Good day from Maine. This is the first year, though sadly undoubtedly not the last, when I feel obligated to offer the local climate change report. The part of coastal Maine where we landed was socked in by fog for the last couple of days but is sunny today. More to the point, there’s no predication of scorching heat, floods or wildfires that are plaguing much of the rest of the Earth; though particulate matter drifting down from Canada has triggered warnings for the very young and the old.
In other words, I suppose we’re blessed to be spending the next few days at a planetary sweet spot. We left the Hudson Valley between torrential storms and a few downed trees. On a lighter and I like to think more life-affirming note we’re thrilled to be back in Maine, visiting with friends, and consuming decadent quantities of lobster.
Feel free to disagree but I believe there are two kinds of travelers in this ramshackle world. There are those who don’t consider it a vacation unless they boldly go somewhere new and different. Then there are the rest of us who are perfectly content to return to the same destinations year after year.
One should strive to experience a bit of both. But were I forced to choose I’d pick the tried and true. Going someplace utterly new has its rewards. My hunch is that if you attached electrodes or whatever the device that measures brain waves, you’d see all the convoluted gray matter light up much more brightly when confronted with novel experiences. On the other hand, those synapses firing might just as likely be associated with risk and uncertainty.
The receptors that spark when checking into a familiar hotel, Airbnb, campsite or in our lucky case in Maine beloved friends’ homes are associated with happiness. They leave you swaddled in feelings of anticipation, comfort and safety. When we travel we pretty much know in advance what we’ll be doing, where we’ll be hiking, eating, napping, shopping, drinking, reading every minute of the day.
There will undoubtedly be those who charge that we’re missing the whole, horizon-expanding point of travel. That if you’re repeating the same experience again and again you may as well stay home. My rebuttal is that I consider a handful of places, here and abroad, home. When I don’t manage to get there for several years in a row – as I couldn’t during the pandemic – I experience something that feels suspiciously like homesickness.
There’s a peculiar relish that accompanies falling into the same routines in different places. Whether it be waking up to the glittering sea – once the fog clears – on the Maine coast. Or dining at a particular refuge that serves a restorative potato, cheese and ham gratin, topped with a fried egg after an ambitious walk in the Swiss Alps.
Our quasi-annual visit to Maine includes dropping by Anchor Farm Antiques in Thomaston. Owned and operated by Muriel Knutson, a young woman in her mid-nineties, you don’t want to miss this showroom if sterling silver is even slightly your thing. The store contains more freshly polished flatware, candlesticks, salt and pepper shakers, ladles, water pitchers and platters – than I’ve ever seen gathered in one place.
Muriel doesn’t do the polishing herself anymore, leaving that constructive task to her ten children. “I enjoy how it looks after it’s polished,” she told me this week. As a devoted silver polisher myself I consulted her about what brand of silver polish her family employs. Her daughter Chrissie pulled out a 4 lb. bucket of Wright’s Silver Polish, the paste not the liquid. “She orders two cases of eight at a time,” Chrissie said of her mother. “And she doesn’t believe in dipping,”
“It takes the detail out of it, you know,” Muriel explained.
Last year I bought a silver flask that’s been put to excellent use during the intervening twelve months, as well as a couple of souvenir spoons to add to my collection. When I’d foolishly asked Muriel whether she sold any she produced containers of them. I can see how decorative antique spoons from Niagara Falls or Yellowstone National Park could become an addiction that needed to be nipped in the bud. Fortunately the vitrine where I display them is out of space so I had to forsake any additional purchases this summer.
Next door, and I mean literally next door, is a store with a slightly different ambience and sales force. The Maine Prison Store sells wooden toys and other useful items made by inmates at the nearby state prison. The cashiers are prisoners, as well. Last year’s buys included a toy lobster boat and notched sticks that can be used to prop up lazy windows. On this visit – after debating whether I really needed toast tongs; I didn’t -- I bought cedar lobster-shaped hangers that I hope will keep a couple of our closets smelling fresh.
From here it’s north to other friends on Mount Dessert Island where I’m looking forward, after a run along a particular woodland trail that I’ve taken for years, to a swim in the cooling, silken waters of a long freshwater pond across the street from the ocean. The experience is equally delightful whether drenched in sun or rain. The only thing that could upset my vacation is if novelty is introduced. As long as things remain exactly the way they’ve always been I couldn’t be happier.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found be found on Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
