My Love Affair with Maine

When I was in college, I had a housemate Tim who’d spent his summers working on an island off the coast of Maine where his friend Erica’s mother was busy rebuilding one of those old “camps” that were popular vacation spots at the turn of the 20th century. Tim didn’t merely wax poetic about Maine. He dripped epics that made me want to jump into my beat-up old Nissan Sentra and attempt the 15+-hour drive to the border the way Sir Thomas Malory makes me want to mount a horse (although I can’t ride) and castle ruin hop around the British Isles.

My first trip to Maine, however, was not to Tim’s idyllic island. It was to the Oxford Speedway with my brother and other friends. Now, before you start picturing me as some pouffy-haired, obese, tobacco-chewing, NASCAR nut, I have to tell you: I’m not. We went there to see The Grateful Dead. Of course, now you can picture me as some dreadlocked, skinny, Indian-skirt-wearing, strung out “twirler.” I’m not one of those, either. I just happen to really, really, really love the way Jerry Garcia played guitar. He’d stand up there on stage the way the rest of us would sort of stand around watching something amusing, only his hands weren’t shoved in his pockets. His hands were holding a guitar that was doing some absolutely amazing things. I went to see him as many times as was conveniently possible, as I was always convinced, since he didn’t exactly live a healthy life, he was going to die soon, and I wouldn’t get to see him again. He eventually did just that.

Anyway, getting to see Jerry Garcia play guitar is enough to get someone like me to wax poetic. Getting to see him play guitar, sitting in a field surrounded by the gentle rolling hills and mountains of Maine, every once-in-while looking up to see the massive Maine sky, where all the stars obviously go to vacation, since so many more of them seem to hang out up there than anywhere else I’ve ever been (when they’re not vacationing in New Mexico, that is)? Well, that’s enough to make me drip epics. But I won’t. Trust me. You don’t want me to do that.

The following year was the year I visited Tim’s island for the first time. I thought I was in love after that initial trip, but that year, Maine pulled out all the stops for me. That rustic little vacation would have been marvelous with nothing more than the mere exploration of the little island (to which we had to take a lobster boat, as there was no bridge), as well as the surrounding islands (which we visited by canoe); lying around on beach chairs and reading; playing Dictionary; telling ghost stories; and eating freshly-caught lobster, cooked on the beach. But then Maine decided to show me the Northern Lights for the first time in my life, and, well, no one needs to be told what it’s like to lose your virginity to your first real love. There’s no turning back.

A couple of years later, I moved in with a friend whose brother lived in the Portland area. She’d quite obviously lost her virginity to Maine, too, and we were both reduced to giggling schoolgirls whenever under its spell. We’d save our money and travel up to Portland and Freeport every chance we got, both insisting we’d move there one day. She did. I’m still waiting for the day when I can.

It’s no surprise that Bob’s and my first vacation together was to Maine. We rented a cabin on Sebago Lake, and I proceeded to introduce him to all the reasons I so loved this state. That vacation, I suppose, wasn’t too dissimilar from any first vacation between two passionate people. We laughed our heads off, marveled at the beauty all around us, enjoyed getting to spend every waking minute with each other for the first time since meeting, and one day had a massive fight (over whether or not one should brush one’s teeth before eating breakfast or after. You know, one of those really important things that couples fight about) that had me packing my suitcase and insisting I was taking the bus back, because there was no way I was spending any time in a car alone with him. We got over that moment, somehow, and by the time we left, Bob was talking about wanting to move to Maine, too, and I (the woman who was not going to get married) was beginning to think I could spend the rest of my life with this guy. Maine will do that to you.

We got married and honeymooned in Hawai’i, where Bob infected me with his passion for scuba diving, and poor Maine was left out in the cold (an appropriate place for a state described as having two seasons, “Winter nine months of the year and three months of damn poor sledding”), as we took vacations to the Caribbean, and one to Great Britain. People do dive in Maine, but I’m not one of them. I like my diving to take place in warm water where I can see more than a foot in front of my face.

We returned to Maine the year we got Lady and decided we wanted her to be able to join us on vacation. It turns out Acadia National Park allows dogs, so we chose this area of the state where neither one of us had ever been. Not only was Maine forgiving of our neglect, but we were welcomed back with open arms. Discovering Acadia was like living with a man for five years and having him say to you on your fifth anniversary together, “I’ve got a castle in Scotland with a full staff, and I’d like you to come share it with me.” That did it. We don’t care how unfaithful Maine may or may not be, enticing others to the kind of love we feel; we’ll be forever faithful.

After spending yet another glorious week there, the Acadia epic is just dying to come out now, but again, I’ll spare you. You can write your own when you come visit us one day,when we're old and gray, in our cabin on the water in Southwest Harbor.