No trespassing

The shoreline below the sawtooth outline of the ridge embracing the cove is glassy, the rest of the pale waters only lightly ruffled. I lounge on the window seat next to a bay window at dawn, keeping an eye out for migrating gray whales, but this morning there are no spouts, no bow waves.

An apple tree in the narrow front lawn leans toward the cove. The lawn itself ends abruptly in a tangle of vegetation that falls down several hundred feet to the water’s edge. I can’t see the shore below the house but I know from the signs posted at the edge of the tangle and the repeated rules emailed to us and posted in the mansion that we are not allowed to descend here to the water’s edge. Private property lines are strictly enforced. No permission to hike through boundaries.

The eight of us, all responsible, rule-abiding adults, feel slightly insulted by the strict rules that prevent us from crossing over into the neighbors’ property in order to take “their” steps down to the water. We would not pick the flowers and we would not throw down trash and we would not yell and cavort.

But visitors like us are mistrusted, I suppose for good reason. Americans are trained in “to each his own” and not how to behave as good commoners. Some of us foul and wreck what does not belong to us personally. And some of us who enrich ourselves pay little heed to that which enriches all of us. We carve up and subdivide the great natural sweeps of gorgeous earth into small fiefdoms, preferring the small beauty we can own to a larger beauty that we must share.

The brother-in-law who made the arrangements to rent this elegant mansion on an island in Washington’s lace of waterways was interviewed by phone before the deal was settled. Who would be coming, did we smoke, were there any children, where were we coming from, and on and on. In the absence of trust, and common, culturally enforced assumptions about how to behave on other people’s private property, let alone any sense of the commons, we must feel each other out. Usually we sort ourselves out through money. If you can afford to live here you should know how to behave. As for renters and other visitors—well, it’s impossible to jack up prices high enough to exclude riffraff, especially for a group who is sharing expenses. Hence the interview.

In the UK it is possible to hike across the entire country, off road, because of the ancient culture of the commons. Paths cross private pastures, stiles and gates are strategically placed to keep sheep in their proper places and allow people to pass through. Hikers are expected to know how to behave and, I take it, they usually do.

Here, only the crows and bunnies get to trespass.