GONE DOWNEAST

There are many coasts, both inland as well as outland. I haven’t been to all of them, or even to a few. But for getting out of dodge, going on sabbatical, or just hiding out, nothing compares to the rugged North Atlantic coast of Maine. I don’t often leave Northern Michigan-after all, it is where everyone dreams to live-but comes a time when things get too familiar, taken for granted, and frankly…boring. So a spur of the moment decision took us to a great little cottage sitting on a small ridge, about 20 feet from the shore on Sprucehead Island. There is something about the ocean that seems to wash away all that is burdensome, all worries, all grief and pain. It certainly humbles the individual human just to watch the power of even a small storm. It rained heavily this morning. The rain shattered the silence of sleep when it hammered the metal roof of the cabin. The wind roared in off the ocean howling like a snowstorm. Looking through the large picture window to open ocean that spans all the way to Ireland, I watched the waves of the incoming tide, and tried to imagine them in relation to a tsunami. Humbling.

The ocean coast of Maine is almost like a separate state from inland Maine. Here, there is a great deal of hidden wealth from people who are from “away” as the locals call them. They come here on retreat to their grand, cedar shingle sided summer homes from New York, Boston, Connecticut, and, from Canada.  And then, there are the locals who, like us in Bellaire, get their towns and shorelines back after Labor Day. Most of these coastal locals are in fact…lobsterman. Passing the houses going to Rockland and back, you see lobster traps stacked for the winter in nearly every yard as well as colorful hills of lobster buoys…each lobsterman is required to have a unique color for their buoys. In season, when they are all floating in the bays and coves and harbors, the ocean is dotted with hundreds and thousands of floating  buoys of vivid color and it is like looking at Christmas lights and brings a smile always.

In Novemeber, it is gray most mornings with a fog of salt water mist that drifts in and out with the tides. It is very quiet here and perfect for reflecting on what we have, where we are, and where we’re headed over the next year. That’s why we came…to plan and decide our direction in 2012 with…and without, the real estate business.

Sometimes, when I look for out over the ocean to the east, I imagine German U-boats silently sitting off shore in 1942 and maybe even dropping a raft in the water with Abwher spies paddling to a remote beach. I can see the locals in the dress of the time, and hear FDR on the radio giving a fireside chat. I can hear Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra singing “I’ll never smile again” on the scratchy wooden radio. Thats the way it is here for me. I think that it’s the same for a great many people who come here. The coast is virtually loaded with gallerys of wonderful art, significant writers live here, and the music is primarily classical.  In many ways, it is similar to our “big” town Traverse City but times ten.

This has been a superb retreat, probably the best we have had. So I am sad to leave.  I know though, that when I am back home, back on the Cedar River in the northern Michgan woods, it will be just as special as here.