Maine has been on my bucket list for a while. A long while.
Since precisely September 2006. And how do I know that so precisely? Because
that’s when Vogue published Arthur Elgort’s “The Maine Event” with model Coco
Rocha, and I fell in love for life. Maybe it was because I was looking at those images
from my florescent-lit cubicle in sunny Orange Country, California. Maybe it
was because I hated the sun and the palm trees and the perpetually warm weather
that I dreamed of a life entirely different from the one I was living. I dreamed
of the opposite corner of America. A cold snowy place. A place with lighthouses
and rocky shorelines. A lonely and isolated place. Somewhere to fall quietly in
love.
That place was Maine, and these photos were what fueled a
fantasy that lasted nearly a decade.
I tried to go to Maine before. I tried every which way.
After all, I'm not the type of person to keep something unchecked on my bucket list for
that long. But Maine was put on the backburner when I quit my job in California to
travel for two months in Japan, anad a month in Europe n 2008. It was cast
aside when I moved to Oregon and started my life over. In 2009 I bought tickets
on Greyhound from Boston to Augusta. (Why on earth I chose Augusta I do not know). But that Greyhound bus departed without
me. Due to work commitments I had to postpone my trip to Boston, and when I
finally went to Massachusetts in 2010,
there was no time for Maine, a mere 2-hour drive north. Maine was moved down
the list while I traveled in Scandinavia, the middle east, and Taiwan. Maine
was almost forgotten when I moved to Japan, then traveled around SE Asia for 6
months. But when I retuned to Oregon, I received an invitation to a wedding in
Raymond, Maine. The date was September 2015. Nine years after the Vogue photo
shoot.
Thus I began planning my great trip to Maine. I knew a few
things for certain.
I would go alone.
That’s how I always envisioned it. That’s how it had to be. I had many offers
for company. My partner, friends in Portland, friends in Boston. But I knew
this trip had to be a solo one.
I would rent a car
and road trip all over the state. No more Greyhound. Maine is a state you
need to explore with independence. There was too much to see and too little
time for me to rely on public transportation.
I would explore the
coast and inland. The first part of my drive would be along the winding
coastline, which all the quaint seaside towns and lighthouses. The problem is,
this is also the most touristy part of Maine, and I hate tourists. I wanted to
get a look at life on the inside, so I would drive back through the cities and capital.
I would focus my trip
on a few things I wanted to indulge, the lighthouses along the coast, lattes at every major café in Portland,
lobster eaten as many ways as possible, and small town libraries. I made
meticulous list. I planned every day of the journey.
When I boarded the plane for my midnight flight to Boston I
was overwhelmed with anticipation. This would be a six-hour red-eye journey,
then two-hour shuttle bus ride from Boston Logan Airport to Portland, Maine. It
didn’t feel real. After nine years of dreaming I was finally flying through the
darkness to meet my dream in p the other side. What if reality couldn’t live up
to my fantasy? After all, my dream was based on a Vogue photo shoot, hardly a
good benchmark for real life. What if I didn’t like Maine? What if I got
lonely? But I had to get ready to face
real Maine, and real me….
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