Woods Wanderer

Judy loves the ocean, especially as it presents itself on the Maine coast. To celebrate her 75th birthday, we spent a few days in a suite with an ocean view at The Beachmere Inn in Ogunquit earlier this month. To say December is off-season in southern Maine is something of an understatement. A good number of the shops and restaurants were already closed for the season, and there were never more than a few people around wherever we went.

We got the romantic package and spent a lot of time just lounging about the suite. We did venture out one evening, though, to watch a one-man performance of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol while eating dinner at the Clay Hill Inn. That was interesting. What was almost as interesting was driving around in the darkness, checking out front-yard Christmas decorations in the area. Lots of lights, but no blow-up Santas.

On the second morning of our stay, I went for a walk on the Marginal Way –– a mile-and-a-quarter pathway that hugs the coastline in Ogunquit. The icy, snow-covered path made for tough going, as did temps in the low teens, so I cut it short at Lobster Point Lighthouse and wandered about town instead. But it was good to walk along the rocky shoreline for a short while at the beginning of winter, seeing the ocean in a different way. Beneath a clear sky, there was a peaceful albeit frigid beauty to it. Just the opposite of the ocean’s dark and intimidating attitude when a gale erupted the day before.

Judy loves the ocean and is revitalized by it. I am awed by the ocean’s magnitude, somewhat disoriented by its openness and raw power. It is nothing like the densely forested mountains where I regularly roam. They are claustrophobic by comparison. The ocean is vast.

Most people flock to the seaside to escape the tensions of modern living. During the warmer months, the Maine coast is certainly good for that. But in December the ocean feels more elemental, reminding us that we inhabit a world that is fundamentally liquid and flowing. That’s how it strikes me, anyhow. And some people, like Judy, revel in that feeling.

Tags: Maine coast, Marginal Way, ocean, off season

By the time Judy and I reached Goose Rocks Beach, we had been on the Maine coast for several days and were already chilled out. The night before we had lounged in our room at the Breakwater Inn overlooking the mouth of the Kennebunk River, watching lobster boats come and go for hours while googling the lobster trade and all it entails. So the beach simply took us to the next level of relaxation.

Mid-week in late May, we pretty much had that long strip of sand all to ourselves. A dozen other people were there when we arrived but most of them cleared out before noon. This is why we like to visit the Maine coast off-season. I can only imagine how crowded the beach must be in the middle of summer.

Judy first came here in 1985 – the year she and I met. Her mother had just died so she came to the coast to be alone and process her grief, to seek solace in salty air, the call of gulls, and water washing endlessly to shore. The ocean is to her what the forest is to me. So she walked the beach by herself again while I stayed with our folding chairs and other beach accouterments. In her absence, I stared out to sea.

When she returned we sat together on the beach, enjoying a gentle breeze on a mostly sunny day. In contrast to the shady forest where I usually roam, the sun beat down relentlessly, and our gazes towards the thin blue horizon went farther than our thoughts. In other words, we became beachified, utterly incapable of intense intellectual activity. And sometimes, yes, sometimes that’s a good thing.

Tags: beach, Maine coast, off season