Sample Journal: A Monhegan Voice | February 2008
A Monhegan Voice
by Katy Boegel
My house on Monhegan sits in the middle of the town center. It has a name, Snug Harbor, although few people know that because the sign sits above the door inside our porch. I think naming houses is a bit silly and did not name this one. It was there when we bought the house from Dint Day. However it does look like a snug house nestled as it is in the center of town.
Our house was built in 1926, that's on the sign too, and there isn't much I like about it physically. There is no foundation, only posts hold it up. There is no insulation; the walls are presumably plaster and horsehair. The front porch is merely a repository for all the boys' toys and tools and fishing gear, plus my dryer. No matter how many times I organize it always ends up a mess again. The living room is long and skinny. It has hardwood floors and lots of windows. That's about all I like about it. Only one side is usable so the four of us are wedged down at that end with the TV and coal stove. The other end holds coats and boots because the house was built with only one closet and that's upstairs. The kids' toys are down there too in various containers and toy chests. As soon as you come in the door you see a Captain's bed that has been built in under the stairs. I guess in 1926 this was considered a handy feature. Perhaps the Captain after a hard day at sea and a few rums could only make it that far when he came home. For me it's just another waste of space. I have arranged it with nice big pillows to make it look like an inviting place but in fact everyone just comes through the door and throws gloves and hats on it along with yet more toys.
 
Captain's bed, before-and-after
The kitchen is fairly large. It has only one cupboard for food and one to put the plates and glasses in, both are really ugly. The counter is long with only six small drawers, the rest is a hollow space that is completely unreachable. God only knows what is under there. There is an old dishwasher that doesn't work anymore but the counter top it provides comes in handy. Inshore this would have been sent to the dump and disposed of but out here there is no good or legal way to get rid of it. Another small room and a bathroom complete the first floor. Upstairs we have two bedrooms. One is huge and was unfinished when we bought the house. It was called the attic room and was used an attic, for storage. This is our room and now is mostly finished. It has a second closet that I had built. The kids' room is across a tiny hall. It is L shaped which is handy so one child doesn't bug the other one. This house has no water view except from the kitchen window you can see the end of the fish beach road to the harbor.
When we bought the house it had brown shingles and a green roof. Over the twenty years we have owned it we have put in a new bathroom, re-shingled the sides so it's not brown, and installed a new septic system, replaced windows and the green roof. When we replaced the posts and insulated the floor, Joe Pomerleau found the mummified carcasses of cats.
Virgie Davis, who lived in the house for many years, was known to have had many cats. I assume they crawled under there and died of distemper or some such thing. I can still hear Joe's startled "Katy!" as I sat in the living room when he found them. He wouldn't go back under after that and we had to hire a guy with a dent in his head who would do just about anything you asked him. The cats became quite an attraction after word got out. Artists were eager to have them and we gave a lot away. So many people asked about them that I gave them to my nephew Kyle who was then about seven. He set up the mummified cat museum on our lawn and charged, I think, a quarter for a viewing. A lot of customers didn't believe what the sign said and came back looking shocked and appalled after a trip down the lawn to the viewing box. It was great fun and I think Kyle made some good money. Later Jamie Wyeth did a painting of Kyle and the box.
Despite all its shortcomings my house has many good features. First, it's on Monhegan. Buying a house on Monhegan twenty years ago was a fairly simple process. There was no shopping around. This house came on the market. It had a well and was a year round house as opposed to a summer cottage. It had an out building that was perfect for expanding my pizza shop thereby allowing me an income so I could live on Monhegan. No other houses were for sale. I walked down the road and asked Dint if we could buy the house he gave me a price and the deal was done. The house came as is with all the furniture. Dint took only his Zane Gray novels and a trunk of clothes. We found a stash of old photographs and books and many hidden bottles of Old Crow.
My house is not haunted. It has a good feeling to it and I have never been nervous about being alone in the house. This is not so with other houses out here. There are stories told that can't all be fabricated. Although he rarely mentions it my friend H.T. Bone will acknowledge that there is a ghost upstairs in the blue bedroom. It's a nice one and they get along fine. I have never seen a ghost myself but certain houses have made me very uncomfortable.
