Smile breathe and go slowly (2010)

Yesterday I returned from three weeks in New England, two of which were spent in Maine's Acadia National Park.  Today in Maryland it is 102 degrees, and if I so much as blink, I perspire. This is saying something coming from someone who would happily spend her life in tank tops and bare feet.   When we left Maine, it was 75 degrees and the air smelled like that wonderful combination of pine needles and ocean. I cried. Several times.  

Upon visiting Acadia, a Brit once quipped with a rueful sigh, "I do wish we had fought harder to keep it."  The meaning of this statement was not lost on me as we celebrated the 4th of July last evening.  Maine is home to me in ways that are inexplicable.  I didn't grow up going there as a child.  I don't have any relatives living there. I can't claim to have visited dozens of times.  But it tugs at my heart and the moment I leave I am mentally putting away part of my paycheck so that I can return next summer. As I unpacked today, I assembled cairns around our house from the stones that Alex and I collected while we were hiking - an odd homage to wayfinding perhaps, but also an important visual reminder to continue navigating my life with the simplicity that can sometimes elude one on a day-to-day basis. 


And this is what I love about my time in Maine. It all starts with how you frame your view. Our view, waking up each morning, was of the harbor. If anyone has had the gift of waking up to a sunrise, and not just noting it and moving on but sitting in the sunrise, well they're on to something. 

The scent of pine and ocean cannot be successfully bottled. It can't and it shouldn't be. What one can do is sit in the moment of sensory bliss. And share it with someone. Because someone else deserves this too, always.

A meal can stretch for hours or minutes. At home, meals are fuel more often than they are sharing a memory. Maine offers the latter. Maine offers shoulders to assume their rightful place (not hunched under the ears in bodily protest).

Mornings are my favorite time of day. And they go slowly. As the arc of sun slips into view, and I am up alone, sipping tea and watching, minutes are pearls. They hold one in quiet reverie: "Sip this up. Sip it slowly. Let it work its way into your heart. Breathe it in."

Breathe it in.