Today’s column comes to you direct from the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, at the tail end of a family vacation. I’ll begin with a question I’ve often asked myself this week: why did I vacuum out the car before we left Ohio?
Having traveled to the same resort community for thirty years, we’re creatures of habit in this place, with each year’s vacation identified primarily by the change in rental houses. Salvation Army members have come to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, for summer camp meetings for 130 years, and it seems like there’s been more innovation in those meetings than in our family’s routine (aka tradition) here. We eat at the same restaurant after church on Sunday. We walk down the hill to the beach with great anticipation, and trudge the last few steps back to the house, worn out by the sun and sea breezes. After a couple of beach days, we travel to Two Lights, to climb the rocks and eat at the Lobster Shack. And as can be expected, we manage to get on each other’s last nerve by Wednesday or so.
Yet new surprises have greeted us this week as well. Thanks to a friend’s social media comment, we discovered amazing cinnamon rolls, their delicate pastry spirals slathered in sticky frosting. Forget those cinnamon rolls at the mall. Ocean Park Subs and Groceries bake the real deal every morning.
At Two Lights, a bit of exploring led to a tiny cove near the Lobster Shack, where the girls gathered sea shells with much determination. Had we missed this all these years, or was it fenced off before? Surely our inquisitive sons would have discovered this part of the Two Lights experience.
A chance comment by one of the locals took us to the Portland Headlight, where Cape Elizabeth’s municipal park offers a glorious view of the ocean and an up-close-and-personal look at the lighthouse and its museum. Now fully automated, it had been staffed by lighthouse keepers from 1791 to 1989. It was a lonely job for most of those countless hours, but the keeper and his family had quite the exciting Christmas Eve in 1886, when they rescued the crew from the Annie C. Maguire that ran aground. As recently as World War II, they kept watch for a German invasion. The park is also home to the decommissioned Fort Williams, whose Battery Keys can still be seen along the rugged shoreline.
The week away has provided quality time with both the lovely Madelyn Simone and the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday. I’m impressed with a three-year-old’s ability to do the same thing over and over again without getting tired. We’ve sung “O Do You Know the Muffin Man” at least a hundred times, and Elizabeth spent a solid hour picking up pieces of broken shells and returning them to their natural habitat, the ocean waters, with an exuberant scream every time a wave tickled her feet. She also snuck into our bed around 3 a.m. each night without waking us up. I’m not impressed with that feat.
Madelyn and I managed to take a long walk on the beach without her sister, and enjoyed a production of Godspell and an ice cream cone on the way home. I love these little ones, and being together in this place has been good for us, at least in the daytime hours!
Yet there has also been a sense of melancholy for me in these days, a pensive sadness, not pervasive, but lurking somehow in the shadows. As the little girls bury my feet in the sand, I remember three little boys who splashed in the waves, dug in the sand, and bought fake tattoos at Gregory’s Supermarket. It seems like only yesterday, and when I turned around, they were gone to the shores of adulthood, job responsibilities, and vacations with in-laws.
That melancholy is present in the contrast between the timelessness of the ocean’s currents and the ordered days of human life. I’m grateful that the melancholy has been offset by the joys found in tradition and new experiences, as well as the healing power of the rhythmic ocean waves and fresh-baked cinnamon buns!
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