There’s something about the sea that speaks to the soul and awakens the heart to new horizons and new points of view. Now I won’t pretend that I’m a man of the sea or that I fully understand that majestic voice that calls men to venture out onto the waves; nor can I mirror the character of those who choose to make their home by the shore. Still, I feel drawn to the changing tides and the ebb and flow of the ocean, and when I’m there, I’m a different man.
For our 25th anniversary, my wife and I embarked on a little seaside adventure to the Northeastern coast in the little harbor town of Eastport, Maine. We chose the location on a whim; we wanted to find a place that was peaceful and undisturbed, a haven apart from the crowds and confusion of our everyday lives. We had no idea what we would find there or even how we would fill our time in this quaint little fishing village, but nevertheless we made our plans and off we went. Maybe we were looking for renewal; maybe we just wanted to catch our breath and forget the troubles and turbulence we had left behind.
When we arrived at The Milliken House, our bed & breakfast, we came as strangers to Mary, our host, but soon found ourselves caught up in her simple charm, her motherly care and her gracious hospitality. The old home seemed to welcome us as well, carrying us back to a simpler time and bidding us to surrender to the slower pace of life. We were struck by the quiet and the calm, as if this monument to better days with its large rooms and period furnishings was whispering to us its silent secrets and assuring us that we were safe and secure within its walls. Our room was spacious and appealing, a harbor of comfort for the end of each day; our breakfasts were bountiful and beautiful, served to us on elegant china plates at the large linen-draped dining room table. There was always tea for us when we came home from our adventures and Mary was always ready to greet us with tales of the history of Eastport and stories of colorful local characters she had come to call friends. Like a port in a storm, we soon came to see that this house was our refuge from the weary world that had battered and buffeted us for far too long.
Our first day was spent exploring the town, and we wondered what attractions might be available. There were none of the typical touristy variety, no high-tech, slick-looking shops with crass commercial trinkets for sale, but still, there were treasures everywhere. Here was a close-knit community of like-minded souls, a family of people who loved their town and sought to bring out the best in one another. Every shopkeeper and waitress was more than happy to point us in the direction of another business or restaurant. Instead of chain stores there were cooperatives where local artisans sold their wares, antique stores offering the old, and shops selling custom items innovative and new. My wife was especially enamored with the local Moose Island Bakery where they sold the most delicious creampuffs she had ever tasted, and I have to admit that I wasn’t disappointed with the local lobster roll at the Happy Crab.
Perhaps the thing that struck us the most was that Eastport, though it had seen so many changes over the years, was still a place with a unique character that spoke its timeless story and wonderful wisdom to every heart that took the time to listen. I remember one evening, listening to our server share stories of the long history of The Landmark Restaurant where we were enjoying a wonderful dinner. She told us how this old edifice had undergone a number of transformations over the years, each unique and some even unusual. As I looked around at the old brick walls, the careworn original floors and the majestic columns and archways decorated in an eclectic style for this its latest incarnation, I could almost sense that this venerable building was somehow grateful and quietly content to be useful still, and even proud of its long heritage of service to the town and the people who had built and maintained it all these years.
On another day, we ventured out from Eastport, across the border into Canada to Campobello Island. We marveled at the well-maintained summer cottage that was once home to the Roosevelts. We had to laugh to ourselves at how this and the other lovely “cottages” in the area were so much larger than our own home. We took time for lunch at The Fireside, one of the wonderful restaurants on the island, and traveled to The Quoddy Head Lighthouse to wait for low tide so that we could make our way across the rocks for a visit. We capped off our visit with a hike along the seaside trails near the Roosevelt Cottage and a stop at Herring Cove Beach to walk along the shore and sit in silence before the soothing sea. In all we saw, the thing that we found the most captivating were the breathtaking views of the ocean, whether from the shoreline behind the Roosevelt Cottage, the deck of the Fireside, the hills upon which the old lighthouse stood or that deserted beach where we were all but alone with the waves and the soft gray sand. The sound of the water making its way to the shore, the occasional soaring of a seagull, and the fog moving in like misty spirits answering the mystical call of the ocean spoke to our spirits and calmed the clutter in our minds as we were taken into the embrace of the moment. Slowly and quietly we began to forget ourselves – or rather, we remembered ourselves as we had been and were truly meant to be. It drained the tension from our bodies and drowned out the noise of our busy lives, and we rediscovered that deep hidden spark of youthful romantic love that had drawn the two of us together so many years ago.
There was excitement as well, an adventure that came in the form of a whale watch with Wind Jammers Whale Watching Tours in Eastport. Our host, Butch, took our group out in his lobster boat to view the beautiful minke fin whales that had finally made their way back home to these northern waters for the summer. It was exciting to watch these majestic mammals rise up out of the water for a breath of air, arch their backs and then dive into the depths to explore their ocean home. It was equally amazing to view over 50 harbor seals sunning themselves on the rocks near the shore and to see bald eagles perched atop tall trees surveying their lofty domains. It was both a spectacular event and a simple pleasure, something extraordinary and yet so much a part of the everyday life of this faraway place at the edge of the world.
It was really the little things that mattered the most: a pot of tea and a game of Scrabble before retiring for the evening, a walk along a quiet sandy beach to search for sand dollars and sea glass, or a stop along the road to capture photographs of a sunset too beautiful for words. It brought out such a child-like excitement within our hearts, and one might have thought it silly to see two adults holding bits of sand-smoothed glass in their hands as if they were diamonds or standing in awe of the flight of cormorants or the pinks and purples of the setting sun after an ordinary summer day. But these events and objects, sights and sounds were truly treasures to hearts being reawakened to what is most important in life: the power of a moment, the making of a memory, and the rekindling of the spirit of eternal youth.
We’ve since returned to our everyday life, but we’ve brought with us a little bit of that seaside town, the soul of its population, and the shining shores of Maine. And because of that, it’s hard to imagine how we’ll ever be the same again. What began as an uncertain journey has become a part of who we are. What was meant to be a “getting away from it all” has turned out to be a true coming home. Like the tide that washes onto the shore, only to slip back into the vastness of the ocean, we’ve come to see how our lives are really about returning to the place inside us that is as deep and mysterious as the sea and as timeless and unchanging as the rocky shoreline of a faraway place, that for a short time, we came to call home.