Let me write of my love affair with Midcoast Maine. Today I sat at the edge of the ocean, watching water pull and crawl upon the sand with foamy white edges. It moved like me: arriving, departing, returning, departing. There is something deeply spiritual about this place. I’ve looked inland. I’ve looked an hour down the coast. I’ve looked upon the opposite ocean and across the sea. Nothing else feels quite like this.
One thing I’ve noticed while driving cross-country, is that much of the American Town feels quite the same. Accents and clothing are different for sure, but nearly every city of a certain size is filled with the same set of chains and box stores. It’s a helpful thing when you need an item and can walk through a door, knowing the general layout without having ever stepped foot there before. But it makes the world feel a little less special. Life loses flavor when everything shares the same spices. I prefer the surprises of meandering through an antique shop. Oh, there is a glass eye. Yes, just next to the broaches.
I don’t want life to be hurried. I lived and worked long enough tossing around that dreadful phrase, “I’m crazy-busy.” Why? Why fill so many things into a day that you lose your chance to step outside and inhale the air and feel the sun? That you cannot read more than a headline, because taking the time to fully understand or appreciate complex thought is less important than squeezing in an extra obligation?
This place speaks to me in a slower, smoother language. Busy means taking a class, visiting community lectures, attending an exhibition. Even those pesky “must-dos” like a car repair are a little lighter on the shoulders. I pulled over at the service station on the top of the hill as I first arrived in town. Deep blue eyes and a New England cadence got me moving again, no charge and asked me to come back Thursday morning for a checkup. I almost asked “what time,” but swallowed the words as I remembered that this place moves at a different pace.
I walked down to the coffee shop that Thursday morning after dropping off my car. The owner here has made a special batch of muffins just for me after I inquired about a recipe she used a few years prior. I sat and squinted, trying hard to focus on my book, but was too enraptured by the artist nearby who eventually packed up his paint-stained canvas bag and walked out with a portable etching press beneath his arm. I quietly adored another man, clearly a regular, as I’d seen him nearly everytime I visited and he often hopped tables to chat with someone else. The way he jumps in his chair with a jolt of surprise each time a message buzzes on his phone reminds me of a Fraggle. One day I saw him at a coffee shop the next town over and felt a little disappointed that there was no buzzing that day.
Another familiar face: once spotted strolling through happy hour, looking dashingly bold, if not something like a sea captain. On another day, he sat in the back of a battered pickup truck with a driftwood horse in the bed. When I experienced this place for the first time, I was overcome with excitement when I found familiarity all around. Now I’m slightly embarrassed by how much I went on about bumping into so-and-so at such-and-such. To me, it felt like a rare coincidence, and only time would help me realize that this is one of the pleasures of living in a small town.
I love how I can round a bend to find friends strolling down the sidewalk. I love getting coffee from the actor I watched on stage. I love being in a community, not fully my own, where a stranger nods and smiles as a puff of shaggy, black curls walks by his side. I love knowing names of people I’ve never met. I love seeing their work hanging on walls. I love feeling like I belong here because, until now, I’ve never really felt I belonged anywhere.
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