I have often wished for a place where I
could just drop off the grid for a moment in time. Often times, I
feel as if I was born in the wrong century. Case in point, I am a
person who still has a rotary dial phone in my house. By choice. I
do not fight the invasion of modern technology but I do not exactly
embrace it with open arms either. More often than not, I feel people
and their seemingly unnatural relationships with their iPads, laptops
and cellular telephones takes away from the opportunities to interact
in the present moment with a fellow human being. How am I ever going
to meet Prince Charming if he is too busy interacting with his iPad
to even see that I walked into the room? :) I miss the days when one
could stop for a coffee at a cafe and actually have the chance to
strike up a spontaneous conversation with the person seated at the
next table. Now more often than not, that very same person is
already engaged in a conversation with someone on their cell phone.
I had given up hope of finding a place,
particularly in the United States that would be devoid of the
ever-present cell phones, Blackberries, iPhones, etc. But then
again, I had never been to Vinalhaven, Maine before this July either.
Vinalhaven sits about 12 miles off the
coast of Maine. It takes a little effort and various modes of
transportation to get there. In our case, an airplane from NYC to
Portland, a drive from Portland to Rockand and then an hour and 15
minute ferry ride to Vinalhaven. The ferry pulls into Carver's
Harbor and the picturesque nature of the surrounding scenery just
makes me smile. We are staying in a rental house called The Lobster
House which, of course, is located on Clamshell Aly (that's not
mispelled; that is exactly how the street sign reads).
I could list all the things there are
to do on Vinalhaven but I find myself thinking...why when the beauty
of the place is in the not-doing. Back home, going to buy a
half-gallon of milk would not be considered an event. I think that
is a fair statement to make but on Vinalhaven, it could easily be THE
event of the day. Please allow me to share a page ...a day's events
...during my stay in Vinalhaven.
Wake up around 8a.m....the sun is
streaming in through my bedroom window. Everyday seems gloriously
perfect weather-wise. It is about 85 degrees but there is always an
ocean breeze...always. Lay in bed until around 10a.m...reading,
watching the butterflies play in the trees outside my bedroom window.
10a.m. Go downstairs. Mom has made
coffee and some fruit and eggs for breakfast. Watch more butterflies
play amongst the flowers outside the kitchen bay window. Also watch
hummingbird moths play amongst same flowers. Orioles come to the
bird feeder. Watch birds. Watch lobster boats sail in and out and
around the harbor right outside our window. Decide to eat breakfast
on porch whilst watching all this ...activity.
We need milk for tomorrow. Okay, I
decide to walk into town for milk. “Town” is about 2 blocks away
and “town” in total is about 5 blocks long. There is a souvenir
store for buying post cards and I-Like-Vinalhaven coffee mugs, an art
gallery, a glass craftsperson's shop, a candy store...the fact that I
can tell you how many stores there are should give you an idea that
there are not many at all. I go to get milk. Yes, I could buy other
things we need at the same time but then what would I have to do
later? I buy milk and return back to the house.
It's about noontime now. I think I
will go down to the Bait House. The Bait House sits at the end of
our pier. Open the doors to the Bait House and it reveals a sofa
perfect for reclining and watching the same harbor that can be viewed
from the house. Time to recline on the sofa and watch the lobster
boats continuing their travels.
Wow, all this watching and reclining is
making me tired. Time to take a little nap.
Wake up around 3p.m. Hhhhmmm...I guess
I should check my e-mails. Mom and I walk back into town together.
We buy our cafe lattes at the ARCafe. The proceeds go back to help
support the people who live in Vinalhaven year-round...about 1,600
year round residents. We avail ourselves of one of the few places in
town that has wi-fi. No cell phone service so no having to listen to
other people's one-sided conversations. Nice.
After coffee, we stop at the post
office to send post cards back to “the mainland”.
All this sitting and laying around has
made me hungry so we must go to the Hawker Gawker Restaurant where
the daily food order sounds something like this...
“My Mom would like a grilled cheese
sandwich with tomato but she would like it very greasy... so much
butter...an obscene amount of butter. She tells me that you all made
it great the first day but yesterday's was not greasy enough so
please do not be shy and lets try to make one like the first day,”
I tell the woman working behind the counter.
“I can't say I get many requests like
that these days”, she tells me.
“I know but what can I tell you? My
Mom likes what she likes....greasy grilled cheese sandwiches. I
can't say I blame her. They are good”.
Mom and I sit at “our” table. Oh,
yes, since Day 1 we have commandeered the table in the corner that
affords us front and side views of the pond and the mill run that
leads out to the ocean...from this vantage point we can watch the
tide rush in...or out depending on the time of day. I did not know
that tides could switch direction during a given part of the day.
