It's party time
How working hard together brings connection, belonging, and significance
When you tell people your family has two cottages on an island in Maine, it’s easy for them to get the wrong idea.1 I often move quickly to disabuse whatever visions are forming in their minds: yes, the island is picturesque and my very favorite place in the entire world — and the cottages are jointly owned, shared by extended family with different budgets, personalities, and perspectives. Decisions are made by committee, a process that can be painful and slow. The cottages can feel cluttered with over a century’s worth of furniture and decor.
As children, my sisters and I were unaware or unconcerned with these challenges. Our vacations looked different than our friends’, yes, but mostly in ways that felt great to us.
We did have one complaint, however, and that was work parties.2
For as long as I can remember, my Dad has held the belief that for every week spent at our cottages, we should spend two hours working for the cottages. He learned this from his parents, who surely learned it from their parents before them. These two hours are in addition to normal, everyday upkeep (doing the dishes, wiping the table). They could be spent working on a project, like scraping and painting the porch railings, fixing a door, or repairing a boat’s motor. But in our family, because we are relatively young and able (and don’t have very many practical skills TBH), these two hours are almost always spent cutting and hauling brush.3
Both of our cottages have sweeping views, sparkling vistas dotted with verdant islands and stretching out to the open ocean. While they look idyllic, these views are under constant threat. Evergreens, oaks, and bramble fight relentlessly to claw back what we have cleared. And so we must push back relentlessly in return: every year, there are new saplings to uproot, new branches to cut back, new green stuff to drag to a communal burn pile.
From the time we were small, my Dad engaged us in this work: outfitting us with hole-y gloves far too big for our hands, teaching us what could stay and what had to go, showing us the right way to lay the branches so as to make a neat stack. While we grumbled and complained at the outset, preferring to read on our beds or explore tide pools or pick berries or partake in any number of the more choice activities at our fingertips, we were willing workers once the work got underway. And my Dad, to his credit, always kept an eye on the clock, calling us off promptly at the two-hour mark.
You know where this is going, right?
Yes, indeed: as soon as our own children could walk, they were invited to the party. And by invited, I mean compelled to attend.