Move to Maine

Back from Maine and the imagery, the movement and the vibrant Summer shades still pulse through my brain. Wooden boats sail seamlessly out to sea. I skim, skittering on rocks, just birds and me. Oh, yes. It’s enough to inspire endlessly clumsy rhyming couplets.

Observe.

“The Starry Night”? Or my backyard last week.

Rocks, rough-hewn and beautifully ravaged by tides. Views of van Gogh at every turn. Sea grass holds on fiercely to the pebbled shore.

The tide, some shade and a few gnarled, tree-like knots make rocky waves.

Mini mountain ranges peek out into the sun. Little lakes dry out in high tide.

The majestic cliffs of Acadia, on a teeny tiny scale. And about an hour West. It’s shocking how something so sturdy and seemingly immobile can look and feel so vibrantly alive, teeming with movement. And it is. Each day, twice a day, the tide swishes in and takes over. Snails, crabs and other creatures lurk and squirm and groove about in an aqua frenzy. Just under the surface. All that’s left, when it all rushes out, are shells; little mollusks and crustaceans march on and on and on.  

Seaweed dances differently with each touch of the tide. Untying knots held tightly in my head.

Unearthly green escapes quietly down a three-inch mountain. Off to who-knows-where.

These words feel too grand here, but they’re not nearly even barely close enough to hint at a bit of the raw, rugged beauty I saw. 

And then there was this. A seal kiss. Painted lovingly on a staircase that was mine for a week. Each step is a different sea scene by Elizabeth Coakley, a local artist. Her husband, Richard is an architect and Elizabeth often paints the stairs inside his homes—to the delight, I’m sure, of all who enter.

Again on the stairs, E.Z. Coakley’s take on a seaside home. Blue brush strokes have my equilibrium floating off to the right and out of frame. Simple, whimsical and clearly warm-hearted, her images have me collaborating with her on world-renowned children’s books (all in the dreamy delirious recesses of my imagination). Coakley’s work pairs perfectly with the honest, exposed wood beams of her husband’s interiors. Both the architecture and the paintings set the home gently, yet decidedly in the Maine coast. Everything is functional, yet bright, open and human. I felt like I knew them immediately. 

Outside the back door and into the wild yellow yonder, the black-eyed susans, the sunflowers and all other sun-colored blossoms surge urgently upward. Hello! We’re here! You’re here, too! That’s good! Wake up! Good morning! Hello!

More coolly, these purple beauties ease themselves delicately, regally into being.

And the wind. Oh the wind. The wind was everything. The constant influx of hair-twirling, skirt-twisting wind. Simply eating breakfast out in the wind can be life changing. 

The day takes you anywhere with a little wind. And a boat.