Look, I am a city girl. I turn on a faucet. The water comes out. I
turn off the faucet. The water stops. That is what I know about
water and its “tides”. :)
The waitress brings Mom a grilled
cheese sandwich that is so buttery it is hard to get a handle on
it...so it is perfect. It is a sandwich that easily needs 20
napkins to use to clean ones hands. And she brings me some of the
best seafood chowder I have had...ever. A chowder that is so chock
full of seafood that the chowder part is barely there. It is
delicious.
Before you get the impression that
there is nothing to do in Vinalhaven, let me clarify. There's
kayaking (note to self: must learn to kayak soon. Yes, I get the
rowing part...it is the getting into and out of said kayak without
capsizing that I just do not understand. All in due time). There is
hiking and exploring and boating and bird-watching and fishing
and.... Although I believe the beauty of the place is in the
not-doing, there is also swimming to be found in a few defunct
quarries that courtesy of being spring-fed now make for some amazing
swimming holes. Larson's Quarry and Booth's Quarry are perfect
cooling spots on a hot summer day but the sun does need to be high in
the sky otherwise it can get a mite chilly in that water. I hear
tell but did not find this out until the last day that there is a
quarry that is bathing-suit optional...but maybe it is a good thing
that I did not learn that until the last day. I just do not think
Vinalhaven is ready for all of me.
There are good old-fashioned tag sales.
I now am the proud owner of a hand-crafted item...a rock that has
little birds made of seaweed sitting on said rock. Bill, who is a
carpenter by trade when he is not busy selling crafts strikes up a
conversation that goes something like this....
“So, where are you from?”
“I'm from New York City. How about
you?”
“I'm from about 300 yards from here.
Was born here and lived here all my life. New York City, huh? I
have a friend who just moved here from NYC. He said he just couldn't
take it anymore. Too many people. Too much of everything”, Bill
tells me.
“I suppose your friend has that
correct. NYC is a bit too much of everything, good and bad...but
it's home so to me it is like a small town having being born and
raised there. Granted, a small town with 8 million people but if I
need to get away? Well, thank goodness there are places that you
call home for me to run away to...have you ever been to NYC?”, I
ask Bill as I find myself leaning on his pick-up truck. He uses the
pick up truck bed to showcase his handicrafts.
“Nope. I've never been. It just
sounds like too much to me. I like things simple. How did you find out
about Vinalhaven?”.
I tell him the story. Invited by a
friend who was attending a wedding. “Well, if you ever change your
mind know that you are more than welcome to my hometown. After all,
I have now been to yours”. We talk about all the things that
strangers are not suppose to talk about from religion to politics.
Talk being the operative word. We are not debating, not getting mad
because we disagree. We are, dare I say it, engaged in what I think
is becoming a lost art form....the art of conversing. Realizing a
good hour has gone by, I thank him for his craft, wish him well, and
extend an invite to him and his wife to visit NYC anytime. I realize
they never will....and that's okay. I also realize I can not
remember the last time I just leaned up against a pick-up truck,
chatting with a stranger about anything and everything. No need to
rush off to whatever is next in the day's events and no chance of
being interrupted by a cell phone call. Just simple human
interaction in the midst of the town square. Nice.
The days pass like that on Vinalhaven.
There was a parade down Main Street for the 4th of July.
Never seen a parade that passed through town twice...so if you missed
something the first time, you got to see it on the way back to its
beginning point. Flags were waving...people were smiling...old and
young came out to celebrate. Red, white and blue bunting draped off
buildings on Main Street . Main Street screamed “We celebrate the
United States of America”. The parade floats were all down-home
clever and crafty....from a moving swimming pool (celebrating the
upcoming Olympics, complete with “athlete” doing belly flops into
a shallow pool that had the parade viewers getting a little wet) to
the senior citizens playing cards on a truck flat-bed and hitting
each other with rolling pins. I am not sure what that all had to do
with the 4th of July but we do celebrate our freedoms on
that day...and freedom comes in all kinds of versions, I think.
Walking back to the house, I think to
myself....the beauty of this thing called life is in the simple
moments. Multi-colored faded buoys piled up against old clapboard
sheds, flowers in various states of blooming, a sign in a storefront
window that reads “Open” when everything else about the shop
indicates it is closed.....
...and then I hear a car horn honk
(something I haven't heard for days like I do seemingly every minute
when home in NYC). I ignore it because lets be real. I do not know
anyone here so they can not be honking at me.
“Beep. Beep...”, I hear the honk
and hear a person as well shouting out “Hey, Estelle. How's it
going?”
I finally turn around. It's
Bill....the carpenter who crafts birds out of seaweed man. As he
waves, I wave back and think be it Vinalhaven or NYC.....the common
denominator is that good people can be found anywhere; that home is
what we make it and simple pleasures abound.
...and sometimes, just sometimes, true
bliss can be found in a greasy grilled cheese sandwich and
seafood-laden clam chowder whilst taking in a harbor view in
Vinalhaven, Maine.
...and next year when we return, if it
is all the same old thing? I couldn't ask for more.
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