July 2, 2003
-
Maine
We left the city under stifling heat, creeping our way along 93 with a host of fellow traffic-travelers and friday escapees. In the face of all aridity, we declared that if we managed to amiably survive the snarl, then we could manage just about anything together. Once Boston had slunk away behind us and we felt the open road and sea breezes before us, we knew for sure we were made to be traveling companions.
Portsmouth offered us a view of tugboats and bonsai trees and a slew of toys, and we peered starry eyed into gallery windows and glass objets d’art. Solace and iridesence marked the evening by sunset, and in that light we sipped rum and ginger beer and plotted what toys we would buy to wreak havoc upon the world. I also met some very rude ducks. Then we turned north again and wandered up Route 1, slipping into Maine under cover of dark.
Butterscotch tastes best at 11 pm in the middle of an adventure. We talked about sultry things and silly things, and stopped for ice cream along the way. Then on though Portland, sugar high and sleepy, along the dark seaside roads with their buttoned-up antique shacks and sleeping tourist traps, into Camden.
At the crest of a hill we met the Maine police. Do not mess with the Maine Police. They will stop you and scold you, very very sternly, but we were polite, so we got a nothing more than a “good evening” and a furrowed look from the lady trooper. We were sent along our merry way. Luck was apparently following us, and we chalked it up to another good omen.
Ha. Or so we thought. We arrived in the dead of the night at the door of our would-be cottage, only to find the proprietors had gone to bed and we were stranded in the middle of the night with nowhere to sleep. Between the sugar and the miles gone by and the aforementioned sultry conversation, there was nothing more we wanted than a place to bunk down. Despite all of our desperate bell ringing and phone dialing (@$%&! cell phone battery died) and scampering about, it was apparent our luck had gone the same way as the dead flattened something or other i had seen on the median a mile back. So, exhausted and desperate and worried, we turned south to Camden again.
Dead smack in the center of town there is a quaint little spot with a maze of lopsided rooms for rent, and we snagged a suite for ourselves. By three AM we had bathed, had a good pillowfight, and soothed ourselves into sleep. Morning brought us free coffee and a map and some strawberries, and we spent the morningtime watching boats on the pier in the sunshine. We then got ourselves a little lost on some farmland back roads, and marveled at the lupine and the wobbly barns. We schemed and collaborated as we went along, and the light and the fresh air made me happy.
We stopped at Perry’s Nut House after whooping it up along route 1 to whatever wierdness i had brought along for music, and there we goofed around with plastic flamingos and dinosaurs and ridiculous looking candy. We left with two plastic dinosaurs after finding a common love for childhood palentology, and in a few minutes were at the door of our long lost cottage. We flung open the windows to let in the sea air, and soon enough found ourselves sprawled out in a grand nap, where we spent most of the afternoon. Naps, we decided, are almost as important as:
- chocolate
- dinosaurs
- good music
- architecture
- adventures
- & lots of other things
Dinner at the Chocolate Grill happened after an evening wandering in the wrong direction (ahh, but wherever you go, that’s where you are.), where we bonded over a rare and mutual love for pineapple on our pizza, and a similar sense of metaphysics and philosophy. We both knew karma had something to do with everything we had done and seen, and lead us to each other, and the chocolate souffles before us. By midnight we had taken our peace with the universe and fell asleep in our cottage. The plastic dinosaurs watched over us from the dresser.
We didn’t want to leave. We even dreamed up a plot to move to belfast and rip down barns and open a restaurant and paint fiberglass bears or buy a boat or something, so we wouldn’t have to go back to the ordinariness. But is it so ordinary? Together we make things extraordinary, wherever we wander, wherever we rest, wherever we think or listen or create. We were official cohorts, schemers, connivers, and adventurers. So Southwards again, over hill and dale, past lakes and old tractors and gull shadows, and sea-meadows, leading to Portland.
I found books. One is about a mouse that makes a boat, and a new copy of the Arabian Nights. If i had a hundred and fifty dollars, I would have loved the antique version of Schherazade’s tale with the art nouveau illustrations, but no dice. So we peered over one another’s shoulders at architecture books and cookbooks and children’s stories, and after having our fill of all things literary, we plunked ourselves down in a cafe across the way. I recall a distinct moment of peace over chai and raspberry cream soda, and next to me i think i found a similar spirit.
It helps to travel with someone who is brave. I think i may have met my hero. Sure, the car wouldn’t start when we got to the garage where we parked, but we had plenty of candy and the natives at the loading dock were terribly nice. We negotiated our way out of the sticky situation. I was nervous about the whole difuglety, but somehow together we managed okay, got the car going, went on our way. I think I found someone who gives me the gumption to do what i thought i could not, but also offers me the comfort to show my vulnerability. I thought about this in the quiet moments along our ride home (and in the dining room at Yoken’s Thar She Blows! Restaurant with the giant neon whale sign outside), how important it is to make the most of the people near you, to learn from the things you find love in, and most of all to be happy with oneself.
And then i was home again.
- chocolate
Comments (1)
YOU WENT TO BELFAST! AND BANGOR! you were on MY TURF!!!!!!!!!