by Sarah Gordon, Star Arts Chair

At 22, with no island heritage to speak of, I became a Shoaler.

I grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, but had never known of the Isles of Shoals. It was after my cousin and father took a day trip to the Isles of Shoals that I first heard of this beautiful area hidden in quite plain sight (at least on clear days). My father and cousin spent the breezy afternoon in Gosport Harbor feeding seals and wondering at the bustling microcosm of a town just off the stern.

My father’s descriptions got me so interested that, a couple weeks later, I made the same trip up to the Isles with him and my sister.

Although I was a stranger to those there, I found that Star Island’s natural beauty and the energy exuded by the people who walked its paths filled me with a sort of vigor that strengthened with each breath and each step. The sounds – and incredible absence of sounds – both filled my mind and emptied it at the same time.

We wandered around the perimeter on the rocks, where we had a quick picnic lunch, caught some poison ivy, fled some mother seagulls, and then found our way into the stone village. Here, out of the din of the waves smashing on the rocks, conversation and music emanated from the quaint yet beautifully-constructed buildings and the zenith-sited chapel.

For the next two years, the three of us chose a summer day, as well as a couple of back-up days in the event of fog or rain, to trek up to Star Island. Each time, the magnetic pull of the island became stronger. The paradoxes inherent in its existence – strength and vulnerability, community and isolation, peace and franticness – intensified in my mind and body with each trip. I wanted to, had to, become a part of this community.

My sister and attended Star Arts in 2005 – her, to paint, and me, to write – and we have returned nearly every year since. However, just as one day was not enough of an island fix, after years, one week no longer sufficed for me. That elusive, paradoxical, magical rejuvenation on spiritual, creative and mental levels was something that I craved more and more of throughout the year. I longed to learn everything there is to know about the inner workings of Star Island, thinking that with more knowledge I would be able to finally put my finger on what exactly it is about that place that conjures and reveals you at your absolute best.

In 2013, I was blessed to be hired as a manager for the Shops on Star, and I got to spend the summer fully entrenched in a distinctive type of Star Island experience and community. Although markedly different from a guest experience, from the first day at this summer home, I felt the familiar energy that Star Island imbues – but I saw it now radiating in those who work there. The love and dedication that the senior Pel staff had for Star Island emanated in everything that they did, and it spread through the ranks of rookies and veterans alike, and then on to conferees and day guests. Nowhere else have I seen people work so tirelessly and with such patience and joy.

While working, I spent my days greeting people from all over the country and, as the conference season passed along, discovering the traits that all Shoalers share – including honesty, compassion, spirituality, and generosity. As the paradoxes of the island unfolded and revealed more questions than answers, I savored the opportunity to learn and unfold myself.

The summer passed with incredible haste, but has imprinted me with a sense of music, peace and beauty that I can call upon any time. What a privilege it is for all of us to call Star Island a home. It could be that being so assuredly able to call this beautiful place “home” is the evocative force that reveals our best possible selves.

by Kristin Laverty, International Affairs Family Conference

I’ll start from the beginning. My father attended some of the first family conferences in the 50’s with his parents, and that is how my family began our connection to Star Island. (Not to brag, but my grandmother is quoted in Fred McGill’s “Something Like A Star” …I kid you not!) My first Star experience was in the late 70’s when I was 10 years old and attended my first International Affairs conference. I knew right away that this tiny island was a special place. From the White Island Light horn to lime rickeys to a sense of total freedom, I was hooked. Since then Star is a place my family and I return to again and again, and it is a place that makes one want to give back as much as one gets.

I’m a third-generation Shoaler. And I’ve given birth to a fourth-generation Shoaler. My father facilitated the donation of “The Bakery Truck” (may it rest in peace.) My brother was a Pel for seven seasons, starting as butter-cutter and ending as head Maintaineer. My grandparents have a stone in the Memorial Garden. My mom has volunteered in the laundry. I am a devout contributor to the Annual Fund. Star Island is in our bones and in our blood. Star Island has given us memories and experiences and friends that could not have been made anywhere else.

My Star experience culminated with five seasons as the Island Registrar from 2006-2010. From June to September, I did my very best to make sure that everyone who laid their heads on a Star Island pillow was housed in the most appropriate and comfortable room possible. Most of this time I was able to share with my son Griffin, thanks to good-natured and talented caregivers like Star’s own Kyle Belmont! Griffin grew up as a Star Island “feral child,” knowing all the ins and outs of the place, all along accompanied with his partners-in-crime Lily and Joey Watts.

Nothing can replace or surpass these experiences for myself or my family. Nothing can replace Star.

If you would like to share your history with Star and take part in our ongoing #ShoalerVoices posts, please email ambassadors@starisland.org

by Sally Hamburger, Life on a Star

I have been coming to the Life on a Star conferences for 45 years now, and obviously I love every part of it. Well, maybe not the poison ivy. My favorite spot is the chapel in the early morning. Starting every day there sets my outlook for the whole week; I only wish my home church could do the same.

I started to come to Star Island to connect with old friends, I kept coming because my children insisted, and now it really has become “my spirit’s home”, as corny as that sounds. But Star has taught me that corny is okay, that serious and grim are two different things, that trying and failing is better than not trying at all. Star keeps me learning and thinking even as it challenges me physically. May it be here forever.

