all the lights that light the way are blinding

when i lived in south thomaston, maine, i lived on 20 acres of land next to the st. george river. i lived on drury lane, which was named for my landlord who lived further down the lane. for obvious reasons, my friend annie and i called him the muffin man.

there are about 1,100 people in that town, and about 5 stop signs. you had to go to thomaston proper for a traffic light, and although there was a little general store on the water (on the wessawekeag river, or the 'keag, pronounced "the gig"), you had to go to the stop and shop in rockland for proper grocery shopping. but it was charming, friendly, and quiet (much like myself, clearly)

the thing that still is so funny to me about mid-coast maine (might be true of the rest of maine, but i don't know for sure) is that most people go to the gas station for pizza. there is a domino's in rockland, but it wouldn't deliver out to my house. oddly enough, however, there was a FABULOUS video rental shop 1/4 mile down the road from my house with an amazingly well stocked foreign films section.

to get to town, the fastest and lowest traffic route (especially in summer) was to take westbrook through spruce head and owl's head into rockland. if you've never been to maine, it's predominantly rural (i had clients who lived in areas without names, but their townships had at least been numbered - T9, T15, etc.) with charming, more developed towns that make their living off of tourism (like damariscotta, camden, castine) and summer rentals.

where i was living was almost in camden, but not that far from damariscotta, it was predominantly fishing and lobstering communities, and there were goregeous open fields that led to charming seaside vistas. when i was there, in addition to doing social work, i was working as a photographer's assistant, and we did a lot of weddings in these areas down in tenant's harbor, the children's chapel, private estates. (that was how i KNEW that i thought outdoor weddings in a field were singularly UNROMANTIC. what's charming about 21346521314 crickets and spiders and ants crawling up your dress as you traipse around a field of wildflowers in 3" heels?)

and in the winter, it would snow. it was in some ways better than inland maine because the ocean would change the snow to rain, but in others it sucked, because it was far icier from the rain. and on sunny days, it was goregeous.

but you'd better have your polarized sunglasses handy because it would strike you blind to have 20 acres of unadulterated snow shooting laserbeams of UVA and UVB into your retinas. and that's just walking to your car.