I have been told we have the best well on the island. It used to supply not only this house but the three next to it and the old Periwinkle restaurant across the street. We have never run out of water and flush our toilets freely at all times of the year without worry. The reason for the good well is that were are sitting beside the meadow, the sole source of fresh water on the island. This is a very good feature in a place where the town water is seasonal. A good portion of winter residents rely on cisterns and pray for rain instead of snow every time a storm blows through. Fortunately for them their wishes are often granted.
And despite having plaster walls and no foundation, my house is warm. Through various forms of heaters and down slippers we are able to keep warm in even the coldest times. I can live for awhile without power or running water, but I will not compromise on warmth.
Although it's in the center of the village my house is often invisible. I'm accustomed to customers' puzzled looks when I mention I live in the house behind the store. Artists' renderings over the years either start to the right or left of the house or leave it out entirely.
There are few things in my life that I have known with more certainty than that I was meant to live on Monhegan. I knew this from an early age and at about sixteen began to voice my intent to my bewildered and horrified parents. I wasn't worried about my future or how I would accomplish it, I simply knew this was where I was supposed to be. Fortunately my parents did me the huge favor of buying the old Monhegan Store and giving me the full time job of assistant manager. Why they made the decision to sell everything and move from Reading, Mass. to Monhegan Island and buy a grocery store is their story to tell. By the time they left the island I was well established with my first house, a husband and a pizza shop. My belief that I was meant to be here carries over to my housing situation. I believed that when I needed a house it would present itself to me and so it has, twice. One only needs to have the capability of recognizing an opportunity when it comes and not be too picky about the details.
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February 2008
by Katy Boegel
It's getting light now at six a.m. when I step out the door to walk the 40 steps to the back door of my store. After a wet January, February has brought more snow and some sledding for the kids. As usual for us, the snow has changed over to some kind of wet precipitation. Drifts are high in places but the ground is bare in others and the roads are just waiting for the temperature to drop a few degrees to turn to ice. Yesterday was a gorgeous winter day on the island. The snow had yet to melt and a rare calm day left us covered with layers of snow on the trees and houses. When I opened the store yesterday morning I felt as if I were inside that Rockwell Kent painting of the sunrise on snow covered Manana. Today all is gray as we wait for the next storm.
Opening the store this time of year consists of making coffee, turning on the lights, and unlocking the door. I make sure the pad of paper is on the counter and a pen for customers to write down their purchases. I usually have my little dog Macy with me for her morning constitutional and then it's back in the house to watch the news and wait for the kids to wake up. It's quite a contrast from the summer, when I'm out there at six stocking produce, prepping the sandwich unit, making mental notes of what I need to order that day, and several times a week putting chickens on the rotisserie. Today I was excited to see that I almost have running water in the sink in the store. I know the temperatures are going to drop this afternoon but I may have a window of opportunity to wash the floor and fill up my water jugs for the coffee. I purposely did not order anything for Monday delivery tomorrow because storm warnings are posted with gusts to fifty, so a boat from Port Clyde looks iffy at best.
We have had many missed boat runs this winter. It seems at least once a week. They always make it up the next day. With mail coming and going only three times a week, boat days take on a high level of importance. Needless to say the storms also effect the lobstering. Fishing days are few and far between. It's not unusual for them to go seven to ten days without hauling. I remember the days without electricity and phones and I'm grateful for my satellite dish, phone and computer.
To fill the time between boats there is knitting group, a book club at the library, poker nights and movie nights. I know the people who go to these things but I don't do any of them. I'm home with the husband and kids. We usually watch the most recent Netflix before dinner. After dinner there are baths or showers. These days my boys will play poker after supper with their Dad and Wolfie and I watch some reality show after Nathan goes to bed. Wolfie waits for me to fall asleep so he can stay up later. The odds are in his favor since I have been up since 4:30 or 5:00.
And so the winter trudges on. Days between storms I spend clearing out the trash that has accumulated during the last bout of wind. I spend my time when the kids are in school doing my taxes by the coal stove, watching the travel channel on the dish or a movie. At times it seems like a forced hibernation. The elements are often against going out for a walk and a trip inshore seems unattainable. I am content to stay here, watching low pressure systems rapidly intensify in the Gulf of Maine.
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