The Vineyard has always been a place apart from mainland America. Perhaps that has never been more true than this week when the country changed course overnight by electing a president who has pledged to be a wrecking ball to values most Islanders hold dear — chief among them respect for people of all colors, genders and walks of life. One can only pray that the overheated rhetoric of the campaign will cool in the long days ahead and compassion will find its way back into the national psyche.

For months leading up to the election there has been anger and divisiveness, much of it played out over electronic devices, that even seven miles of water can’t keep away, filling us alternately with outrage, fear and sadness. A couple of short days after the election, shock and disbelief still linger. Conversation is muted and inadequate.

Thoughts drift back to the 1970s and the secession movement, a spirited time on an Island full of youth and vibrancy that in hindsight today all seems so innocent.

It’s tempting to say, let’s pull up the drawbridge and go it alone. But we know better, and the reality is sobering.

On Tuesday the Island that has proudly hosted the first family for eight straight summers voted heavily up and down the ballot for Democrats. Hillary Clinton took seventy one per cent of the Island vote; voters re-elected a Democratic congressman, ushered in Democrats as sheriff and register of deeds and welcomed two young new Democratic legislators, Julian Cyr for state senate and Dylan Fernandes for state representative.

The latter are brimming with youthful enthusiasm for fixing the well-known problems that plague the district: the opioid crisis, the lack of affordable housing, the threats to our natural environment.

We look proudly at how our little Island has taken these and other issues head-on. Health and community service advocates meet weekly now to identify and fill gaps in addiction services; the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, towns and conservation groups are doing the thankless work of balancing development with resource protection. A task force has undertaken an Islandwide effort toward a comprehensive housing plan. This work is done in halls and meeting rooms, at night and on weekends, with a sometimes hostile public on hand to argue and protest at every turn. Mostly, the outcomes are decided on town meeting floor, where democracy plays out in all its messiness.

Then we wonder at our 2,476 neighbors and colleagues who were moved to vote for Donald Trump. Who are they, and what America do they see where so much needs to be dismantled, locked up or secured by walls?

We need to understand, so we can begin to find a way to live together in the new order. We need to understand, and maybe we can start doing that tomorrow, when the pain recedes.

As the election took the country by storm and left many reeling and feeling untethered, for two days this week an unusually calm weather pattern prevailed on the Island. On Wednesday afternoon, ponds and harbors were flat and glassy, reflecting their surroundings: wooden buildings shuttered for the winter, an occasional lone rowboat turned turtle in the marshy edge. Gulls swooped and cried.

The next day gusty winds returned, a reminder that living on an Island requires a hardiness all its own.