When I moved to the Island 15 years ago for a summer job, everything I owned fit into the back of my 1989 Ford Taurus station wagon. Including myself. As an adventurous twenty-something I would often crawl in the back to sleep when I was traveling, and then sometimes in between seasonal rentals here on the Island. This drove my parents crazy.

That summer I was at the Ag Fair sitting in the hot sun on the bleachers watching the woodsman’s competition. They were throwing axes. And something in that specific moment I knew — I have to live here. I have to live in a place that does this for fun. Annually. There’s a certain quality about Martha’s Vineyard that’s incredibly difficult to put into words that seems to capture us in a way that is equally difficult to put into words. But that certain something captured me that day and I made the decision to live here.

I moved no less than eight times during my first two years on the Island. I lived in a condemned second-story apartment on Main street with an old dumbwaiter serving as a makeshift closet. I lived through the bulkhead doors of a basement where a bookshelf served as the wall separating the “rooms” between me and the man living on the other side of the basement. And I camped in October — my Rip Van Winkle wool cap pulled down tight over my head, going to sleep at 7:30 because it was simply too cold to stay awake. And I worked an equal number of different jobs. Living in a seasonal economy means that we change when the seasons change. So when I wasn’t practicing massage therapy, I was working early mornings as a baker at Back Alley’s, doing bookkeeping on the side, working as a line cook at the Chappy Beach Club, baking at the old Shiretown Inn in Edgartown.  I eventually landed the next most coveted item on Martha’s Vineyard — a year-round, full-time job — at the Farm Institute.  That same year I met the man who would later become my husband. And there was a perk — he had year-round housing.

We moved in together, got married and lived in a rambling cottage in the woods in West Tisbury which we affectionately called the Love Shack. It was funky and Vineyard-y, but it was old and sort of composting down around us. As a newly-married couple we made a decision — we needed a home. So we went to the Island Housing Trust, talked with Philippe and asked, how do we do this? To start with, there was a three-hour meeting packed with 300 people. My immediate thought was, all of these people need housing? We will never get a home! Each lottery required about two to three hours of paperwork. But we did it. Waiting in standing-room only selectmen’s meetings, fingers crossed, hearts thumping in our chest as they pulled names out of a house (not a hat, but a house) to see who would be the lucky lottery winner. Our third time was a charm. We were the first name pulled for the West Tisbury affordable housing cluster in 2010. We were first-time home buyers. We were over the moon.  Anyone who owns a home knows what I am talking about.

A few years later luck handed us another opportunity. After a particularly grueling day of work, I came home and said out loud to my husband, “What if I could just make pie for a living? If I could just make pie every day everything would be so much better.” The very next day my husband, Drew, came home from work and said, “My friend Bob has a commercial kitchen he said you can use. You should give him a call.” Four months later Pie Chicks opened for business.

Three years into our startup, the support of the Island community is astounding. I now can employ a year-round full-time pastry assistant and currently have five full-time seasonal employees at the kitchen. I am grateful every day for the opportunity to do what I love.

So imagine if you will— a farmers’ market without pies, without tomatoes, local eggs, a Chilmark Flea without our talented, funky artists. That certain something about the Vineyard that is so hard to put into words, we know what it feels like when we see it and it’s why we all keep coming back here. We all know what it feels like to come home.

This speech was delivered at the annual fundraising brunch for the Island Housing Trust early this month.