Yes, I am a Mainer

So I now realize that Mindy was right.  Mindy is always right.  When we said “goodbye” in the Jones’s driveway she told me, with the face of someone who knew all too well, that Spain would be the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.  What she didn’t tell me was that the first two months would be filled with the highest of highs, and the second two months would be chocked full of the lowest lows.  The first two months were great.  Everything was new and fresh. Bakeries on every street corner seemed like the cutest things ever and the lingering aroma of fruit stores was intoxicating.  I walked around Barcelona with wide-eyed wonder as I explored a new city.  Every day I noticed something new: a bright-colored door, a little shop, or a park that I swear could not have been there the day before; Every day I feel in love with Barcelona all over again.

What happened in November!?  What was the great change that turned my young love into a dull disinterest in the city?  Absolutely nothing in Barcelona changed.  Nothing at all.  It was the same as always.  The leaves didn’t change, the weather didn’t change much, the stores, the interesting doors, everything was the same, it was all still there.  And that seemed to be the problem: Barcelona had become common to me.

There can be something so wonderful about that which is known, that which is common, like the pattern of the changing seasons, the smell of your home, the early morning omelets with your dad on Saturdays before yard work begins, or the one general store in town which has not changed one bit since you were eight years old.  The problem with something common or routine is when some place other than home becomes common.  It is the one catch: the monotonous routine of the common without all of the comforts of home.  Anyone can travel anywhere for a week or two and be happy, I am convinced, but try some months and the heart will feel a homeward tug.  Try making a foreign land common.

I never knew I was a Mainer until I lived in Spain.  I knew I liked Maine; I knew I liked my house, my family and my friends, but I didn’t really know that I loved them.  I do now.  Until recently I hated the awkwardness of saying “I love you” to anyone or the clumsy “goodbye” hugs that I gave my mom and dad in late August at the airport as we parted ways.  I knew my brother Jacob was one of the coolest kids I know, but I did not realized how much I appreciated him, how much I was affected just by living under the same roof as him.

And then there’s my house, my little white cape and red barn in Cumberland, Maine, on Orchard Road.  There has never, and will not ever exist a house with more character.  From the creaky floorboards, secret nooks, horse-hair plaster walls and doors that never stay shut to the two steps that separate the kitchen and family room that Jacob trips over once a week, this place is full of personality.  I love this place.  Maybe I will buy it from my parents one day.  I could keep up dad’s and my vegetable garden in the back.  Maybe I could have a couple of kids to do yard work and wood stacking.  Yeah, I think this is the life I want: a nice, simple life, full of hard work, common places and faces, and love.  I think I was made to live on a little farmhouse in Cumberland, Maine, to be resilient through the winters of snow and ice, to shovel and stack wood endlessly, but to also enjoy the beauty of Maine, to pick apples and berries, to bake really great pies, and to enjoy the Cumberland Fair far more than I ought to.

Yes, I am a Mainer.