The sun was projecting the leaf shadow show on the tent side when I awoke...
And, one of the little biters had spent the night with me. They try pretty hard to get in. But once they've had their fill, they are desperate to leave...
I killed her and looked at my own blood, then wiped it on a napkin. My major plan for the day, besides working, was to meet Melinda at about 1:00 pm. I'd left my air lantern at her cottage in Boothbay Harbor and she'd offered to return it to me. I headed downtown to work, getting a coffee at the Ampersand Café and then headed across the street at about 12:50 pm...
It was nice to see her minivan pull up in front of the marble bench where I sat. She offered to buy me lunch just up the road at a place called Larson's Lunch Box. We drove up Route 1 back toward my sleep spot until we reached the little lunch stand. We got cheeseburgers and shared a fry, drank ginger ales and caught up a bit, though it had only been a few days since we'd last seen each other.
Then she asked if I wanted to see Biscay Pond which was just down Biscay Road; heading a short way up Route 1 then taking a right at McDonald's. It was only a two mile ride to the pond. I'd passed this beach many times in decades past when I used to explore the area with an old girlfriend. But like so many things in Maine this year, it all seemed so new that it was like trying to remember a dream...
Biscay Pond Beach.
I realized we weren't all that far from Pemaquid Point, where I used to stay at a camp on Pemaquid Loop Road. Melinda offered to keep traveling south until we met up with Route 32 and then show me where she used stay in New Harbor. It would only be a quick trip to Route 130 and Pemaquid Point...
It was a very clear day and Monhegan was visible ten miles off shore.
We got down to Pemaquid Point and drove around the Loop Road for my old time's sake, then pulled into the Sea Gull Restaurant and Gift Shop for an ice cream...
We sat at the old fashioned counter. Melinda enjoyed a shake and I got a small cone (salted caramel malt!). It was just so nice out...perfect...
There was a gorgeous view off of the actual point itself. Nothing had looked so heavenly blue to me in long time...
We made our way back to the McDonald's in Damariscotta, where Melinda dropped me off. I decided there and then that I would leave the next day for Waldoboro. It was a long walk of about ten miles (3.3 hours). I wanted to leave early enough the next day to take my time. There were likely to be plenty of things to take pictures of along the way.
As I nursed a Sprite, I considered how things had been going on this Journey. It almost seemed like second nature now. I was truly an expert at what I was doing. I had carved out a bizarre kind of lifestyle. Were I a younger man, I could have lived like this indefinitely. But more and more - as I'd mentioned several times to Melinda in the last couple of weeks - I'd almost felt jealous about seeing even the most modest little houses along the shores of these Maine peninsulas, complete with yards to tend and porches to relax on. These smallest of life's secure and steady places--any of them, could serve as my forever home. Just a tiny piece of land, a roof and four walls... God in heaven, I longed for something so simple, so inexpensive... Melinda had reassured me that as long as I knew what I wanted and kept focusing on it, the image would eventually become real boards and tiles.
The Spark affirmed this, with a small and unspoken caveat. Something else would have to occur between all of this wallking and the settled state I'd desired so deeply. I had no idea at all what that would be.
The next day would change everything. I watched an elderly couple leave the restaurant, each with a cane...
They didn't worry about what they were going home to. They could do what they wanted when they got home. They had spent their entire healthy lives working to secure it. And, now, here they were with the opportunity to enjoy the home they'd struggled for...yet, were disabled by old age.
Imagine. Just imagine (I told myself) what it would be like to still have an able body and a home in which to do what I wanted? It seemed on this golden evening that I was finally getting closer to solidifying the image. Again, of course, the next day I would once again be thrown into insecurity and chaos. Apparently, that was my permanent address...
How a Queen Ann's Lace goes to seed.
When I returned to the sleep spot I did my normal pacing around the tent. Even in this short amount of time, I'd worn simple paths through the surrounding trees. I was struck by how the mighty adventures of my out of state travel represented a life that was so starkly different than my time in Maine had been. This Journey had almost seemed like a kind of retirement tour; without the 401K or mutual funds, the RV, the car attached by trailer hitch, etc. How quickly things can change. The change awaiting me was manifesting as the magma of the volcano built up pressure beneath me...
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