No man is an Island

My friend Stewart disagreed with my premise that Nantucket was an island and Bermuda was an island but Siesta Key was not. I looked this up on Wikipedia and they say that an island is any piece of subcontinent that is surrounded by water. It can still be described as such despite the presence of a land bridge or causeway. Some places retain island in their names for historical reasons after being connected by a wide land bridge. Manhattan Island is a prime example, even though it has so many entrances and exits that from above, it looks suspended like a basketball net by bridges and tunnels.

That might be the formal definition but I wish to state the opposing case. As soon as you make it easy for people to get to "an island" by car or by walking, the whole nature of a place changes. It can historically change in reverse when a peninsula becomes an island by the creation of a water separation such as what happened to divide England from France with the English Channel. (SARUM by Edward Rutherford) I believe that to define an island one must understand its "islandness" not just topographically but culturally. The island zeitgeist is dependent upon its being inaccessible and the end result is that the place becomes "insular" (that means island in Latin). In English, there is an adjectival form "insulated," which means that it is less affected by outside influences; kind of like a down L.L. Bean jacket insulates you from the cold. The presence of a bridge, particularly one that is short enough that you can hold your breath until you get to the other side, doth not an island make. Siesta Key is such a place.

It takes at least an hour to get to Nantucket no matter how you get here. People come by ferry and airplane and some stay for a day, some for a season, and some forever. You meet people every day who seem to be left behind in the 19th century. The streets and private walkways are a constant cue of its otherness... cobbled and uneven... it is as if personal injury lawyers do not exist.

Anyway, when we moved to Siesta Key in 1976 it was more of an island. Even though the bridges have not grown shorter, the place is no longer the isolated barrier island that sits in the Gulf away from the influences of the mainland. It has not been left to continually develop its own personality. Proximity and ease of access has lead to that loss. In my humble opinion, it is the barrier to travel and outside influence that makes an island an island, and not the mere presence of water 360 degrees around it.