I was in Maine earlier this month. I hadn’t been to Maine since the mid-1980’s.
In Maine, my wife and I were invited to stay with friends who take a cottage way up in Harrington on a cove off the Fundy Bay. You’re actually closer to New Brunswick than you are to the rest of the U.S. and, for me, at least, it was pretty “out there.” And my most recent experience of the Atlantic coast was a beach on Long Island with an umbrella, a comfy canvas chair, and a crisp rosé. Now, my usual idea of a great vacation is a nice hotel in a big city with reservations at some good restaurants, maybe tickets to a concert or show, and a bar with a choice of singlemalts. This trip was definitely not that. But the opportunity to spend some time with our dear friends and smell the sea and eat lobsters whenever I wanted was exciting, so we packed what seemed like the entire contents of our home and drove up to the wilds of Maine.
The cottage turned out to be a picture-perfect version of something fantastic and far away: raw aged pine and cedar, a fireplace, lobster trap buoys hanging from the walls, and a small library of books on the uniqueness of Maine, her people, birds, and blueberries. And it was about fifty feet from the water’s edge. The cottage was powered by a generator, so electricity was on an “as desired” basis which meant plenty of opportunity for candles and firelight.
We did have to keep an eye on our dogs because there are porcupines in the woods that surround the cottage on three sides—the fourth side is the sea; no porcupines in there—and last summer our friend’s dog ran afoul of one and had to have over a hundred quills removed by a vet who was more than two-hours drive away.
At first, finding myself in this amazing but remote place made me a bit uneasy. I absolutely loved being with our friends and the dogs, the lobsters were very tasty and the scenery was unquestionably beautiful; but I couldn’t help a sense of being disconnected, of my own rhythm not jiving with the one I was sensing from the waves and the wind and the occasional whir of the lobster boats on the bay. It wasn’t spoiling the experience for me; but it was an odd feeling nonetheless.
We had rather spectacular weather while we were there. Only one rainy day, our second of the stay. That was the day everything about the trip fell into place. And it was, in part at least, classical music that did it.
I had forgotten the beauty of a gentle down east rain. The air fills with fine spray, like the drops you encounter when your boat finally clears the fetch and the waves slap against the bow and that open-sea salt leaps up and you catch a bit on your face and it feels like the bubbles in champagne against your lips. The sky is blue-green-grey and it’s so thick with water that you really want nothing more than to sit out watching the sea lap and listening to the ospreys and the gulls comment on the delicious feast such weather brings them.
We were all just hanging out after breakfast, watching this weather and reading or doing puzzles. The easy coziness of friends—two and four-legged. I got my iPad and earbuds and decided to listen to music while I sat on the deck and looked out at the water. And I chose Mahler’s second symphony. My favorite recording with Zubin Mehta and the Vienna Philharmonic.
Mahler’s second, called “The Resurrection” for reasons I won’t go into here, is one I especially like. It’s a bridge between what seems to me the tentative modernism of his first and the all-out gorgeous madness of the third. Mehta takes the second symphony very seriously. I’ve heard him say in interviews that it means a great deal to him. In any case, I think it’s a great recording.
But on this particular day, in the midst of that gentle rain, Mahler’s symphony became a cinematic accompaniment to the sea and all its inhabitants. The cormorants bobbed for small silver fish as the herring gulls picked for mussels and the seaweed swirled against the rocks that lined the shore. The lobster boats glided across the bay while the lobsterers pulled their traps and tossed them back again. The pines--so many pines—bent just a little in the breeze and the birches shuddered and shook their leaves, already starting to turn gold. I thought of Frost’s poems at first, and then that gave way to the amazing synesthesia of the music and the ballet of images in front of me, around me. Mahler’s symphony made it all come together.
And in those moments the whole trip, the reason for it, the absolute need for it, washed in—yes, like the Fundy tide--and I felt at once peaceful, eager, and grateful for the adventure and open to whatever our friends, the woods, the ocean and the vast sea-sky had in store. Well, except the porcupines.
