June is the best month in Maine, I will die on that hill. It’s not too hot (except for today, which is ridiculously 84 degrees F), not too cold, and everything is blooming. I grant you that the lilac blooms are on their way out, but for the moment I can still sit on my porch and smell them. The wisteria and peonies are not that far behind. We also have wild honeysuckle growing around our property – it’s invasive, mind you, but it smells so lovely I don’t have the heart to dig it up.
It’s also the season of school field trips. I’m lucky that I was able to chaperone trips for both girls last week, both of which featured frogs in various forms (tadpole to giant bullfrog). We also managed a couple of field trips of our own to play in some tide pools, and I just get SO emotional seeing my kids romping around outside. I spent my own childhood with my nose in books, mind you, but I love how much they love the outdoors. What a gift it is to explore the world!
And, you know, maybe us Mainers need to get out more (out of state, that is). When I was a young adult and living outside of Maine, it was always interesting to hear people’s reactions to hearing where I am from. One girl in college thought Maine was part of western Canada, which was…odd…but for the most part people heard “Maine” and equated it with upper middle class, LL Bean-wearing, lobster-eating skiiers who also grew up on sailboats. It was a far cry from my actual upbringing – working class, in the Western mountains, and even if we could have afforded to ski I was (am) terrified of heights anyway. We took one or two day trips a year to the coast, often with my grandmother, but it was not a regular thing. We played in pine forests on big wooden spools, the kind telephone wires are wound on, and if you were lucky enough to have Mr. Waldeier as your 4th or 5th grade teacher you got to go on nature walks – down the road, over the stone wall, up through the field into the woods, where he would point out different types of trees and animal scat. We didn’t swim in the ocean, but in lakes formed by glaciers eons ago and filled with brutally cold water, the kind that “builds character” while turning your lips blue during 8 am swim lessons. Later in the summer it would be our fingers turning blue, when we picked wild blueberries growing in the power line corridors.
There are times when I miss Massachusetts. Most of the time it’s because I miss seeing my family on a regular basis, but also we could really use a babysitter and if we were still in MA some combination of my sister, mother and nieces would be there to help. Massachusetts is also the only state that I lived in that had health insurance that actually covered things (my 5-day stay in the hospital for a c-section cost me nothing). And Massachusetts is full of easy hikes and arboretums and nature centers and things to do with small children. Coastal Maine certainly has things like that – but much less stroller friendly. There are rocks to be maneuvered and trees to climb and tides to be mindful of. It’s similar, but different, especially as you move up the coast. It, and we, are beautiful but weathered, tricky to navigate (can’t get there from here, said without any r’s actually pronounced), and sometimes a little prickly.
Over the years O’s eyes have changed to this odd gray-green combination, not blue or brown, and not like her father’s blue-gray eyes either. It’s very similar to the color of the ocean on a cloudy day, after a storm has churned through. That said, there’s always been something about her personality – stubborn, for sure- that demanded she be raised in Maine. The one thing I had not planned on is her having a Maine accent of her own. When she is older and out in the world, and she tells people she grew up on the coast of Maine, they will nod. Of course she did.
