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Todd R. Nelson is a former school principal. Since 1998, he has lived, summers and winters, in Penobscot.
“I would really rather feel bad in Maine than feel good anywhere else.” — E.B. White
Time was, August meant departure. It had a shadow hanging over it. Our annual Maine sojourn ended at TSA, flying “home” to Chicago. We disembarked from summer itself at the curb and trudged into the terminal.
The migration back to where we came from was saturated with melancholy. We dutifully emptied our pockets of sand and the emotional savor of our summer lives; placed memories in a safe place in the checked luggage; dragged our sadness down the ramp to September and The Resumption of our “real” lives.
Or, some years, we took the slow route home, driving a jam-packed minivan — three kids, two dogs, sundry bicycles and strollers, and all our beachcombing treasure — heading down the Maine Turnpike to Boston. Are we there yet? No. And even after arrival, we were reluctant to actually be “there.”
Which was the real life: The all-too short stint in Maine, or the remainder of the year in the exile we called normal life?
Each migration started with sorting. What positively must come back with us? A few carefully chosen stones from the beach (considered for karat and character), some shards of pottery, a few shells, clay pipe and glass bottle neck washed up on the collecting shore? There is usually a new maritime chart or ordnance survey map, sundry postcards, new books from the local store; perhaps a commemorative hat: Big Ernie’s Castine Variety. Birch bark. Driftwood. These won’t take up van space nor precious luggage weight limits.
Call it vacation triage: What are this summer’s sacred objects, talismans of time spent away from routine, that must not be left behind. And what can be left behind for rediscovery next summer? What should be tossed back into the sea and trusted to future beachcombers? Difficult decisions. We cleave to our treasures. After all, summer is about collecting, literally and figuratively. Years-worth of summer jars of sand, heart and circle rocks, sit on my shelves even now.
We collect ephemeral moments, too, and they are easily packed and retrieved. The shiver of a fish on the line or the sound of the paddle against the gunwale traversing the pond. Quiet! Don’t spook the fish or the loons! Summer trains our senses to absorb and archive the minutiae of any walk through the woods; of every ice cream cone on the dock; of sunset; thundershower.
Oh, to be in Chicago now that summer’s there. No! Our home thoughts from abroad are the inverse. We know it’s muggy and hot — again — while here on the coast we will have a fire in the fireplace and then consume the daily batch of blueberry muffins. Blueberries will not make it through security and far be it from us to surrender them. We know exactly what to do — bake, then consume the last quarts of this year’s careful picking.
In August, the dreaded “lasts” commence: one more snooze in the hammock; a last walk down to the dock to inventory boats; a final trip to the library to return our summer reading; another pie; another muffin. The tide comes in once more; out once more. The tide of summer goes out. Departure is a grieving/binge-baking process.
Time was, when we arrived home, the inventory continued. There are the summer tan lines, new freckles, and growth to measure and appreciate. Stature too. Each summer away has accomplishments: a new swimming skill or distance, fish landed (size and number), paddling prowess and pebble jar. Somehow, the transitions between home and away highlight accomplishments. Both places are a comparative background to evolution, even for the grown-ups. Maine doesn’t leave you as it found you. In my case, there was always fresh writing inspiration. Canned for the winter, summer thoughts fed my creativity in the cold months away.
Time was, my heart sank as our minivan crested the final hill on Interstate 93 southbound and the metropolis came into view. We were back to the tall buildings, the haze, the concrete, the gridlock, the other migratory beings fighting to swim upstream back to jobs and schools and life on the clock. Or were we swimming downstream? Were we returning from our spawning grounds of summer spent in the generational headwaters of our family — the creativity and languor zone — recharged and ready for a new season back in the big salt pond of suburbia?
Like the forest that wants to reclaim cleared land, our off-summer lives wanted us back. We preferred our summer fields. We strove to keep them open. How did we finally cope, transiting the equinoxes of Maine life and life anywhere else? We stopped living two lives. We stopped being migratory beings.