I'm just a (wo)man who needed someone and somewhere to hide...to keep me alive

Place: Orlando, FL on a Tuesday evening of a Tuesday that went by way too fast for an average Tuesday.
Song of the Day: Mr. Roboto by Styx (the song that my cousin Kenny made me listen to day in and day out on one of my first summers in Maine)
Days until trip to Maine: 8
Weather in East Millinocket: 76 degrees Fahrenheit, feels like 76 degrees Fahrenheit

I began visiting Maine during the summers as a child. I believe my first visit was when I was 3 or 4, with my mother, to see my Aunt Bonnie (Mom's sister) & Uncle Don and their family, along a few other more distant relatives to me. My memories come early (my earliest is when I was just 2, of my father's lifeless body on the couch in the den) but they are murky on my first visit to Maine. I really only remember climbing on the Keep Maine Beautiful rock on the road to Baxter State Park and driving back from camp upon where we almost hit a moose (which we nicknamed Jesus H. - my mother had exclaimed, "Jesus H. Christ!" when my uncle slammed on his breaks and we all heaved forward).

My first summer in Maine without my mother (visiting my Aunt & Uncle while she was working) was after kindergarten. After that first year, I returned every summer until we moved to Maine before I began fifth grade. Again, the memories are spotty. But where they lack in number, they make up for in substance.

I met my childhood best friend that first summer. Her name was Beth and she had strawberry blonde hair and a face covered with freckles. Bonnie had brought me to her home (which would eventually become my adolescent second home) and I stepped on her porch, shy and unsure. The little girl who reminded me of my favorite musical icon, Annie, looked up at me and demanded, "Aren't ya gonna come color?" (it sounded like Ahn'tya gonna come collah?) I ran screaming to Bonnie. But I suppose I warmed up eventually because after that summer she became my pen-pal and summer best pal and eventually kindred spirit. (note: I've tried to call her twice to meet with her on my visit and still not heard back, which is disappointing.)

My cousin Kenny used to do the Mr. Roboto dance in his room in the tiny town of Woodville (just outside of East Millinocket). I have a picture of him and Bonnie doing it together. It made me laugh. I still know every word to the song.

The rustic naturalness of East Millinocket and its surrounds was a big contrast to the urban concrete and highways of where I lived in New York. I don't say home when referring to New York. It is the first place I remember living but the last place I would consider home.

I guess that Maine is my real home. I keep telling people now that I'm going home. It certainly feels like it.

I got to play with Beth quite a bit, but I was still a little girl who had plenty of imagination from being an only child, so on the days that Beth couldn't join me (or I her) I would run around my Aunt and Uncle's huge (at least to a child) property. There were woods way out back and a barn that had been abandoned only recently (they had had a cow named Gina - listen, listen, Gina's pissin!). The cool wind would blow before afternoon showers and I would lose my breath running here and there. Bonnie would take me on walks in the evenings. We'd bring Clyde, their over-sized beagle who I'd fallen madly in love with (and driving back to New York with my mother, dedicated the song, "Don't Let It End" by Styx to the summer before he was put to sleep).

We'd go to Baxter State Park to see the moose and deer and bear. We'd go to Abol Beach and sit under the waterfalls. We'd see Mt. Katahdin in all her glory in the horizon and talk about climbing her one day. We'd go down to the dam and skip stones. We'd eat fried clams and drive to the coast. We'd have a fantastic few weeks and when the summers were over, I'd want them to have lasted forever.

And then one summer, after a mid-life type crisis, my mother left the big city and embarked upon a new journey - a better, more safe journey - to Maine.

I wish I had pictures of my summers to post. The summer memories are beautiful - they are the place I want to return to. As my weeks feel longer and busier, I can't wait until the day I leave - to write, to explore, to rest, to discover, to reconnect. It can't come soon enough.