Change On Nantucket

To the editor: Change. If you were doing a crossword puzzle and the clue was “change” you could interpret the word many ways: change of clothes, change of attitude, change of heart, change of looks, or change of the sort that shakes things up and makes us take a second look. That’s kind of what often happens in small desirable places like Nantucket. It’s called gentrification, and we’re led to believe it’s not only inevitable, but desirable.

People who love a place that isn’t home, but a place they return to repeatedly, don’t want it to change in their absence. They know when their favorite stores have disappeared, favorite restaurants have changed ownerships or no longer exist. When we love a place, we do not like it to change. Get ready: Once again, our population is about to swell disproportionately to the number of year-round residents, for a short but desirable few months.

Often changes are explained as “solving problems.” Unfortunately, changes often bring more problems. When we lose our “grit” we run the risk of becoming too much like every other upscale resort town. For the residents, it disturbs our sense of belonging. We’re forced to adapt. Some of us feel displaced during “the season” and the number of “them” exceeds those who live here. And this is why the community within our community is so important.

At the height of the season, when it’s hard to get around and the complaints are rampant, it might seem like the island is filling up beyond where anyone thought it could go. However, despite this, if you live here or have spent a decent amount of time here, you’ve found your community, and it still feels like a small town. The exteriors of the downtown buildings and early homes don’t change even if the interiors of some are sleeker. But when all is said and done, most Nantucket homeowners, both year-round and part-time residents, are still attracted to the style of living here. They furnish their homes in the relaxed way of living that has always defined life on this island. And they still go to the places they love best, even if they’re sometimes forced to discover new favorite places.

Change is inevitable. This is a small town with a sophisticated mentality. Island residents know how to maintain a small-town attitude with the addition of cultural advantages found in a major city. This is a close-knit community and the things that attracted those to live here many years ago haven’t changed. The downtown stores and restaurants are admittedly changing to meet perceived needs. This is, after all, a tourist town and to continue to be attractive to an ever-changing environment, Nantucket is responding and keeping up with the times.

It’s just that many visitors and residents here are nostalgic for the past. Each person simply defines that time in a different way. It all depends on when he or she discovered this island. No matter when we arrived, we want the island to remain as we remember it. Everyone has memories of the past, and Nantucket has always represented a freedom from the things so common to the mainland, for some, a childlike experience of carefree days. Many residents want Nantucket to stay frozen in time, to retain its quaintness as the rest of the world becomes homogenous. We don’t want this island to be like anywhere else on Earth, once we’ve decided it is our own personal Eden. For those who keep returning, however they remember it, that’s the way they want it to stay.

Change is not easy to embrace. But we also like to be the best at whatever we’ve got. So maybe we are in a transition and just maybe what seems like a huge overnight island-wide transformation is just the island moving up a notch and becoming a little fancier than it used to be. In time, we will adapt, as most people do when faced with change. Maybe, just maybe, these changes won’t be so permanent, or maybe they aren’t as monumental as it seems.

Leslie Linsley