of people will suddenly populate the once-tranquil place.
Plans are under discussion for changing Eastsound. Higher buildings. Revised street patterns. Sidewalks down rural roads. Ironically, the people who came here for its charm are forgetting that small and unique are the charm. To copy standards you’d see in every city is to swap a storybook life for mainland monotony.
Riding on the coattails of all this is the announcement of our new high-profile island inhabitant. I highly respect her and fully understand why she’d want a place here. I will preserve her anonymity if we pass on the street, just as she will undoubtedly preserve mine. (Ha.) I can’t help but wonder, though, what changes it will bring. Unrelenting media will no doubt inform the whole world about a little island paradise that they need to see. When the world comes to us, let’s hold onto what it is that made us come here and what makes everyone flock here to experience. It isn’t stylish shops, new sidewalks, high buildings, or convenient parking. It’s the peace; the forest; the sea. The small; the quiet; the cozy. The storybook.
