Don and I arrived back in Lincolnville Friday evening at the end of a brutal drive from somewhere in Pennsylvania that morning. Like Pigpen in his cloud of dirt, we carried a pelting rainstorm with us the whole day, but never with a thought to pulling off and waiting it out in some hotel room along the way. We’d had it with those rooms. And with the food. 

I’ve learned it’s best not to eat in places that have huge, shiny menus with glossy color photos of each dish. Like the thought of a Big Mac when you’re on the road and hungry, you’re always sorry afterwards that you actually ate the whole thing. 

Plans to stretch out the drive back from Florida, maybe with a stop in North Carolina, maybe take the Blue Ridge Parkway, and end up coming through Vermont went out the window the further north we got. Home was beckoning, certainly to me, but even to Don, my snowbird friend, who’s suspicious of Maine springs and a too early return.

Then, home at last. I walked through the door into my kitchen and burst into tears.

A year ago I could barely leave the house; basic errands were all I could manage.  Driving to Belfast I carefully averted my eyes passing the hospital where Wally spent so many days, avoided Scotts and Subway in Camden, our frequent lunch stops.

By the middle of the summer, though, I ventured to southern Maine to my cousin’s house and the Tri-for-a-Cure triathalon.  Even though I was left uneasy and disoriented, it felt like a big step.

Thanks to this weekly Pilot article I have a record of the past year and more since Wally died and I turned into a widow; I can track the transformation.

In the past six months I’ve traveled to New Hampshire, Savannah, Florida, Switzerland, Italy, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, Mexico, New Mexico and back to Florida again.

I’ve negotiated Wal Marts in three states, including getting my hair cut in an Arizona one. And this  a woman who swore off the place when our own store moved to Thomaston and turned into a behemoth. On this last trip even Sam’s Club was a piece of cake, pushing a huge cart up and down the aisles under suspended, inflatable pool toys the size of my living room.

Texas seen from the passenger seat, cruising along Interstate 10 is a bit peculiar, I thought, with its billboards promising that “Jesus loves you” and “Nearly saved is totally damned” and “Jesus waits for YOU!” right along side signs advertising “Adult Entertainment! Videos! Girls!”, even “CONDOM STORE”, and sure enough, there it was, its own storefront in a strip mall on the outskirts of some small Texas town.

Arizona was stunning. I mean that in the real sense, that my New England eyes, full of trees and green and water, could barely take it in. The desert, southern and northern and in between, the mesas and canyons and unthinkable cliffs play in my head like an improbable film whenever I think of it.

I’ve been hanging around with people who think 50 degrees is chilly and 40 downright cold. I’ve walked barefoot on Atlantic Ocean beaches and in Mexico on the Gulf of California, a place I’d barely ever heard of, worn sandals and tank tops every day. Slept in an Airstream, a tent, in a bedroom that hung over a mountainside, in a condo that bordered a beach on one side and an absolute wasteland of desert on the other, in half a dozen hotel rooms booked from the road in as many states, yet all looking alike.

And now home. 

Spring’s been slow coming this year. I haven’t missed it after all, the waking up of the gardens, the budding of the trees, the crazy mating behavior of the birds. The normal spring clean-up of dooryard, hen house, garden is intensified here this spring. With the snow gone all the debris from our six month long renovation project is everywhere.

Take it a tiny piece at a time, I tell myself, and so yesterday I tackled the woodshed, piled high with cardboard boxes, Styrofoam, and a million random pieces of wood trimmings. Good kindling, I thought, as the carpenters saved it all, per my request. Little did I know. I have enough kindling to last me.

Fortunately, we’ve got another burn pile going. Apparently my son torched one while I was gone, and yesterday I heard the story. He and Sam, who’s master-minded the transformation of our barn loft and ell into living space, had a moment when they dumped a bag full of wood scraps onto the burning pile.  Quite a bit of sawdust and shavings turned the thing into a fireball, and then they spied an aerosol can standing smack in the middle, perfectly upright. 

“Uh oh”, they said to each other, or words to that effect. Then “stand back!” Which they did and watched the thing shoot straight up, higher than the nearby trees. Two guys, a giant burn pile and an aerosol rocket. It doesn’t get much better than that. Or so I was told.

My own moments were quieter. Somehow, three chopping blocks stood next to the woodshed. One is the stout, cherry stump we rolled over there last fall, the other two are the last ones Wally used. One, covered in moss, crumbled into a wet, spongy mass when I tried to move it, the other was little better. Every morning of every winter for the past 20?, 30? years he chopped armloads of wood for my cookstove on those stumps. I carted them over to the garden to become the bottom layer of a new planting bed.

My first-born’s bassinet, an ash laundry basket, lay where I’d tossed it last winter, bottom broken out and useless. Carrying it out to the burn pile triggered an old memory of going through the barn loft with Vonnie Stone, previous owner of this place. She was doing a final check of the stuff up there to see if there was anything she wanted on the day they moved out and picked up a teddy bear lying on the floor.

“Ralphie’s,” she said and her eyes filled up. I knew her story well enough by then to know. Ralph was her youngest, who’d died in a truck roll-over at the age of 14. “No. I guess I don’t need this anymore,” she finally said, dropping it where she’d found it.

Come enjoy the student Talent Show on Thursday, May 3, 6:30 in Walsh Common, and at the same time support the eighth grade’s fund raising efforts. Admission is $2 per person, $5 per family, and refreshments will be on sale as well.

The PTO (Parent-Teacher Organization) sponsors Teacher Appreciation Week starting May 7. And on May 8 Camden’s Flatbread Pizza on Route One will contribute a share of the night’s take to the LCS PTO; come out for a family dinner of pizza and enjoy music as well.

Memorial Day Book and Plant sale to benefit the library is just over a month away, and once again the Library is welcoming donations of books in excellent condition and odor free. Books may be dropped off at the library during open hours. It’s okay to leave them on the porch at the back entry if no rain is in sight. 

 Tuesday, May 1 the monthly Knitting Workshop will be held at the Library 4-6 p.m. Learn how to knit or how to knit better and make new friends along the way. 

 Midcoast Music Together with Jessica Day is will be Friday, May 4at 11 a.m.  The library hosts this free event every first Friday.  All children, infant to five years old, and their families, are welcome to join in for singing, dancing and playing simple instruments.

Condolences

Lifelong Lincolnville resident Wayne Rankin passed away over the week-end at his home on Beach Road. Wayne’s garage was a gathering place for many years where many, if not most, of the town’s problems were solved, or at least hashed over, especially on Friday afternoons. Anyone remember?

Wayne wasn’t much for conversation, but he and I had a couple of long talks about his childhood when I was writing Staying Put. Read about how one boy grew up in the 40s at Lincolnville Beach in that book.