I have been there only once and for just a week. It had always been on a someday list for me – not a bucket list task necessarily, but a frayed string tied around a finger, reminding me that a visit there was important, and likely to resonate.
Like many, I have always been drawn to the coast, although I don’t care much for letting go of the shore to venture out on a boat. That experience is disconcerting, like riding the liquid ground of an earthquake. Nothing to grab onto; no emergency brake. The coast, however, is altogether something else. Raw and changing, while at the same time steadfast, it sings a siren’s refrain.
Maine was like that for me. Heavy skies pressing down, bleeding darkly; boats bobbing, throbbing with color, slave to the tides. Rocks framing everything, creating a distinct and forbidding boundary between the heaving tides and the shore. Jutting, diving, emerging wet and colorful.
I have not removed the string.
*All images shot in Tremont, Mt. Desert Island, Maine.