Maine

Scavenged

We set off on foot, the six of us, under an azure sky as big as the ocean. The breeze off the water smelled of salt and September, and the dune grasses bent toward each other, whispering the news that fall was coming. It was a picture-perfect, precious August day, the kind of day that a talented someone with a camera might photograph and print onto a postcard, which someone else might then buy to send to a friend, to show how big the Maine sky can look over an endless sea; and how the line from the midday crowd snakes lazily out of the soda fountain, through a squeaky screen door propped open all day, in turn, by the backside of whoever happens to be waiting for service next; and the way the wild beach roses that grow straight out of sand (impossibly) cascade over a split-rail fence, tumbling […]

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In Case of Emergency

I was alone in the house and on my cell phone, talking to my friend Leigh about a Web site she’s thinking of launching. Leigh speaks very fast, especially when she’s fired up about something, which she was. It can be hard to grip all the loose bits of her conversation. Like trying to cuddle an armful of ping pong balls, it takes some concentration. So I listened with some intent, leaning forward on the top railing of the small second-floor balcony, as if Leigh were right there with me, perhaps perched on the branch of the scrub pine just beyond the railing. The little balcony is like a bird’s nest, a private spot away from the rest of the house, and as Leigh spoke I absent-mindedly rocked to and fro, swinging my bare leg through the balusters. Then, just like that, I couldn’t. My knee, which had moved more

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Summer on the Coast of Maine, Doggy-Style

I’m spending this week on the coast of southern Maine. If I had a choice, I’d spend most of the week as I am right now: in a low-slung beach chair, toes buried in the warm sand, and book propped open on my lap, pages ruffled by the strong wind off the water. Every few minutes I look up to inventory the surf, scanning for two heads—one belonging to my dark-haired daughter and the other her blond-haired friend—who are bobbing in the waves ahead of me. I have to squint hard to keep sight of them, in part because the sun is glaring, and in part because the tide is so low they seem a football field away. The girls appear as tiny figures, no bigger than lawn jockeys. The seagull stalking crabs a few yards in front of me seems as large as they are, as if this were

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