We’re settling in at Ocean Park, Maine, a place I’ve been coming off and on since single digits. For the Yorkie Claire, settling in means lots of new sounds to bark at, no matter what the time of day or night. She’s not allowed on the beach during the day, but come 5 p.m. she and her kind get to romp in the surf and sand. In this photo, she’s looking reluctant, or else using that little Yorkie brain to figure out the best way to obtain one of the treats in Darlene’s pocket.
My perch on the second floor of the old cottage gives me fast Internet and a view and sounds of the slow waves. This is the best room for sleeping I have access to in any state. The waves slosh and thump all night, and in the morning I roll over to see the first orange light arriving over Casco Bay from the East.
My grandson will be coming over to play tomorrow, but it will be high tide, not the optimum time for creating lakes and castles on the flat. But we have some other activities on tap that he likes, especially the one where we drop pennies through a hole in the second floor down into the dining room. Last year that was good for an hour of constant giggles and anticipation, but now he’s three, so the intervals of new fun may need to come faster. We’ve got a red wagon and a Yorkie who loves to chase balls, and more.
I find it disorienting and grounding at the same time, this returning to a place on earth where I’ve been coming for decades. My mother yesterday fished out a photo of me on the beach at just over a year old, sitting on the sand at low tide wearing a wide-brimmed hat, with my cousin Peter. And now comes this three-year-old boy looking at the same beach with eyes of his own, and yet somehow I look out from them, too, and remember.
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