The ferry wasn’t due for another hour, but a passing small cruiser meant the island had day trippers already wandering the village.
My hands were stained with blue paint, my glasses peppered with speckles as I brandished a roller brush to the ceiling of one of our camping pods. It’s a rare day when the booking sheet is empty and the sun is shining, and not one that can be taken for granted.
“Sorry, are you LifeOnRum?” a voice sounded from my right, and I jumped out of my skin. I hadn’t noticed the lady walking up to the cabin, totally lost in my own thoughts, and her voice broke through the faint sound of waves lapping on the nearby rocks.
She’d been following my Instagram for a while, she said, and loved to escape into this island through my videos and pictures. I can’t say I’m used to it yet, people knowing who I am on this wee island out west.
Since the season began, and particularly since I returned from maternity leave, I must meet around a dozen people each week that recognise me from this column or my social media. I laughed it off with her, suddenly aware of the state of me - hair scraped back, flecks of paint on my cheeks, and the faint smell of bleach in the air from where I’d cleaned the hostel bathrooms not an hour previously. Not exactly the view that people see of me online.
Read more Elle
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But she didn’t seem to notice any of that. It didn’t matter. She was just happy to put a real life face to the one she sees on a tiny phone screen. Since returning from maternity leave, those moments have taken on a slightly different shape. There’s now a small person attached to me most days; in a wrap, on a hip, or chatting away in his pram as we navigate the village roads. And while I’ve shared so much of our life here, one thing I’ve been certain about is keeping his face offline.
It was a quiet decision, but one that I was firm about from the moment he was born. It sits heavily in a world where sharing everything online feels like second nature - particularly when I am building a career on that very notion. He appears in glimpses - the back of his head as he watches the sea, his tiny hand clutching my finger. But never fully.
Sometimes I regret the decision - if you could only see the hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures I’ve taken since he was born six months ago, you’d understand why. I may be biased, but he is without a doubt the most gorgeous baby I’ve ever seen. But it’s important to me that, in a world that is inherently digital, I keep him safe. And it’s always an interesting moment when those who read these words or view my images online meet him in person for the first time.
There’s a pause, after we exchange excited pleasantries and I’ve gone bright red in sheer embarrassment of some really lovely things said about my work, when they realise that the little boy that I write about is real, right there, often a little grumpy thanks to his first tooth. It feels important to me that he gets to choose, one day, how visible he wants to be online. That choice comes with its own oddness. Because while part of me remains deliberately private, another part is, by necessity, quite public. My words are out there each week, my voice, my perspective. There are times it feels slightly exposing, to be known by people I’ve never met.
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But for every moment of self-consciousness, there are ten that feel genuinely lovely. Like that morning with the lady at the cabin. Or the couple who stopped me by the pier to say they’d planned their trip after reading about the island. Or the messages that arrive on days where I need a pick me up, reminding me that these small stories of ours matter to someone, somewhere.
The people who recognise me don’t feel intrusive; they feel curious in the best way. They ask questions, share their own stories, tell me what they’ve loved reading or watching. And more often than not, they remind me why I started writing in the first place.
Island life can be small, in all senses of the word. The same paths, the same faces, but writing - and sharing it - stretches that smallness just enough. It connects this place to others, carries it further than the horizon line we see each day.
Of course, there’s a balance to strike. I don’t always get it right, I’m not sure anyone really does. But I’m learning, slowly, where lines sit and how I play a part in this island’s story. And I’m very glad you’re all on this journey with me.
Elle Duffy lives and works on Rum and writes a weekly column for The Herald