By Kate Leigh, Massage Therapist
First a little about my her-story with Star Island. I used to come out here as a child. My family went to the Unitarian church. Star Island happens to have a strong affiliation with this church group as well as some others. The island is part of a group of islands, spanning the border between New Hampshire and Maine. Star falls on the NH side. I grew up in Massachusetts, so we drove up to Portsmouth to catch a boat out. Some people come here from all over the world though. The island group is known collectively as the Isles of Shoals. I first came here around 1965, or perhaps earlier, and continued to visit Star Island for a week each summer until I graduated high school.

After 1969, I traveled and various things happened in my life. Eventually they lead me back to the east coast and to New Hampshire, where I have lived since 1982. So I naturally gravitated out to the Shoals. In the lore of these islands, when you have been coming out for a long time, you are an Old Shoaler. That’s me.

Star Island is the conference island and has a big old hotel to house its many guests during the summer season. All the old grand hotels in the days of the Shoals have burned down, all but this one, which has been brought up to acceptable fire safety standards.

I now come to the island as a massage therapist, on duty to serve the people who travel out for various types of conferences, as well as the gentle people who maintain and run the island throughout the season. Sometimes I am called upon to work very hard, maybe seeing twice as many people as I would see on the mainland in a week. I thrive on being so busy, and I take it as a challenge to take extra good care of my self!

The Shoals are old, nobody knows their exact age. They have several large cairns, piles of shards of stone, around their outer edges, whose origin and purpose are speculated to have something to do with sightings from approaching ships, but they are a part of the mystery. Some of the islands, the largest ones of which are maybe 50 plus acres, were heavily populated in the old days of fishing industries. The people who lived here then were hardy souls, rebels from the main, who wanted the hardships of freedom as their daily fare. Gradually, civilizing influences such as spirituality entered in to their populations.

The real denizens of this place are the fish and the birds. The quantities of fish may have diminished, but the birds, especially the gulls, survive. There is little vegetation beyond a scruffy covering of wild rose, bayberry, and sweet fern, except the results of efforts to cultivate flowers and vegetables seasonally, by the lovers of this place. Few trees can strike roots through the granite ledge to do well out here. But there is plenty of rock. The rock has been the carving stone for the seas, which has sculpted these isles and their harsh lines.

Even in my lifetime, I have seen so many people come and go and come again, that I acknowledge the drawing power of these rocks in the sea. In fact, part of the Star Island lore is the chant, ritually sung to departing ships, “You will come back” and arriving vessels, too “You did come back”, from the long stone pier that juts out on the island’s north face.

As their massage therapist this week, busy every day with them, I watch the world from my large breezy window facing the harbor. I listen to their stories, whether they be returning or here for the first time, whether they be young or old or in between.

My room is spartan, like the rest of the rooms in the old hotel. It’s simplicity is reinforced by my hands on their skin with oils I make from plants, with the vibrations I can offer to instill in their tissues, uniting them by the delicate threads of caring with nature and the elements of the surroundings. It is an enhancement, having nothing to do with life’s gaudy trappings. We have chosen this dropping away from the mainland, no traffic or parking headaches, basic meals are laid before us three times a day, water is conserved, conversation with each other is sought, meaning enters in again.

As the week grows long, as it takes its sweet time unfolding, as the people rise early to catch a glimpse of sunrise, or sit on the western edge to devote their eyes to the setting sun, as we sometimes watch a lightening show grow across a huge sky, untethered and free, our faces change. We appear as we were before life wrung the smoothness out of us, and exchanged our smiles for stress lines and wrinkles. We rise early, when it is quiet, except for the din of the gulls, like a parallel community here, and we dip our feet in the ocean, a baptism of ourselves by nature’s lifting and falling water levels, constantly refreshed.

I was getting ready for bed last night, having walked down the hall to the third floor’s communal bathrooms. We accustom ourselves to seeing strangers brushing their teeth, washing up there. A woman came out of the door to one especially large stall, which is from the original lay-out of the hotel and has not been modernized yet. The modernization comes with the passage of time and the necessity for replacing worn-out structures. Some of the other communal bathroom areas have already undergone these renovations. But this large bathroom has a huge open window facing the south west. The view of the ocean, slapping about the curved shoreline, is arresting. She came out with a huge smile on her carefree face, a woman only slightly known by me, as there are maybe three hundred people on island during a busy conference week. I was standing at the sink with a toothbrush in my mouth. She beamed at me and simply said, “I love this bathroom!” That is Star Island.

by Aaron Hamburger, Life on a Star

I first came to Star Island in 1969. I have returned for 45 years primarily because after the second year, my wife and three daughters demanded it. I come again and again for the people, emotional and intellectual stimulation and the beautiful surroundings.

Perhaps my peak experience at Star was when my wife and I were given the opportunity to chair a conference (LOAS 1979). We spent a year deciding on a theme, workshops and evening events, recruiting personnel, planning all the programs and then running a successful conference. It was a memorable year.

A characteristic of the Star Island community is that almost every everyone enthusiastically says “yes” when asked to volunteer for an assignment.

My favorite place on Star Island is East Rock. While the waves are pounding the rocks below, I look over the ocean and almost see England.

Sometimes I think of Star Island as my home and my mainland home as just a place to live until I can return to Star.

Share your memories and thoughts of Star Island in our ongoing #ShoalerVoices posts by emailing ambassadors@starisland.org.