That place I run to...

Place: Orlando, FL on a Thursday evening of a week that was already too long on Tuesday.
Song of the Day: Silver by David Cook
Days until trip to Maine: 27

A conversation keeps coming to mind as I prepare for my impending trip home to Maine. A trip home that I've been meaning to take for the past six years. A trip that I've been both dreading and yearning for. When I started in the magazine business (by complete luck, thus leading me to the job of my dreams), I met a photographer that my company worked closely with from Orange County, Calif. At the time I was completely green and though he could have laughed me off as some idiot who hadn't the slightest clue what she was doing, he instead picked my brain, gave me brilliant insight and became somewhat of a mentor.

Over dinner one night on a trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., he asked me about my novel. Ah, the novel. The sore point. The thing I'd been writing for five years but had never made it much past the third chapter. I usually woudln't talk about it, but I'd had a lot of cab, so I proceeded to tell him the truth. It was almost as if I was telling the truth to myself. First off, it was mostly autobiographical. It was about a woman who goes through a crisis of faith...no, sanity...and must return to her small hometown in coastal Maine. There she would live with her single grandmother who ran the local bar. There she would face her demons and find herself in those she learned that she loved and those who loved her. There was another central character - the man. The man who she knew growing up who was slightly off-kilter, but extremely intelligent, one who knew her better than anyone. And there was great loss before and during her journey - the loss of a grandfather who'd taken care of her that lingered over her head, and the impending loss of her grandmother who would be diagnosed with cancer shortly after her arrival.

My mentor seemed interested after I told him. I thought it all sounded trite; it sounded like a million other chick-lits. That wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to do something great. When he asked me where I was, I voiced this to him. He didn't really understand the problem. So I delved deeper. I couldn't get beyond the first three chapters. I kept going back and rewriting and rewriting it. And there was that other tiny fact that this place I was writing about...it was a place that I had run from my whole life. And it was the only place I could write about.

"You have to, though," he told me between bites and a swig of red wine. "You have to get it out of you. Just write, don't stop. You have to get it out or you'll never be able to write about anything else."

After that judgement it should have been easy. But I didn't even touch it afterwards. There was something inherently wrong with that novel.

His advice came two years ago. I still haven't looked at it. It was called, Thursdays at the Nice And Eazy. I've realized now that its dead. I've realized there's something else to write; that it was something else all along.

I got the phone call that my Uncle Don had lung cancer about two months ago. The moment my mother gave me the sad news, I knew what I had to do. This man had been my surrogate father and I'd all but abandoned contact with him. And why? Stupid excuses came to my mind: I had my own life to live, I had things I'd had to accomplish, things I needed to do. But really I'd been selfish, too consumed as most young people are with their own problems to remember the people who'd made them the good things that they were. So many times we become too consumed with people and places that have done us wrong. But in so many ways these places hold the people who had done so many things that were right. That saved us so many times.

Was that why I could only write about this small town in Maine?

So I quickly decided that a trip was in order. It was only after I booked my ticket that I started to understand that this would be my real chance to write something special. If not for anyone else than at the very least for myself. This is the way I would "get it out."

And so it begins.

I spent my teenage years in a small northern Maine town called East Millinocket. The entire town was built on one side of Main Street. The other side of Main Street was reserved for the papermill, where most of the men in town worked.

From the moment I arrived in the town when I was 10 years old I was "from away." My mother was single, lower-income and from the "city." I looked mostly Italian and Irish - probably the darkest skin around. I was vivacious and opinionated, sensitive to a fault and a foreigner to their eyes. It was so small, miles and miles from civilization (or what I considered civilization). Let's face it, sometimes the kids were downright mean to me. I was always over-weight and they picked on me for that. They made fun of the music I liked. When I got older they made fun of my excessive hair that covered my body. I didn't like sports. I became a drama geek and distanced myself even further. I could have molded to them and have been just like them but I chose not to - even as a child. I acted like I wanted to be different from them all because it was a way to cope with being different. But I knew that.

I knew deep down inside that it was not a bad place. Especially not on the outside. On the outside it was actually breath-takingly beautiful. I remember the smell of the first snow. The quietness of a late, late night when the stars and sometimes even the northern lights twinkled over the dark blue sky. I remember the smell of the ground and the trees when we hiked through the forest in Baxter State Park. In my dreams I see beautiful vistas from my youth and I know that they are that place.

We didn't have to lock our doors. Everyone knew everyone else. My education was top-knotch. But still, I wanted to leave. I wanted to set myself apart even further. And that's what I did my sophomore year. I packed two extra-large suitcases and went to Germany as an exchange student and had a year that will always go down in the record books as one of the most incredible of my life.

And then I came back. And I was more different than ever but for the first time in my life didn't want to be that way. I wanted to be like everyone else.

And on top of all of that? He came into my life. The man that I will forever compare all other men to. And like a tornado he hit me, stuck around for a good 9 months, and then disappeared forever. I still look for Mike around every corner, although I barely realize it anymore. I still glow when I talk about him. I still wake up in the morning feeling like his lips had just been on mine. I've never let go of him. I despise him and I love him, much like I despise and love East Millinocket...hell, all the rest of the beautiful state of Maine.

The day of my departure becomes closer and closer. I called my childhood best friend and never heard back from her. I'm sure she is better off without me. The person she knew then hardly resembles the person who types this now. The person who still can't escape, who's still reaching out for some unnameable thing that has taunted her since youth. But maybe this person now can come to some type of understanding. Some type of closure or settlement or something. Something that will enable her to move on. To write about something other than that hometown.

My grandmother, who still lives in town is excited to see me. Family loves you despite what you've done to them. Loves you despite how selfish you've been. I've learned that in the last few years. Though you may not like to admit it at times, your family knows you better than anyone. I long to see my grandmother like never before. And my Uncle Don.

Every night this week I've dreamt of East Millinocket. Last night, I was in the apartment that I spent most of my years living in. The floors in the hallway were green linoleum, from the 70s. I had seen my old bedroom, with old posters peeling off of the walls. Remnants of my childhood were left. And then I had to flee for fear of explosives in a chest in the closet.

So it continues - this desire mixed with fear. My heart pounds thinking about this trip. I'm a travel writer, I've been to so many places over the past 3 years that its hard to even keep track anymore. I went on my dream vacation to New Zealand and didn't record it because the only place I could record is this lingering demon.

I think this is the most important trip of my life. 27 days from now. Its begun already.