Generation Gap? Great!

Star Island, located in the Isles of Shoals, eight breezy miles off the coast of New Hampshire, is quite possibly the most perfect place I know. The Life On A Star (LOAS) I conference where Tanya has been going with her family for mid-August vacations since she was eight, is run by the most fun-loving and humanitarian group of people one could ever hope to meet: a giddy bunch of Unitarian Universalists who sing like nobody's watching, and love like they've never been hurt.

Our week was filled with the usual variety of stimulating and relaxing activities, family time, and a refreshing dearth of technology. The weather was the best I can remember it being since I became a Star Island regular in 2002. Sunshine, warm mild Atlantic breezes and an absence of rain (in a northeast U.S. summer characterized by heaps of it) amplified the calls of cruising seagulls, the repetitive yet soothing lighthouse bell from neighboring White Island, and the joyful cries of LOAS I's conferees.

T and Fee

New friend Julia and Sophia doing some research

Tanya pulling a bow

As usual, I reveled in the unlimited feeding frenzy that comes with healthy family-style meals, consumed in a loud dining room with 300 friends of all stripes, shapes, and sizes. I satisfied my need to perform in front of a crowd by hosting the 2013 LOAS I talent show, and even busted out some homespun hip-hop, with a new friend who happened to be a 12-year-old kid named Jamie who could beat box like Matisyahu. I took an improv theater class with Tanya, which amounted to some of the most fun I've ever had (and Tanya, by the way, is AMAZING at it!). I attended daily theme talks by Anna Sale, a charismatic and engaging NPR political reporter, about listening and empathy, topics that could benefit every last one of us. It was nourishing in so many ways.

Every time I go to Star Island, I return home having learned something new. The one aspect of this year's experience that struck me most was the seamless melding of generations that happens in our tiny island microcosm of what is, to me, a veritable utopia.

Babies bond with baby boomers; septuagenarians sing with school-agers; toddlers tie-dye with teenagers, all with the ease of long-lost relatives connected by a fluid even thicker than blood. From before we boarded the Thomas Laighton ferry in Portsmouth harbor, and extending until the very last tearful goodbyes seven days later, young and old mixed as smoothly as salt and, er, water.

The genesis of The Wheelers

Ella and Dawn Elane...plucky ladies

Dave and Ella jamming on the porch

In a world too often filled with arbitrary, unnecessary and hurtful borders between ages, races, sexes and just about any other attribute one decides to isolate, Star Island offers a soul-cleansing experience consisting of the exact opposite. From polar dipping in 52 degree water at 7 am until the final note of a serenade to the setting sun 13 hours later, and back round to being woken up by singers outside your room the following day—for breakfast this morning...cheesy omelettes!—everyone is invited. Yes, kids spend a few hours a day with their own age groups, and adults have a late afternoon "social hour" which includes a beverage or two and grown-up conversation. But for the most part, the Star Island community is a team of humans who don't pay attention to the artificial boundaries that shackle us during the other 51 weeks of the year, generation gaps included.

The most glaring example for me was watching my 10-year-old literally form a band. Ella had intended to sing and play a song on her guitar for the talent show, and would have been content to do it alone. But within minutes of boarding the boat, she had recruited our old friend and fiddle-aficionado David Whitford to her gig. Within hours and then days, the Wheelers were created, with the finished product including Ella on lead vocals and playing rhythm guitar, David and his fiddle, two mandolins, a ukelele, a banjo, a drum box, and three backup singers (including Sophia, Ella's 7-year-old sister, and a teenage girl named Fiona who never seemed as annoyed as teenagers typically do when forced to spend a week trapped on an island with their mother).

(Note for the video below: Even though the music stand is in the way, the singer/guitar player is in fact Ella, I promise. And the toe-tapping, fiddling dude on the right is David. Trust me. Spielberg, we're not.)

The music was great, and the talent show number was a resounding hit. But the proud papa in me was less impressed with Ella's guitar or singing skills than with my fifth-grader's self-assurance, her ability to bring a group together, and the amazing harmony produced in its wake. Just watching the Wheelers rehearse, my eyes welled up. Ella took polite direction from people over five times her age that she had just met; she gave her opinion, asked questions, and accepted the answers. She practiced very hard, but she also expressed herself when she needed a break. The entire exercise amounted to a balletic and circular display of respect that, like a wagon wheel, neither began or ended.

It just...was.

Perfect.