I come from a suburb out side of Washington DC where anonymity was my middle name. I was the girl who wore improper shoes to go on walks, the woman who took up two spaces in the grocery parking lot because I couldn’t see the lines, the one who spent too much money on a live wreath from White Flower Farm that never made it through the holidays.

But here on the Vineyard everyone is in the spotlight. I see my primary care physician in a downward dog position at the yoga barn. My cleaning lady and I exchanged recipes in the recovery room after our colonoscopies. The gals at Cumbie’s hide the last cold Diet Coke for me. Everyone is familiar. Everyone has a role. Everyone has a story.

So, do I.

As a teen, I wanted to be either a psychologist or a writer. It had to be a helping field — God knows I wasn’t a leader. I had this fantasy of being on a Caribbean Island, standing on a long pier, wind and stars falling in my hair, watching one persistent fish crest, twirl and subside into the blue. Chris DeBurgh’s, The Lady in Red, was playing in the distance. I was barefoot, in a flowy dress when a gentleman with a smooth accent and crisp khaki shorts says, “Dr. Goodwin,” you have a telephone call.

It didn’t turn out that way, but I got the Island part right when my husband and I moved to the Vineyard a few years ago. My kids loved and grown, it was my turn to save the world after saving myself, a job I was well versed in. On the Island I finally got that job in healthcare, my big messy heart finding a home among the healers.

I was part of the body helping people at their most vulnerable moments. At best, I was a toe, a pinkie toe, with an unrelated degree, no observable computer skills and useless if I forgot my reading glasses. What I did have was an unadorned interest and love for the patients — often sold as customer service. I’m old fashioned, I call it kindness.

As is true of all my preconceptions of living on this Island, (winter wonderland, painters, mimes and buskers outside sidewalk cafés,) my “idea” of what Island life would be, and the reality of what it was, has been disillusioning, enlightening, euphoric and transformative.

There are days I have my doubts I am qualified enough to even be a volunteer. I’m a working girl, who happens to be the first face a patient sees when they come through the door with their own aches and mishaps. In this age of remote work, I realize showing up and being present with patients may, indeed, be as necessary as the healing itself.

I like knowing their stories, being told my voice sounds like the waitress at Linda Jean’s and seeing a picture of a new grandbaby. This connection is rarer in this digital age. I like that I get to give my attention and care to a patient who may or may not have another conversation that day.

On this Island, there’s a collective sense of who is ours and I embrace them all. The Vineyard is a small community. It’s my community. It’s our community.

I’ve been the torso and I’ve been the toe, and believe me, when the toe is throbbing, the whole-body aches.

Robyn Goodwin lives in Vineyard Haven.